Ulu Grosbard's sombre noir revolves around the infamous Black Dahlia murder that gripped 1940s Los Angeles. With Roberts De Niro and Duvall excellent as brothers caught up in the case—respectively, a repressed but ambitious priest, and a hardbitten homicide cop who suspects his sibling knows more than he should—it aims for a dark, sweeping resonance pitched somewhere between Chinatown and L.A. Confidential.
Nouvelle Vague-inspired camerawork plus a searing central turn from Carol White remain supremely effective in Ken Loach's 1965 teleplay about naïve bride Cathy (White) and her descent into poverty. The tone occasionally veers into public service hysteria, especially after the Capitalist State Apparatus removes Cathy from her tenement, fires her husband and steals her children. A landmark British film nonetheless.
The medium-defining shibboleth that induces paroxysms of adulation from film critics (but not filmgoers), Citizen Kane has become, in its inviolable immensity, the cinematic equivalent of its own overbearing protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. Yes, the 25-year-old Orson Welles' direction is astounding. Yes, Welles and Herman Mankiewicz's screenplay is a pointed satire of paper baron William Randolph Hearst. Yes, Gregg Toland's deep-focus cinematography is sumptuous. Yes, Bernard Herrmann's score is eerily ominous.
A slew of queasy 1960s anxieties get refracted through the camp superspy persona of oversexed karate-chopping polymath Derek Flint (James Coburn, fantastically deadpan). Our Man Flint sees him tackle a trio of, gasp, pinko scientists who can control the planet's weather, while In Like Flint pits him against a devious group of demented feminists. Funny, knowing, and yet unsettling at the same time.
Colin (son of Tom) Hanks proves his worth as a responsible wannabe writer constantly thwarted by his manic stoner brother (Jack Black), drunken mum (Catherine O'Hara) and surfer dude buddies. Many most excellent jokes and comic cameos from John Lithgow and Jane Adams make this a fine Friday-nighter.
Not even the presence of Peter Lorre can save Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea from being shoddy, badly written B-movie dreck. Fantastic Voyage may be creaky, but it's still great fun. Gasp as doctors (including Raquel Welch) get miniaturised and injected into the bloodstream of a comatose scientist to operate on his brain. Worth it for the impressively psychedelic SFX alone.
Remember the '80s, when Dan Aykroyd comedies were event movies? This 1988 stinker brings back plenty of bad memories, with Aykroyd playing a mental patient masquerading as a radio talk-show shrink. Not even co-stars Walter Matthau and Charles Grodin can wring a laugh from this wretched relic.
Ben Affleck plays Marvel's blind superhero, with Jennifer Garner as his love interest (the ninja assassin Elektra), Colin Farrell as hitman Bullseye and a suitably imposing Michael Clarke Duncan as the crime lord Kingpin. The fight sequences are impressively executed, and it's a solid stab at the source material; sadly, some substandard CGI lets it down.
Pam Grier is a nurse turned vigilante, on a mission to avenge her strung-out kid sister by taking out the pushers, bad cops and corrupt politicians feeding off her neighbourhood. Hustling along to Roy Ayres' soundtrack, Jack Hill's 1973 movie is often grisly but treats its sex and violence with a surprising, and refreshing, matter-of-factness.
George Romero's ecological thriller from 1973 combines the social awareness of his zombie trilogy with horror that's much more effective because it's much more believable: when a biochemical weapon is accidentally released in a small Pennsylvania town, it sends the inhabitants insane, so the military are sent in to mop up. Genuinely unforgettable.
