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.
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.
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.
After a series of stunning cameo performances and a flamboyant turn opposite Robert De Niro in Flawless, Philip Seymour Hoffman makes full use of his first unopposed lead, running the gamut of grief as a successful techie crushed and drawn to petrol-sniffing by his wife's suicide. Fraught, funny, hysterical and truly touching.
Beloved spoof western which follows Jane Fonda's eponymous heroine, a schoolmarm-turned-outlaw, as she hires Lee Marvin's washed-up drunken gunslinger to stand against the lethal, tinnosed varmint (Marvin again) who killed her father. Never quite as funny as it thinks, but Marvin is sharp as a razor.
A rock'n'roll movie without sex and drugs? Tom Hanks' directorial debut is an anachronism and proud of it. This tale of 1960s teen-pop sensation The Wonders (as in "one-hit") is breezy and good-natured, with Steve Zahn providing most of the laughs. The title tune by The Knack's Adam Schlesinger gets heavy rotation; thankfully it's a Beatle-esque beauty.
Christopher Nolan's '98 DEBUT was made on a non-existent budget over a year of make-do weekend shoots, but introduced a shrewd talent with a unique knack for blow-to-the-solar-plexus storytelling. Its monochrome view of London's murkier nooks and crannies recalls Antonioni, but critics quickly tipped Nolan as the new Kubrick. And how he's delivered since.
A lonely, bored wannabe writer semi-stalks random strangers (as 'research') but when a smooth-talking cat burglar turns the tables, he's seduced into a series of break-and-enter robberies.
Siouxsie as a punk Monroe? Not quite, for despite the title, she looks more like a goth version of Marlene Dietrich in her pin-stripe suit. The jacket and tie later comes off to reveal a glittering bra as she works her voodoo on aged punks and new hedonists on the Banshees' 2002 reunion tour. Oldies such as "Spellbound", "Peek-A-Boo" and "Happy House" have lost none of their theatrical power and are augmented by one new track, an extraordinary version of The Beatles' "Blue Jay Way".
Hip and hunky priest Gene Hackman leads a motley gang of passengers through many a watery danger when a freak wave flips their passenger liner upside down. Classic disaster movie stuff, with the added bonus of a sweaty and thoroughly miffed Ernest Borgnine.
