John Malkovich slums it as the evil mastermind plotting to turn Britain into a giant prison camp, while Rowan Atkinson, as the titular rubbish spy, presses all the wrong buttons. Puerile, deeply unfunny and, as an advert for our country, downright treasonable. A crime, if memory serves, still punishable by death.
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.
The umpteenth retail release for this era-defining cash-cow of Scottish junkies, and the cracks are now beginning to show. Yes, it's a beautiful burst of propulsive film-making, but after the likes of Jesus's Son and Requiem For A Dream, it seems a little too eager to please, a little too chipper, too Ewan McGregor to be wholly credible.
Richard Linklater's emotionally ambivalent high school homage is a cutting riposte to the rosy teen nostalgia of both American Graffiti and the entire John Hughes canon. Set in Nowhere, Middle America, 1976, during the first day of summer break, it lazily and amiably follows Hollywood freshmen, including Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey, as they drink beer, smoke grass, and cultivate the slacker apathy of future generations.
Written by Joel Schumacher, Car Wash traces a day in the life of the Dee-Luxe car wash in smoggy downtown LA circa 1976. Part blaxploitation comedy and part Altman-esque ensemble drama, the huge cast includes Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargas and, in a brief cameo, Richard Pryor. Norman Whitfield's score is a trash classic, but the story's muddled and full of dated caricatures.
Time-travellers Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd shunt between the 1950s, the future and the old Wild West in a customised DeLorean sports car, trailing paradoxes in their wake as they attempt not to interfere with history. Zemeckis and Gale's lovingly crafted trilogy remains enormously enjoyable, and curiously now makes one feel nostalgic for the '80s.
