James Foley back on form with a nimbly entertaining, fleetingly noir, conman romp. Ed Burns, Rachel Weisz and gang unwittingly rip off sleazy crimelord Dustin Hoffman, and are forced to pull a bank heist for him. Andy Garcia floats around, countertwist follows triple-bluff, but for all the cleverness it's pacy and energised, with a smattering of drop-dead one-liners. Makes you want to like it.
Michael Winner's 1972 Cold War thriller manages to be built entirely from clichés, yet is almost completely incomprehensible. Burt Lancaster is the seen-it-all CIA man on the run through Europe from superiors who want him dead, pursued by his protégé, cat-loving contract killer Alain Delon. Muddy, but the stars tough it out, and if you've ever wanted to see Lancaster in blackface, dressed as a priest, this is your film.
You'll be—yes—giggly at how truly grim this really is. It's embarrassing watching the ego-addled Ben Affleck straining to show us what a stud he is for pulling J-Lo. The block Jenny's from is clearly made of wood, for her acting is equally dire in a would-be comic thriller from Martin Brest, who even calls in Pacino and Walken for cameos. To no avail.
Takeshi Kitano delicately intertwines three stories of endless love, inspired by traditional Japanese puppet theatre. In the main strand, a young man returns to his spurned lover following her suicide attempt, and the two roam the country, bound together by a red rope. Intersecting stories concern a yakuza pining for the girl he deserted, and a reclusive, disfigured pop star, stalked by an obsessive fan. A strange, visually ravishing film, with Takeshi's meditative, minimalist style as hypnotic as ever.
Kang Woo-Seo's admittedly stylish regurgitation of every Hollywood serial-killer/renegade-cop thriller cliché follows recalcitrant and psychotically violent detective Kang on the hunt for a mac-wearing knife-wielding slasher. Kang is a surly Kitano-esque bully, the killer is a narcissistic investment banker, and the whole movie is completely charmless.
This storm-tossed 1937 gem was the first flowering of Michael Powell's nearmystical vision of the British landscape. It tells of the death of one tiny, remote Scottish island, as young folk abandon old ways for the mainland, but Powell's cinematic treatment of the scudding light and shade of nature—part raw, heroic documentary, part mythic poem—raises the stakes to infinity and beyond. Magic realism, indeed.
As most high-minded critics were correct to point out on its cinema release, Bad Boys 2 is crude, noisy, relentlessly violent and often in the worst possible taste. Did they also mention that it's ridiculously entertaining, with hilarious turns from Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and that when it comes to putting on this kind of show, director Michael Bay displays an unstinting genius for widescreen mayhem? Probably not.
You'd think that seven films lasting up to 90 minutes each would offer limitless space for a thorough examination of the past, present and future of the blues, but Martin Scorsese's grand concept adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
With this triple-pronged DVD release, GN'R are freeze-framed forever: caught in a moment, celebrated and finally tucked away as a fond memory. The video collection tops and tails an extraordinary achievement while, live, the band are at their most untouchable and preposterous. Surely Axl must have sacked, then sued, the stylist for the lycra micro-shorts...
