Pussywhipped by Madonna into remaking Lina Wertm

A powerful and timely snapshot of a superpower traumatised by war and social strife, Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning documentary about gun control and violence in American life could hardly have arrived at a more pertinent time. Made in the shadow of one national tragedy but clearly lent extra impetus by 9/11 and war in Iraq, Bowling For Columbine is a sprawling, bullish, occasionally harrowing work of polemical entertainment. But it’s certainly no worthy liberal manifesto as Moore blends iconoclastic humour, cartoon sequences and confrontational journalism in an attempt to understand the darkest fears and desires of his fellow Americans. After putting hard questions to camouflaged militia members, trigger happy suburbanites, trainee teenage terrorists and permanently injured victims of schoolyard shootings, he finally secures a stunning ambush interview with National Rifle Association spokesman Charlton Heston. Frequently hilarious and audacious in its scattershot targets, Moore’s most accomplished film to date demands to be seen and enjoyed.

The 1985 film that launched the careers of the Brat Packers. This finds Emilio Estevez drooling over Andie MacDowell, Demi Moore coked out of her box and Rob Lowe being annoying and fratboyish?like much of the script. A must for those who thrill to the antics of self-absorbed young Americans.

A return to classic Mike Leigh terrain, this examines desperation, loneliness and family tragedy on a grim south London housing estate. Leigh regulars Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville are long-suffering parents who manage to invest their bleak lives with tenderness, truth and humour. Leigh may sail dangerously close to self-parody here, but nobody does it better.

Neil Labute adapts an AS Byatt novel and rather blots his edgy image. It follows Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart through Yorkshire and Paris as they uncover the personal secrets of a late-Victorian poet. Labute’s emasculated in the company of academics, and the overall tone’s uncertain and vague.

Jonathan Miller’s 1966 adaptation of Carroll’s fantasy masterpiece has a sitar soundtrack from Ravi Shankar, a dreamlike Victorian atmosphere and a cast to die for (Peter Cook, John Gielgud, Peter Sellers). Totally far out.

Brian Cox and Leonard Rossiter are the TV executives broadcasting Sportsex and Artsex to keep the masses lulled into passivity in Nigel Kneale’s 1968 dystopian TV play. It’s creaky and dated, with the production values of Dr Who, and not in the least bit erotic?but it’s also prophetic (of reality TV) and strangely compelling.

Jules Dassin’s 1955 heist flick is the genre’s benchmark movie. The silent 28-minute set-piece robbery scene provides the film’s highlight, but elsewhere there’s much to admire in Jean Servais’ hangdog protagonist and Dassin’s pre-Nouvelle Vague documentary approach to shooting Parisian nightlife.

The short but subversive Hollywood career of Alex Cox is encapsulated in a nutshell by these two movies, which share little besides their anarchic sense of humour and punky disregard for mainstream studio convention. Produced by?of all people?ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, Repo Man is the Britpunk maverick’s sensational 1984 debut, starring a fresh-faced, pre-Brat Pack Emilio Estevez and a grizzled, ultra-deadpan Harry Dean Stanton as scuzzy-cool car repossessors in a funky, multi-racial, comic-book sci-fi remix of ’80s LA. Fresh out of UCLA film school, Cox anticipated much of the self-referential postmodern pulp-hipster flourishes which were later depoliticised, heavily ironised and popularised by Tarantino-even down to the glowing suitcase steal from Robert Aldrich’s apocalyptic film noir classic Kiss Me Deadly, recycled once more a decade afterwards in Pulp Fiction.

The crazed plot of Repo Man is a collage of anecdotes Cox picked up from real repo guys, snippets of atomic paranoia gleaned from nuclear science bulletins, cult-movie references, homages to LA’s then-vibrant punk scene plus sly literary nods to sci-fi supremo Isaac Asimov and junkie cut-up guru William Burroughs. As Otto, a zero-option suburban punker reduced to stacking supermarket shelves before a career in legalised carjacking beckons, Estevez exudes the kind of broody alienation that his dad Martin Sheen mustered in Badlands a decade before. As Otto’s mentor and seedy Jedi Knight of the repo game, Harry Dean oozes unflappable Rat Pack cool.

Repo Man works as a rock’n’roll adventure yarn, a multi-genre B-movie spoof and a genius satire on the zonked-out blankness of consumer-zombie America under Ronald Reagan. The inspired idea of tinned food adorned with bare labels like “meat” and “beer” was partly a reaction to the producer’s failure to secure product placement?but with delicious irony, similar packaging was later adopted by several large UK supermarkets for their bargain food ranges. Universal hated the film, burying its release and even, Cox claims, denouncing it publicly as pinko propaganda. An overreaction which speaks volumes about humourless Hollywood drones faced with mouthy mavericks. And yet, almost two decades later, Cox’s flip trip from subterranean LA to the stars still stands up as a vibrant, fresh and acerbic little masterpiece of anarcho-pulp cinema.

Just three years later, Walker wore out Cox’s already strained Hollywood welcome. Despite its reputation as a career-killing turkey, this true-life quasi-western about 19th-century American intervention in Latin America is actually a riveting and artistically audacious political parable. Starring Ed Harris as William Walker, the mercenary general who invaded and ruled Nicaragua from 1855 to 1857, it feels like a sister film to Oliver Stone’s Salvador with elements of The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now and even Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie thrown in.

Although shot for just $5 million, the production values and pedigree of Walker are impeccable: it’s produced by Ed Pressman (Badlands), written by Rudy Wurlitzer (Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid), and soundtracked by the late Joe Strummer in balmy latino mode. Heading up a heavyweight cast studded with ace cameos (Peter Boyle, Marlee Matlin), Harris carries the film with buttoned-down menace, managing to suggest creeping madness with scarcely a blink, descending into Kurtz-ian uber-sadism without sacrificing audience sympathy. The all-American psycho boy-scout.

Walker was excoriated for its rambling plot, heavy-handed politics and jarring use of anachronistic details?at one point a US Army helicopter gatecrashes the action. There are certainly messy scenes in the film’s closing stages, but none which undermine its basic integrity as an absurdist satire on superpower imperialism?just imagine such a film about Iraq being released by a major studio today. No wonder Universal hated the film, ensuring it bombed at the box office with a desultory release. After which Cox was off the Tinseltown guest list for good. But with hindsight, he achieved a kind of moral victory, leaving behind probably the last ever counterculture movie made by a big Hollywood studio. For that achievement alone, if nothing else, respect is long overdue.

As producer, Ridley Scott?clearly in a good mood?leads us on a pointless trawl through the dusty dirt roads of comedy thriller territory as confused country boy Clay (a smouldering Joaquin Phoenix) gets duped into hanging loose with fast-talking rhinestone cowboy Lester Long (Vince Vaughn). Quite where we fit into this generic nonsense is something else altogether.

One of the worst products of Hollywood’s epic era stars a youthful Richard Burton as the bold conqueror, replete with fluffy blond wig. Decently performed by Burton and the likes of Frederic March, Harry Andrews, etc, Alexander The Great is beautifully shot (and nicely cleaned up on this DVD by MGM/UA) but suffers from pacing so leaden that it makes El Cid look like The Terminator. Amazing to think that, five years later, writer/director Robert Rossen would redeem himself by making The Hustler.

Ken Loach at his best. First-time actor Martin Compston is outstanding in the role of Liam, a teenager growing up with a mother in jail, a drug-dealing stepfather and no future to speak of. But Liam is a bright kid who dreams of a normal family life. He’s determined to make enough money to rent a home for his mother for when she gets out of jail. It’s heartbreaking stuff that combines a political message with real humanity and a rich strand of black comedy. Highly recommended.