Shameless Self Expression

Bette Davis plays an eye-patch wearing, manipulative, dominating, and venomous matriarch whose rotten children come to celebrate the anniversary of their mother’s wedding to deceased daddy (Davis didn’t even like him). James Cossins is the eldest, a socially-awkward, cross-dressing panty-snatcher whom Davis seems to approve of, which is only significant when you consider the things she does not tolerate. Jack Hedley is the middle child, married to a woman (Sheila Hancock) so outspoken that he never has to stand up to his mother himself, which suits him fine and dandy (they also have a couple of snotty kids and plan on telling Mummy about their plans to move to Canada to get away from her stranglehold). Lastly we have Christian Roberts, the youngest, who has invited his pregnant fiancé Elaine Taylor along, obviously so he can annoy his likely disapproving mother. Needless to say, it’s going to be a bumpy night. Yeah, I went there. Frankly disappointing, 1968 Black Comedy (real...

Some people’s idea of a great night at the movies. 14 year-old Ellen Page (with one of those annoying haircuts that makes her look like a 9 year-old boy) meets a 30ish photographer (Patrick Wilson) online, and they start chatting away, until she actually suggests coming over to his place. But this is no ordinary 14 year-old, and Wilson is not your average 30ish photographer. He’s a possible paedophile (his photos are mostly that of youngsters), and she’s a semi-precocious Kathy Bates in “Misery” , with some very sick games on her mind. This truly disturbing 2006 David Slade (yet another music video guy making his film debut, he went on to helm the much better “30 Days of Night” the following year) film gets high praise in many corners, but I had some major problems with it. Firstly, this is a repugnant idea for a film right off the bat, turning the very serious subject of paedophilia into cheapjack revenge movie fodder is something that I find truly deplorable. I’m no moral ...

Joey Cramer plays a 12 year-old in 1978 who finds an alien spaceship and is taken away, returning home after what he thinks was just a few hours, but is in fact, eight years later. His parents (Veronica Cartwright and Cliff De Young) are suitably alarmed to find their son hasn’t aged at all, ditto Cramer’s annoying kid brother who is now several years older than him! And then NASA doctor Howard Hesseman gets wind of the situation and takes Cramer (and the spaceship) in for study, with some frustration and resistance by his parents. They find that Cramer has a whole lot of intergalactic data stored inside his head! Sarah Jessica Parker plays a Twisted Sister-loving teen who works as an orderly, and attempts to help Cramer escape to his worried family. If you see only one “E.T.” rip-off/variant in your lifetime, make it this highly enjoyable 1986 Randal Kleiser ( “Grease” , “The Blue Lagoon” ) film, one of the first films I ever saw in cinemas. Like a lot of childhood favourit...

The story of athlete Jesse Owens (Stephan James) and his rise up the ranks as the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany edge closer. Whilst Owens is facing racial prejudice at home (especially in the Southern states) whilst trying to qualify, American sporting figureheads like Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) and Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt) are at odds over whether America should even send a team over there at all, with Hitler’s rise in Germany. Jason Sudeikis plays Owens’ no-nonsense, glib coach. Carice van Houten plays devout propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, assigned the task by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to cover the Games and pissed off when Goebbels keeps getting in the way of her vision. The story of Jesse Owens’ performance at the 1936 Olympic Games is not only one of the greatest in sporting history, but in history full-stop. We know it got worse before it got better, but for a brief moment in 1936, am African-American athlete made Hitler look like a boo...

After a brief prologue set in 1944 with two crash-landed pilots on Skull Island, the bulk of the action takes place in the 1970s where John Goodman’s not terribly well-respected government employee (specialising in cryptozoology and conspiracy theories) organises a Government-funded expedition to Skull Island, a mysterious place out in the Pacific difficult to reach due to extremely hazardous weather conditions. For military back-up, he and his team (including Jing Tian and Corey Hawkins) given the services of Colonel Samuel L. Jackson and his men (including Shea Whigham and Toby Kebbell), just back from Vietnam. Also involved in the expedition are ex-SAS man and tracker Tom Hiddleston, and war photographer Brie Larson. When they arrive at the island, the great beast Kong is waiting for them and takes a swipe at their chopper. On the island and prey to all manner of dangerous giant creatures, including the gargantuan Kong himself, who very clearly rules Skull Island. John C. Reilly...

Danny Trejo stars as the titular cop and recovering addict Frank ‘Bullet’ Marasco, who has a daughter (Tinsel Korey) who also happens to be an addict…but she’s struggling with sobriety a lot more than her dad. Meanwhile drug lord Jonathan Banks is scheming to get a stay of execution for his murderer son currently on Death Row. So he kidnaps the daughter of the local governor (John Savage) to get daddy to comply. Bullet’s own grandson also winds up kidnapped by Banks, presumably because Bullet was the cop who arrested Banks’ son in the first place. Eve Mauro is a cop, Torsten Voges is Banks’ henchman, Max Perlich is a criminal, and Julia Dietze is a shonky lawyer. There haven’t been too many action stars in their 70s that I can think of, and despite being a lot shorter than you might think he is, Danny Trejo has zero problems convincing you he’s a tough mofo. Produced by “Machete” director Robert Rodriguez, this 2014 flick from co-writer/director Nick Lyon (director of “Speci...

George Clooney plays the smooth-talking (but not miracle working), title character, a ‘fixer’ (or trouble-shooter) for Sydney Pollack’s law firm, despite having a lot of problems of his own. He’s gone through a divorce, has an uneasy relationship with his kid, and is a gambler seriously in debt after a failed business venture with his estranged brother. His best friend and co-worker Arthur (played by Tom Wilkinson- with many a frantically actor-y monologue, especially the hammy opening scene), meanwhile, is a bipolar sufferer who has gone off his medication, off the rails, and is attempting to sabotage a class action suit against one of the firm’s biggest clients, having either a crisis of conscience, a mental/emotional breakdown, or a natural reaction for a bipolar sufferer off his medication. Enter Tilda Swinton, lawyer (not a fixer) for the corporation in question (who are accused by farmers of polluting drinking water with cancer-causing chemicals), who will do anything it take...

Reclusive and extremely secretive confectionary maker Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) hides five golden tickets in his chocolate bars sent out across the world that allow those lucky consumers to take part in a personal tour of his chocolate factory. Will poor, good-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) be one of the lucky winners? Jack Albertson plays Charlie’s Grandpa Joe, Julie Dawn Cole is the tantrum-throwing spoiled brat Veruca Salt, Denise Nickerson plays greedy motor-mouth Violet, and Gunter Meissner plays the nasty Mr. Slugworth, hoping to steal Wonka’s secrets. I hate musicals as is well-established by now, but this 1971 Mel Stuart (mostly a documentarian, with films such as the enjoyable concert movie “Wattstax” ) film is one of the greatest films of all-time. Anyone who says the Tim Burton remake is more true to the Roald Dahl book, meanwhile, hasn’t read it in years. It’s Dahl’s most innocuous and lightweight novel, just about and Stuart gets it pretty damn perfect. I ...