Shameless Self Expression

Set in a near-future, water-drenched London (thanks to Global Warming!), Rutger Hauer is a slightly crazed cop (also addicted to caffeine and chocolate, and an alcoholic to boot) who gets flashes of the killings being done by a vicious serial killer plaguing the city. Apparently it’s the same killer that murdered his partner. Hauer was scraped by the killer, and thus has some kind of link to him now. The decidedly lone wolf Hauer receives the unwanted news by cranky boss Alun Armstrong that he is to be partnered up with straight-arrow, brainy (an expert in psychology and an avid reader of the supernatural and occult) detective Dick Dirkin (Neil Duncan, whose character name must surely rank as the worst-ever in a non-porn film. Did they think it sounded macho?). That’s the least of Hauer’s worries, you see this heart-ripping, vicious killer might not even be human! Kim Cattrall (sporting a dark bob, rather unconvincingly, but hey, we get to see her breasts in this one!) plays Hauer’s ...

A small group of aeroplane passengers wake up mid-flight and realise everyone else has mysteriously and seemingly implausibly vanished- including the pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendants! The plane appears to be without damage and there is no visible trace of some kind of struggle on board. Thankfully among those left there’s a pilot (David Morse) from the same airline who just happened to be on board as a passenger. But what happened to everyone else? And why is slimeball yuppie passenger Mr. Toomey (Bronson Pinchot) such a volcanically ill-tempered arsehole? Dean Stockwell plays a mystery author, Christopher Collet is a dorky music student, Mark Lindsay Chapman plays a Brit with a mysterious and possibly violent occupation, Patricia Wettig is a teacher, and Kate Maberly plays a young blind woman. Frankie Faison and Baxter Harris play ‘black guy’ and ‘guy who loves to eat’ respectively. Some terrible FX and a few really poor performances take the shine off an otherwise compe...

Steve Carell (amiable as ever) stars as Maxwell Smart, AKA Agent 86, employee of spy agency CONTROL, who is more oblivious than outright stupid, and in fact, is a damn good hand at deciphering spy chatter. It’s a shame none of his colleagues ever care to read his reports. He’s way too eager, wanting so badly to be a field agent, like the heroic and charismatic Agent 23 (played by an amazingly cheerful Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson), or the highly accomplished Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). When nasty KAOS (the uber-crime syndicate yang to CONTROL’s yin) operative Sigfried (Terence Stamp) attacks CONTROL, taking out many of its agents, Agent 86 is called up for active duty and assigned a partner in Agent 99, who is less than enthused, as they try and track down Sigfried and hopefully prevent him from exploding a nuclear device. Alan Arkin is the Chief, James Caan plays a Dubya-esque US President, The Great Khali turns up as a thug, whilst Bill Murray plays a bizarre undercover agent for CONTRO...

Smooth jazz DJ and all-round ladies’ man Clint Eastwood is trying to be a good boy for his girl (Donna Mills) who is back in town. Unfortunately, a prior one-night stand with his #1 fan/request caller (Jessica Walter) doesn’t understand this change of heart, and being that she’s a homicidal loon, she doesn’t take well to Clint’s insistence that their casual night together was a one-time dealer. Lock up your bunnies! John Larch plays a sardonic police detective, James McEachen is Clint’s suave co-worker, Clarice Taylor is Clint’s cleaning lady, and frequent director Don Siegel plays a bartender. Before a miscast Glenn Close literally boiled a bunny, there was this 1971 ‘bunny boiler’ from star and debut director Clint Eastwood ( “Unforgiven” , “Million Dollar Baby” , “Hereafter” , “Sully” ). Personally I think it’s his best directorial effort to date, and the best film of its chosen subgenre. If it were a little more taut, it could’ve been a minor masterpiece. Some might n...

A small town is being bullied by a nasty capitalist named Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) who offers a measly amount of money for the land and kills anyone who dares to object. This causes widowed Emma (Haley Bennett) and fellow townie Teddy (Luke Grimes) to go in search of mercenaries to stand up to Bogue and his men (who include Cam Gigandet). Enter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), a bounty hunter who accepts the call despite there not being any riches involved (These be po’ folk, after all). He in turn recruits wily gambler and heavy drinker Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), as well as Chisolm’s old war buddy Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), a Civil War sharpshooter whose war experience has left him with a possible loss of nerve. Robicheaux’s Asian companion and knife expert Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee) also decides to join the fight. Eventually the troupe is rounded out by (I think) Half-French Half-Mexican bandit Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, making zero impression) whom Chisolm declines to...