Tom DiCillo's offbeat comedy is a blend of cop thriller and romance which may confuse the uninitiated, but diehards will lap up his calmly twisted humour. Denis Leary's an NY cop with backache, recently widowed, who's lousy on the job till chiropractor Liz Hurley shows him love and partner Steve Buscemi questions his sexuality. Factor in many cinephile in-jokes and it's an intelligent, cynical joy.
Named after the Rolling Stones song, this moody melodrama from the City Of Angels director went unacknowledged, despite Jake Gyllenhaal starring sharply on the heels of Donnie Darko, When his girlfriend dies, he finds her parents, Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon, eager to bond with him through shared grief. He's ready to move on, but hasn't the heart to tell them. Actorly, but honest.
Todd Haynes' unforgivingly acrid blend of body horror and social satire sees Julianne Moore as the pampered Barbie-doll housewife who becomes violently allergic to the perms, sprays, snacks, Mercs, houses and parties that define affluent existence in the San Fernando Valley. Harsh attacks on crass materialism, dubious spiritualism and human frailty follow.
A welcome release for three Akira Kurosawa classics from the BFI. In Ikiru, Takashi Shimura delivers a fine, understated performance as a dying bureaucrat. Sanjuro stars longtime Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune, playing mostly for laughs as the eponymous hero, a slovenly but experienced samurai who teams up with nine younger, idealistic warriors to defeat corruption in their town. The climactic duel shows the great Japanese director at his controlled, no-frills best.
Slick, entertaining debut from first-time director George Clooney, working from a typically off-beat Charlie Kaufman screenplay. The often irritating Sam Rockwell is outstanding here as trash TV pioneer Chuck Barris, who's either an arch-fantasist or the oddest CIA hitman ever.
Fairly dismal sequel to True Grit, with John Wayne reprising his Oscar-winning turn as the titular one-eyed US Marshal, teamed here with prissy spinster Katharine Hepburn who's out to avenge her father's murder. The stars are no more than passable, the movie wholly unremarkable.
Written by Coppola but directed painfully slowly by Jack Clayton, this expensive adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel looks lovely but doesn't understand real tragedy (quite important re: Fitzgerald). Robert Redford fails to suggest any depth of broodiness, while Mia Farrow is almost laughably dotty, and the passion is limp. Still, a Nelson Riddle score, some nice shirts, and top vintage cars.
READ OUR REVIEW OF THE 2013 FILM ADAPTATION OF THE GREAT GATSBY HERE.
Norwegian psychological thriller which starts slowly but soon has its hooks in you so deep you daren't move. With shades of Harry, He's Here To Help, it involves a couple rediscovering an old friend, but after lust rears its head, death follows close behind. Harrowingly acted by the three leads, unknowns who remind you how clichéd the big names are.
Dennis Hopper is Huey Walker, a '60s radical who's been wanted by the Feds for decades. When he's captured in the late '80s, repressed, clean-cut young FBI man Kiefer Sutherland lands the job of escorting him to trial through Reagan-era America, but Hopper turns the tables, and teaches him how to drop out. Your average, idealistic, pan-generational odd-couple road movie, but Hopper, spoofing his Easy Rider persona, is a howl.
NOBODY DID SUAVE like Cary Grant; few would be stupid enough to try. When a whole way of being is personified that definitively, even a George Clooney looks like a stammering schoolboy in comparison. Grant's worst films are worth watching for his expressions of charm and much-tried patience, but here are some of his best, digitally remastered.
In Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby, Katharine Hepburn causes his "zoology professor"to lose precious dinosaur bones and a pet leopard.
