It's close to implausible that this graphic vignette about a computer geek falling foolishly for a hooker is co-written by Paul Auster and wife, and directed by Wayne Wang. It's not as insightful as it thinks it is, but it's certainly 'erotic'if you consider Molly Parker one of the planet's most alluring women. And she plays the drums.
A massive worldwide hit, Nia Vardalos' no-budget romp must be something special, right? Well, nope. Inoffensive as it undoubtedly is, it appears to the un-Greek eye to latch 99 per cent of its gags onto national stereotypes. The better scenes, lampooning office hierarchies, are like a good episode of Friends. The rest is Victoria Wood at her most tired. Granny'll love it on telly at Christmas.
This 1938 Frank Capra outing may have won an Oscar but its tale of the son of a wealthy family (Jimmy Stewart) looking to buy up the property of Lionel Barrymore's cheerful brood of eccentrics (who include an improbably youthful Jean Arthur), is over-treacled with Capra-esque sentimentalism. Stewart's role is underplayed, the plot is slow-moving and the comedic pickings lean.
Paul Verhoeven's last pre-Hollywood film (from 1983) is a minor classic. Depressed alcoholic writer Gerard Reve (a tremendous, dishevelled Jeroen Krabbé) finds succour in the arms of a vampish beautician (Renée Soutendijk) only to discover, thanks to a series of gory flashbacks, he's due for much more than a makeover. Funny and fever-ish by turns, it's Basic Instinct for surrealists.
We tend to damn Woody Allen's lighter comedies as 'just' comedies: if anyone else had come up with this 1993 nugget, we'd acclaim it as a pearl. Allen and Diane Keaton-telepathic together again—are paranoid that the woman next door's been bumped off; Alan Alda and Anjelica Houston stir the confusion. A wholesome whodunnit, but, chiefly, a hoot.
Terry Gilliam's solo directorial debut. Inspired by Lewis Carroll's poem, like Python's Holy Grail it deals with medieval muck and monsters—in this case a fearsome dragon to be slain by hapless hero Dennis (Michael Palin). Lots of good ideas and a very odd cast of British comedy talent, but mired in darkness, only the occasional laugh.
Slick odd-couple blockbuster which sees secret service grandee Anthony Hopkins forced to team up with street-punk Chris Rock in Prague as a nuclear bomb in a suitcase goes up for sale. Jerry Bruckheimer ensures the noisy pace never lets up; an anarchic Rock plays it strictly for laughs and a horizontal Hopkins looks mighty bored. Great stuff, all the same.
Much-emulated screwball comedy, directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper as the disingenuous rustic type who inherits a $20 million fortune and a new life in New York. There he's pitted against a variety of shysters, cynics and dodgy lawyers who lend the film its edge as well as material for the underlying homily against urban sophistication. Jean Arthur adds charm as the hard-bitten tabloid hack who falls for Cooper.
Described by its proto-feminist French director Virginie Despentes as an attempt "to seize woman's true sexuality back from the male gaze", Baise-Moi is therefore a visceral, explicit re-imagining of the road movie (Thelma And Louise with cum shots), buffered by chunks of jaded '70s film theory. Too inept to be engaging, too light to be controversial. A mess.
You could argue a case for Funny Face or Breakfast At Tiffany's, but this William Wyler rom-com—now 50 years young—is perhaps Audrey Hepburn's shining moment. An incognito princess who leaps into love with journalist Gregory Peck (well, we can all dream), you'd have to be brutish not to catch its spark. And Rome's not bad-looking either.
