Director Claire Denis rediscovers her personal vision after the debacle that was Trouble Every Day. With echoes of Godard's Weekend, it's an erotic tone poem in which a woman stuck in a rainy Paris traffic jam picks up a man for a mutually satisfying one-night stand. That's the entire plot, but the auteur's intensity makes every moment telling and tactile.
Philip Seymour Hoffman—in faint danger of over-exposure recently—does a Michael Moore, fronting a hand-held, ramshackle documentary which asks why Bush is so bad and the Democrats only marginally better. He hits those hanging chads and Supreme Court sinners with the help of Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Jesse Jackson, Courtney Love and Eddie Vedder. Lively.
Imagine Ghost replayed as a slow, spiritually-charged polemic set in the bleak housing complexes of martial law-era Poland, and you're close to Krzysztof Kieslowski's 1984 drama. The spirit of a dead lawyer watches over as his young wife descends into grief and one of his former clients is pushed toward compromise to save his neck. In cinema terms, food for the soul—but it really needed Whoopi Goldberg and a potter's wheel to make it a hit.
Underrated late John Wayne vehicle, a bracing 1971 western with The Duke, in formidable form, in hot pursuit of Richard Boone's gang of colourfully villainous and cheerfully murderous kidnappers. Surprisingly brutal, with Boone a fearsome presence and several very bloody shoot-outs. Much enjoyed by John Carpenter, who appropriated the "I thought you were dead" catchline for Escape From New York.
Mira Sorvino and Mariah Carey as waitresses who get mixed up with Italian mobsters? Surely one for the all-time turkey hall of infamy? Surprisingly, it's perfectly watchable—Sorvino's always been a decent actress, and Carey, believe it or not, swears like a potty-mouthed trooper and almost outshines her bosom. And doesn't sing. OK, it's no GoodFellas, but what is?
You'll never eat frogs' legs again. This darkly witty 2D animation feature is full of cute moments and haunting images, if perhaps not the life-altering classic it's been hailed as in some quarters. The rotund Madame Souza buys her shy grandson Champion a bicycle, and years later, after much strictly regimented training, he's competing with the best. Then, in a fit of surrealism, he's kidnapped by shadowy men in black. Granny and faithful canine Bruno defy all logic to cross oceans and metropolises to rescue him.
In this quasi-autobiographical account of the tortured filming of A Ma Soeur's sex scenes, formerly dour feminist director Catherine Breillat holds tongue firmly in cheek as she demolishes the petty vanities of 'movie people' (including, gamely, her own honed auteur persona) while simultaneously celebrating the alchemy of movies themselves.
Derek Jarman's 1979 version of Shakespeare's final play is suitably 'camp' and 'punk', starring Toyah Willcox and Heathcote Williams, and culminating in Elisabeth Welch singing "Stormy Weather" to a bunch of jolly sailors. It's visually flamboyant and wants badly to be sexy, but it's aged dreadfully, and its shock tactics seem a bit silly now.
Gory, sentimental parable about honour and redemption in 'war-torn' Africa, with Bruce Willis' hard-bitten Navy SEALS sacrificing themselves for gorgeous doctor Monica Bellucci and a column of predictably long-suffering refugees. Director Antoine Fuqua—who helmed the terrific Training Day—clearly had higher aspirations, but it's more Wild Geese than Wild Bunch.
No, not the dodgy '80s pop starlet but an even dodgier Heath Ledger vehicle which lasted, ooh, minutes in the cinema. Heath's a priest investigating a possible murder within the murky corridors of the Catholic Church, in a role which has Antonio-Banderasturned-this-down written all over it. Gothic horror ensues, but your stomach will churn for all the wrong reasons.
