Rush (2013) - Ron Howard

Motorsport and Hollywood have never been the best of friends. Over the years there have been numerous attempts to get them together, but every single film has failed to capture the excitement that any racing fan will tell you lies at the heart of the sport. The big problem is that Hollywood seems to feel that the idea of some bloke hurtling around a race track in a flimsy car loaded with highly flammable fuel isn’t quite interesting enough. So usually a love story or some other old cliché that worked in other films is bolted on, while all the things that make motor racing so watchable in the first place - team politics, strategies, the various personalities of the drivers are quietly let go.

The best (and I use that word in the widest most general sense) racing film ever made is John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966). It’s a real stinker of a film, staring a pudgy James Garner as an American Formula One driver making a comeback. Awful film, utter rubbish with two huge exceptions. The racing footage is superb, and there’s a raft of cameos by most of the world’s greatest drivers including Jack Brabham, Jimmy Clark, Juan Manuel Fangio and for me the best of the bunch, the none more English Graham Hill. If that’s the best then just image what the others are like.

So with that in mind my expectations for a Ron Howard film about the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt were low. Extremely low. But it’s an absolute triumph, not only a great film about motor racing, but also a superb drama about obsession and rivalry. Not just that though it also manages to ask why would anyone do anything as crazy and dangerous as motor racing, and provide resonable answers to boot.

I’m not going to go into what happens during the film, since if you don’t already know, you don't need me to spoil it for you. I’ll just say that you really don’t need to know or love Formula One to get the most out of this, in much the same way you don’t need to be into sharks or swimming to enjoy Jaws. However if you do know your Balestre's from your Ecclestone's then there's lots of goodies in here for you.

So why does this work where Grand Prix, Le Mans, Days of Thunder and Driven all failed so badly? Well for starters it’s scripted by Peter Morgan who of course wrote the aces screenplays for The Queen and The Damned United as well as Frost/Nixon for director Ron Howard. It’s a good tight script that sticks closely to the facts and events of that ’76 season. Next up are the two main actors who not only look the part but manage to act it too. Chris Hemsworth as the cocksure James Hunt and Daniel Brühl as the intense perfectionist Niki Lauda. Both are totally convincing, even if at times the brushstrokes on screen are a little broad, sometimes in order to cram as much into a reasonable running time you need to simplify things. The third reason for me loving this film so much has to go to Danny Boyle’s regular cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, who goes all out and gives the film a look somewhere between the frantic hyper editing and multiple camera set ups of a modern film, and a world seen through Timothy Leary’s 60s specs. So business as usual for ADM then. Visually it’s one of the most sumptuous films I’ve seen for a while, and yet despite using every modern trick in the book, it still manages to convince as a period piece. As such, Rush begs to be seen at the cinema, the sound alone is astounding with the cars screaming around the circuits to a suitably propulsive Hans Zimmer score.

I really can’t recommend this film enough, it does everything it promises and more. Who would have thought Ron Howard would have it in him? That he would have the savvy to not take the easy way out and pile on the melodrama, to have the faith to stick with the truth. The fact that he has made a film as good as this makes me feel that I’ve misjudged him badly in the past. Having said that though, there is nothing in his filmography that I would ever want to return to ever again. Except this, which I’m sure I will watch again and again and again.

The Evil Dead (1981) - Sam Raimi

Five ‘kids’ spend a weekend at some manky old cabin in the middle of nowhere. After finding a book bound in human flesh and listening to a tape recording of some old fossil going on about bygone civilizations, evil and chanting in some ancient made up language, everything goes tits up. The woods come alive and so does the film. From that point on we get a healthy dose of low budget gore, more rubber puppets than your average episode of Spitting Image and best of all Sam Raimi’s amazing eye for camera set ups.

I was around 14 years old the first time I ever watched The Evil Dead. It had long been deemed far too nasty for the great British public to watch. So like pretty much everyone else my age, my introduction came via a fairly decent VHS pirate copy. I remember being really excited to finally be getting to see one of the school playground’s most talked about films. Me and John Jackson (who had procured said VHS from God alone knows where), had bunked off school for the day and holed ourselves up in my front room. The curtains were pulled tight, not just keep he sun off of the TV screen, but also just in case a passing neighbour should happen to witness the naughtiness and buckets of gore that were about to explode off the screen.

Eighty minutes later and it was all over. It wasn’t quite as great as I’d hoped it would be. We made some toast and watched it again. It was alright, but not really all that scary. Not like American Werewolf in London or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both of which still made the dash from the light switch to my bed the most frightening five seconds of my day. We watched it a third time that day knowing that we might never get to see it again. We laughed quite a lot third time around, but there wasn’t really anything that made me want to check under my bed before turning in for the night.

Over twenty years later I can’t say how many times I’ve seen The Evil Dead. It’s been quite a few though. Yet I would never claim to be a huge fan of the film, maybe that’s because I have friends that have Book of the Dead tattoos and all that sort of thing. Still every few years it ends up being thrown into the DVD player. And every few years I end up feeling the same way I did all that time ago when I first watched it.

The big problems for me stem mainly from the fact that it doesn’t scare me at all. Not in the slightest. Then there’s the fact that it looks cheap, really cheap, which of course it was. Haircuts change, continuity doesn’t appear to exist and the acting is pretty ropey. There’s no real attempt at any character development or backstory either. It’s a simple set up, and you get what you get. Raimi never let the lack of budget get in the way of his vision though and I feel torn between applauding him for managing to do so much with so little, and also wishing that maybe he could have dialed it back a little. Maybe have creatures lurking in the shadows instead of totally visible all the time, since when you see a rubber head being bashed with an axe, it just looks like a rubber head being bashed with an axe. The claymation sequence at the end of the film is on the one hand Raimi pushing himself further than any first time director ever should. On the other hand though it looks woeful, goes on way too long and should probably not be in the film. Still it’s these sort of things that give the film it’s charm and have earned it a hugely loyal following.

Where the film works best is when the awful dialogue disappears and Ash (Bruce Campbell) takes center stage. Campbell has a screen presence that the rest of the cast lack. The scenes of him just reacting to what’s going on are fantastic, as are a number of the things Raimi does with his camera during these sequences. The last shot of the film for instance is one of those ‘once seen, never forgotten’ moments.

For me this is a film that’s easy to admire but difficult to love. Nowhere is that better shown than the infamous tree rape scene, which is technically well executed, but is quite grim to watch and feels out of place with the rest of the horror in the film. I prefer the Evil Dead II far more than The Evil Dead, which is probably sacrilegious to some, but what the heck it's the truth. It’s still not scary but it's at least looks like a professionally made film. It's funnier too.

Who Can Kill a Child? (1976) - Narciso Ibáñez Serrador

The big question I had when this film finished wasn’t so much Who Can Kill a Child?, but more why is it that I’d never seen or heard of this film before? I’ve been watching horror flicks all my life and I’d never even stumbled across this mid-seventies Spanish gem until now. English couple Tom (Lewis Fiander) and Evelyn (Prunella Ransome) are on holiday in Spain, leaving behind the tourist trap of the mainland they head off to a remote island that Tom once visited before they met. Upon arrival they quickly notice that there are no adults around, only children. Lots of children. To say more would only spoil things, but Who Can Kill a Child? is equal parts Children of the Corn (the story not the woeful film series) and The Wicker Man, sprinkled with elements of The Birds. That’s the sort of company it’s keeping.

Pedophobia has long been a staple of the horror genre, from early sixties classics such as Village of the Damned and The Innocents through to such modern nasties as Ils and Eden Lake. Kids are evil. We all know it, it’s just that most people don’t want to accept it. Anyone who remembers the horrific murder of two year old James Bulger by two ten year olds can attest to this I’m sure. It’s one of those things that everyone can associate with, either by having once been a child or the double whammy of also being a parent. If you really wanted to push the point home you might point out that the most evil people on the planet, Hitler, Stalin um Murdoch were all kids once. But I don’t need to write that, do I? It's always easier to scare people with what is all around them, rather than ghosts or the devil or any of that nonesense.

Who Can Kill a Child? starts off with a montage of true life images of atrocities from throughout the past century, bodies being dumped into mass graves in Nazi death camps, children with skin hanging from their limbs fleeing napalmed villages in Vietnam and starving skeletal children in war torn Africa. I’m sure Serrador would justify this by what follows in the film, but I thought it was a little much to be honest and could have done without it. That aside though I thought the film was almost like a missing link. The Spanish have had a bit of thing for nasty child horror lately, mainly thanks to Guillermo del Toro who seems to have children and horror at the heart of everything he directs or produces. Seeing this gives a little more insight into what came before del Toro.

The two leads are stalwarts of British TV and were absolutely convincing as a couple. They're reminiscent of Sutherland & Christie in Don't Look Now. Ransome is particularly good, going on much the same emotional journey as Mia Farrow did in Rosemary’s Baby. Hysterical women (or men for that matter) in films can be just the sort of thing to drag you out of a scene, yet she plays it just right. The real kudos though has to go to director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador who manages to keep the film moving forward despite the fact that at times not a lot appears to be happening. He does this by building and building tension to almost uncomfortable extremes at times. His set pieces are pitch perfect, the human piñata being a particular gruesome favourite. Serrador drenches the whole film in a sheen of sweat, it's an itchy nylon shirt stuck to your back, denim flares in the burning Spanish sun. The fact that so much of the action takes place in broad daylight as opposed to the usual trope of bad things only happening at night really helps sell the film as being real, which in turn makes it easier for the viewer to do what they should always do when watching a successful horror flick - ask themselves over and over what they would do in the situation. The deserted village calls to mind so many westerns, yet how many westerns ended with a stand off like the end of this film?

It’s impossible to watch this without thinking about the Spanish Civil War, and I think that is the none to subtle sub-text here. It’s not essential to understanding or following the film, but it elevates it a little higher than a mere schlocky Euro horror flick. Speaking of schlock this was remade last year as Come Out and Play. I haven’t seen it, so I won’t judge it until I do. The reviews weren’t kind though. Shame since I think a sensitive retelling of this story could be a huge hit. Then again Americans notoriously hate seeing children being killed in films. Sending them off to war or mowing them down in their schools is one thing, up on the silver screen is unacceptable though. Do hunt this down if you are a horror fan and haven't seen it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Compliance (2012) - Craig Zobel

For the past ten years or so phones and films have not been happy bedfellows. I’m not talking about the whole cinema experience being ruined by people not being able to stay off the fucking things during films. Cinema patrons constant need to check what’s happening on Facebook or Twitter seems to have become more important now than sinking into the film they’ve just paid money to see. No that’s not what I’m talking about here (lucky you). It's more that since mobile phones have become so commonplace film scripts have had to deal with them and the problems they can cause a script. In the pre mobiles world tension could be ramped up by something as easy as someone being stuck in a room at work after everyone else had gone home. Nowadays tech savvy audiences won't stand for any nonsense. Phones are the ultimate get out of jail free card for most of the uncomfortable situations that a film character might find themselves in. So sometimes now the tension can come from something as mundane as trying to get a working signal or the old forgot to charge the phone chestnut. It’s a brave new world for certain, but it can be a bugger if you’re trying to write a thriller.

Sometimes a film comes along though that incorporates our friend the phone as a major plot point. Buried or the original Scream flick for example, both of these films used phones to build the unease the audience were (hopefully) feeling. Compliance is one such film. Set in a fast food place on a typically busy day, short of staff and thanks to a recent balls up with a fridge causing certain items to not be on the menu, it’s going to be a tougher than usual day at work. But for Becky (Dreama Walker) it’s going to be particularly tough, since half way through the shift her boss Sandra (Ann Dowd) receives a phone call from Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) informing her that Becky has stolen some money from a customer. He tells Sandra to hold Becky in a secure room until he can get there. And that’s your lot plot wise, since any more would spoil what is a cracking film.

Writer-director Craig Zobel does a stellar job at creating a convincing environment in which this nasty little film plays out. Although not strictly a Horror film (despite being pretty grim), it does that great thing that Horror flicks do - putting the audience in the characters shoes. All the way though the ninety minute running time you’ll question exactly what you would do in either Becky or Sandra’s situation.

It’s a faultless film, it’s not flashy (but still looks good), the acting is naturalistic in a way that American films rarely are. The cast are impeccable, and this really is one of those films where the words spoken are far more important than the visuals. Most of the action takes place in one room with the majority of the dialogue being between people that aren’t even sharing the same screen space.

I wish I could say more, but I can’t. Just see it. One thing I can promise is you’ll be straight onto Google afterwards since it’s a true story.

Kill List (2011) - Ben Wheatley

Ben Wheatley? Ben Wheatley? I recognised the name, but I couldn't place it back when everyone was arguing over whether Kill List was any good or not. So I IMDB'd him (like you do) and it turns out he'd directed the last film I ended up watching in 2011 - Down Terrace. That was on New Years Eve, right before going out for the night, and it was God awful. A real pile of rubbish. Now it's not often I think something like that about a film, since all films no matter how bad take time and a heck of a lot of effort to put together. But it has to be said Down Terrace was painfully bad.

So you can imagine how low my expectations were going in to see Kill List can't you? Let's say they were non existent, and leave it there. It turns out Kill List is the film I've watched most this year (three times so far), it's a triumph of modern film making and a truly nasty little horror flick to boot. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, first a quick plot synopsis. Gal (Michael Smiley or Tyres from Spaced to you and me) and Jay (Neil Maskell) are a couple of hit men, employed to bump off people from the titular list. Jay's a family man and his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) sets up the hits for them. It sounds like a typical genre film that you've seen a hundred times at least, but director Wheatley manages to spin it in directions that make it feel fresh. For a start he wrong foots you by making you feel like you're watching a Mike Leigh suburban drama, the first twenty minutes of the film being set around a typical Leigh style dinner party. However once the boys get off on the road and on with the mission things start to get weird. I can't really write much about what happens other than you'll leave the film with the feeling that you need to sit down and watch the film again.

This film has really made people get hot under the collar, some dismiss it as utter rubbish (which it really isn't), while others seem to think it's the best British horror film since Christopher Lee tricked Edward Woodward into spending the night on Summerisle. Like I wrote earlier I thought this was wonderful, and when watched again it becomes apparent that Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump (who are a real life couple) have fashioned a clever tale that on the surface can feel a little slight, but when looked at a little closer reveals hidden depths. It actually has a decent structure with elements at the start being repeated at the end of the film.

The sound design is great (although the dialogue is mixed too low), scenes that would normally feel ordinary are full of menace thanks to Jim Williams' creepy humming  soundtrack. The whole cast are so much better than you'd expect too, everyone manages to make their characters into believable living breathing people. Best of all though it has a great ending, not one that everyone will love since you'll need to go away have a pint, mull it over, have a chat with some friends about it and then watch the film again. But that's a good thing, it really is. In fact it's probably this that Kill List has going for it most, you have to put your brain in gear and do a little work. I think I've finally figured out just what the hell is going on, and that's taken three viewings.

I really can't recommend this enough, it's not for the fait hearted since it's brutal in places, but if you like a bit of mystery in your films and if you miss David Lynch then this might be the film for you. Best British horror since The Wicker Man? No, but it's up there with Eden Lake and that's praise enough I think.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) - Robert Aldrich

It's noir, but not as we know it. Mickey Spillane's mega selling novel is given a complete overhaul by A.I. Bezzerides (the scribe behind Sirocco & Thieves Highway), to become a bonkers cross between the pulp noir of prime Sam Fuller, and a particularly bizarre Twilight Zone episode. Right from the off it's obvious that things aren't going to be straightforward. For a start there are those opening credits that roll up the screen instead of down.

The film opens with Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picking up Christina (Cloris Leachman), a female hitch hiker on the run from the police. As it turns out she's seen or heard something she shouldn't have, and has a bunch of local heavies on her tail too, who quickly nab our pair and in a memorably nasty scene, torture Christina to death. Then they bundle our ill fated couple back into Hammer's car and roll them off a cliff. It's this that sets the plot in motion, as Hammer tries to figure out just what the heck is going on, who killed Christina and more importantly why?

Luckily Hammer is a private detective, so he knows how to grub around the seedier side of L.A. for info. Meeker is a fantastic Hammer, playing him in a deliciously nasty way, flying off the handle and dishing out backhanders as soon as anyone crosses him. He's one of cinema's great anti heroes, just look at the half smile that appears after he slings one guy down a set of steps, or the way he slams a mortician's fingers in a desk drawer. It's vicious powerful stuff, and must have been shocking at the time. I can imagine '55's other great bundle of anger Jim Stark loving Kiss Me Deadly at the cinema, maybe even seeing some of himself in Hammer.

The film rattles along at a healthy pace and keeps the viewer in the dark about what is going on, we only find things out as Hammer does. The dialogue is rugged hard boiled stuff, as are most of the characters. Aldrich makes great use of L.A.'s fleapit underbelly, shooting plenty of the exteriors in daytime. That's not to say that there isn't an abundance of long dark shadows, rest easy there's plenty of that, it's just not your typical back lot shoot. I love that shot where Hammer drives under this strange elevated tramway. Weirdsville. By the time the ending rolls up you'll have forgotten just how Hammer ended up in a beach house with an atomic mcguffin. That doesn't matter though since this is one of those 'it's not so much the story, as the journey' type affairs. A Maltese Falcon for the atomic age if you want.

Kiss Me Deadly has had a huge impact on cinema, you can see shards of Meeker's Hammer in Connery's Bond for instance, then there are the far more obvious references in Pulp Fiction (the contents of that case) and of course Repo Man which not only aped the Pandora's Box schtick but also half inched the reverse credits. The style of Kiss Me Deadly seems to have influenced greater directors too, it's there in Seijun Suzuki's & Jean-Pierre Melville's gangster flicks for example. What higher praise could one ask for than that, eh?

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) - Kurt Kuenne

Incredibly moving documentary about Andrew Bagby. Never heard of him? Well don't let that put you off. You see Bags (as his friends call him) was an ordinary Joe from California. He grew up with Kuenne, often appearing in his lo-fi film efforts. Anyway Bags grows up and moves away from home to study medicine. While at university he starts dating twice divorced Shirley Turner, who is thirteen years older than him. After graduating Bags gets a job in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, while Shirley ends up almost 1,000 miles away in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Things don't work out between them and Bags ends their relationship at the airport, packing Shirley onto a plane back to Iowa.

Shirley doesn't take the split well and drives back to meet Bagby in a park near his home. The day after he is found dead in the park, having been shot five times. It doesn't end there though, Shirley flees home to St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, and then finds that she is pregnant with the baby of the man she is accused of murdering. She ends up having a baby boy (the Zachary of the title), and Bagby's parents give up their life in California to move to St. John's to be close to their grandson. Then things get really horrible…

Kuenne is a decent enough film maker and is obviously close to his subject. This isn't some detached documentarian pretending to care with one eye on the awards season. This is obviously Kuenne's way of dealing with the grief of losing someone he presumed would always be there. He travels to England and all around the USA to interview just about everyone who is related to his friend. The picture that emerges is obviously rose tinted, in fact Andrew Bagby might just possibly have been the nicest human being that ever lived. But that's to be expected, at some point during the documentary Kuenne decides that he's doing this for Bagby's unborn son, so that he might understand who his father was. Impartial this ain't.

This footage is mixed in with the tragic story of Bagby's murder and the struggle his parents have with trying to gain access to their grandson, from the woman who they are trying to extradite back to the States to stand trial for his murder. It's a tough watch, but very worthwhile. I've often toyed with the idea of writing a film script about a robbery where someone gets shot and dies. instead of going off with the robbers though we spend the film seeing the way someone dying has such a huge effect on so many people. Kuenne has gone one step better by making this. Real life is always so much more horrible than fiction. That's the thing that makes this all so tragic.

Black Swan (2010) - Darren Aronofsky

It was nice to be able go into this film cold, all I knew about it was that it was directed by Aronofsky which subsequently meant that the music was by Clint Mansell, starred Natalie Portman and was about ballet. Except of course it's as much about ballet as Deliverance is about canoeing. That's not to say that Aronofsky doesn't appear to adore the world he's set his film in, since there is a massive attention to detail on display with everything from how ballet shoes are prepared to be worn, through to the exercises and the actual dancing itself. Although I would question a top dancer doing her own make up. But there you go, I would wouldn't I?

It's just that the ballet is a backdrop for deeper more adult themes. Such as just how far is an artist prepared to go in order to achieve perfection? That ongoing chase that has seen many a creative genius labeled as a nutter. It's not just about that though, there's also the emotional road trip from girlhood to womanhood, of flying the nest and spreading those wings and escaping into the great big adult world.

So quite a lot to pack into a running time ten minutes shy of two hours then. Aronofsky directs the whole thing with the confidence of the seasoned pro that he's become, the pacing is spot on and not once during the film do you find yourself asking why am I watching this? Right from the off it was obvious that this was going to be a tale about duality of some sort, since almost every scene has a mirror in it, and Aronofsky never misses a chance to shoot Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) reflected in them. What starts off as a fairly ordinary drama quickly starts to turn uncomfortable, with Nina seeing doppelgangers of herself walking around. Then there is a fair bit of sub David Cronenberg style body horror too. Transformation, see, clever stuff eh? Except that's the thing, it's not quite as clever as it thinks it is.

The story is fairly simple on paper at any rate. Nina has the chance to dance the lead in a new production of Swan Lake, to do this however she must dance both the White Swan and the Black Swan. Thomas Leroy played by a never sleazier Vincent Cassel, convinces her that in order to play the Black Swan she has to let herself go and become the character. By doing this Nina begins to transform from the virginal White Swan into something far darker. Amongst all this are various sub plots all grim and disturbing. Nina's mother is over possessive and obviously a failed dancer herself, the type that pushes her daughter to achieve what she couldn't, only to stand in the way of her progress due to her own jealousy. Throughout the film she is dressed in black (as opposed to Nina's whites and pinks), in fact it has crossed my mind that she might have not been real at all and just a figment of Nina's frantic brain. I'd have to see the film again to be able to see if I'm wide of the mark with that thought or not though.

Mila Kunis plays Lily, Nina's main rival for the lead role. I don't think I've ever seen her in anything before but she was spot on here. As was Barbara Hershey as the maddest mother this side of Pyscho. Overall I thought this was one of those films that deserves the praise heaped upon it. Portman is particularly deserving of everything since she is in every scene and really the whole film is carried on her slender frame. The last words in the film will take some beating too. Perfect.

Tony (2005) - Gerard Johnson

This is the short film that writer/director Johnson would turn into his memorable debut feature four years later. It's like a ten minute calling card, or maybe more accurately a demo for a song. Pretty much everything in the film such as actors, music and plot would end up in said feature. Like all of Johnson's films the music is by big brother Matt Johnson of The The fame, and sounds very nice thank you very much. It's hard for me to judge this having seen and loved the full length version, in that the characters and locations look more dirty, and everything has a creepier feel to it. So with that in mind I'd say that this is only really worth watching as a curio if you've already seen the feature length version of Tony.

Mug (2004) - Gerard Johnson

Fairly ordinary debut short about a London nasty who mugs two people during the ten minute running time. Nicely framed and well shot and edited to a lovely score by The The, but ultimately a hollow effort. The fact that Gerard Johnson would go on to direct one of the better British films of 2009 (Tony), isn't really evident here. Not something I can imagine myself watching again.

Män som hatar kvinnor (2009) - Niels Arden Oplev

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo my arse, that makes this sound like it's going to be some kind of female action film, in the same vein as Tomb Raider, Resident Evil or even (shudder) Catwoman. No the original Swedish title hits the nail squarely on the head - Män som hatar kvinnor, or for those that can't use Google translate - Men Who Hate Women. Perfect title for a less than perfect (but good nonetheless) film.

A male journalist and a computer hacking tomboy find themselves thrown together to solve the mystery of a girl who went missing thirty years ago. That's the high and low of it. It's your above average murder mystery, the sort of thing Morse or maybe since it's a bit darker than that Cracker would have had a stab at back in the day. I say a bit darker with my tongue firmly lodged in my cheek though since this is pitch black in places, just witness the scene where Lisbeth (that aforementioned tomboy), boots (and I do mean boots) a dildo up the back passage of a rapist, after first tattooing the legend "I am a sadistic pig, a pervert, and a rapist" on his torso. As I said Men Who Hate Women is a perfect title.

So anyway what initially appears to be your usual run of the mill murder mystery quickly becomes something much better than the sum of it's parts. For a start it's set in the wilds of middle Sweden, a perfect landscape in which to set such a harsh tale. Then we have the crusading journo who it turns out is a damn good central character, full of flaws and a pretty normal bloke. The thing that really sets Män som hatar kvinnor apart from all the other run of the mill thrillers most though is Noomi Rapace's career making portrayal of Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is a young pierced and tattooed cyber savvy woman, she's brash, rude and exudes hostility. You warm to her as the film progresses and that's down to just how good Rapace is. She also takes the traditional male role in the story, she saves the day and figures out the clue that sets the ball rolling in the right direction.

Okay so that's the good stuff, now for the bad. Well top of my list would be the fact that despite having a huge running time, not once do our duo end up going in the wrong direction. One clue leads to the next and each time they figure something out it's totally correct and they can continue on to solve the next piece of the puzzle, very Dan Brown that. I just expected more from this side of the story. Other than that though it's a well directed (nothing too flash), little film. It's a little disorientating at the start when the viewer is just thrown into the action, but that blows over quickly enough.

It's a shame I've heard such bad things about the other two films in this series, since I now want to watch them even though I get the feeling I won't like them very much. Still I try never to judge a film before I've seen it, unless it's yet another Nicolas Cage actioner. Or a big bucks Hollywood remake of course. Why do they do it? Still, however Fincher's reimagining (or remake or whatever the hell the marketing department comes up with), turns out, it won't be able to take anything away from this. Small mercies and all that.

127 Hours (2010) - Danny Boyle

As a nipper I grew up watching all sorts of films form all different types of directors, or so I thought. Now from the comfort of my thirties I can look back and see that what they mainly had in common was the fact that visuals were priority number one in their films. From Ridley Scott through to Tim Burton and a whole host of others, it was visuals first everything else second. The thing is that with each passing year those films become less and less interesting for me. I don't think it's their fault either, after all the films they made haven't changed, it's me that's changed. I'm just no longer impressed by whiz bang visuals. In these CGI days where anything is possible part of the fun of film making has died a little. More than that though I was quite happy to just watch a film purely for what was on the screen, I didn't really need any deep meaning or sometimes even a story. If it looked great then I was happy. As I say though, not any more since I've been digging further and further back I've found that I need more than a visual feast. That's not to say I don't enjoy a good looking film, I just need that to be the backdrop for a story of some sort, something that will keep me coming back for repeat viewings long after the sight of seeing New York destroyed (yet again) has worn thin.

So with all that in mind, Danny Boyle should be a director that I hate. He throws masses of visual information onto the screen, sometimes his films look more like the kind of thing you'd expect to see projected on the walls of a 90's superclub, rather than something you'd slip into your DVD player. Not only that but he edits everything to within an inch of it's life and always slaps a huge banging soundtrack over it all. Not my cup of tea at all, and yet he hardly ever fails to drag me into his films. Unlike the Bays and McG's of this world he hangs his films on a human story, normally something the viewer can relate to, and even if you can't you still find yourself sucked in within the opening scenes. He's a bastard like that.

I would never have believed that I would enjoy Slumdog Millionaire, I remember reading that he was making a film based around Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and thought no way do I want to see that. But see it I did, and as usual by the end of the first ten minutes I was hooked. The same pretty much goes for this film, some extreme sports type dude gets trapped in a crevice and after a few days cuts his arm off to free himself. Why would I want to see that? As a documentary possibly, but as a Hollywood film 'Based On Real Life Events', um no ta. I'll just watch Touching the Void instead.

But of course I did see it, and the thing is as a slab of entertainment I thought it worked. I can't say that it stayed with me for weeks afterwards, but for the few hours it was on the gogglebox it did it's job. I like the whole one location thing too, Hitchcock always manged so much with that idea. Boyle approaches it in a slightly different way to the big fella, but he manages to keep you gripped for the running time nonetheless. I'm glad he didn't feel the need to cut away to other people in the way Ron Howard did during Apollo 13. So sticking with Aron Ralston (James Franco) for the whole 127 hours was a good call, and probably the thing that I liked most overall about the film.

But what you really want to know about is that scene isn't it? Well it's painful to watch, but then it should be shouldn't it. It's not over in a flash, and the sound design is immaculate, not as traumatic as you'd think but pretty grim all the same. I did almost chew off my bottom lip whilst watching it though, so maybe it's a little more horrendous than I'm remembering. James Franco who I only really knew as the wooden actor behind Harry Osborn in the Spiderman films, is actually quite good. He's got a way to go before he hits Daniel Day-Lewis standards, but in this he proved he can at least act.

So Boyle together with cinematographers Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak go all out, zooming the camera hundreds of feet up into the air, forcing it deep into a water bottle, there are split screen effects, slow motion, blurred shots and just about any other kind of camera technique you care to mention. Does it do anything for the film? Not really. I think it does more for the audience if truth be told. After all how many punters would go and see this without all the above and not get bored? Word of mouth would be terrible, and the name of the game at Boyle's level is bums on seats. But I'm not complaining since as I said I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Boyle usually ends his films with a euphoric song (something he's done since Trainspotting), and this film is no exception. It's a shame since what should have been an emotional ending is handled badly by having a huge fuck off Sigur Rós track pounding across it. We should have stayed in Ralston's head, after all we had been with him throughout the film. But there you go - what do I know?

Centurion (2010) - Neil Marshall

After his last flawed effort it's good to see Marshall back on track with this film. His usual array of obsessions are all present, people fighting against the odds, the great outdoors and each other being the main themes that appear throughout his work. That and gore, great big buckets of the stuff. The story is pretty simple. Set in them olden days, a group of Roman soldiers find themselves in the middle of Scotland. The locals don't like them and chase is on, a race to the English border. Will the Scots catch them, how will the Romans fare stripped of their weapons and in uncharted territory? You know the sort of thing. The Scots even have blue paint on their faces, essential for any post Braveheart film about the savages living north of Newcastle.

I actually quite enjoy the 'on the run' genre of films. The first I remember seeing was The Warriors and ever since then I've loved 'em. From Naked Prey through to Apocalypto they are simple exciting films. Which is maybe why Marshall's effort holds up well, he sticks to the rules, the biggest of which is keep the momentum moving forwards. In other words don't stop in too many places, otherwise you run (pardon the pun) the risk of becoming a different genre, that of the road movie. And that wouldn't do would it?

So it's all nonsense of course, the whys and wherefores being mere dressing and nothing for you to worry your pretty little heads about. Were there black legionnaires back then, or is that just an excuse to give us more of a mixed bag of characters? Michael Fassbender heads up our gang of lads, he's all muscles and pent up sexual tension, under him are a cast of blokes that if you've been watching British films during the past few years, you should recognise with the minimum of fuss. Riz Ahmed being the best of the bunch, Noel Clarke the worst. There's plenty of shirts off running through the highlands shouting and grunting style action. Let's face it you can't do much better than Scotland if you are looking for dramatic locations, it's one of the things that is going to push this film above other similar films for me. The other thing this film has going for it is the sheer bloody violence on display, there's all your usual arms and legs being hacked off, but Centurion takes it up a notch to almost Romero like levels of nastiness. Heads lopped in half, more cut throats than I care to count and that's just the start of it. So something for everyone it would seem, half naked blokes for the ladies and lashing of man blood for the guys. Cough cough.

I'm a big fan of films doing what they are supposed to do, and that's why I thought this was fine. It's nothing you haven't seen before, there isn't any real depth to any of the characters either. But in a film like this I don't want that, I just want to enjoy my ninety minutes and see if the person I think is going to die first does (they didn't by the way). The film whips by as quick as a Glaswegian joy rider, it felt like there were places where possible story strands have fallen onto the cutting room floor, in order to keep the pace of the film up. Which is all par for the course with films like this. If you can get past the awful sub Superman opening credits, and not have too high expectations then you'll enjoy this too. A test I always give myself after seeing a film is to ask myself two questions;- 1. Would I watch this again? 2. Would I pick it up on DVD for a fiver? My answers for Centurion were both yes.

Dog (2001) - Andrea Arnold

Thematically linked in a few ways to Arnold's later Fish Tank, this short is her finding her artistic feet and paving the way for what would become her Oscar winning short Wasp. Leah is a council estate teen, her mum screams abuse at her when she leaves the flat instead of waving tutty bye. You've all seen Ken Loach and Mike Leigh films even if you haven't ventured into the wilds of East London, so you know the type of people I mean. She meets up with her boyfriend John, and they go and buy some gear. Romance not being dead he leads her off onto some waste ground and starts to get frisky. A stray dog eats his dope, so John kicks the dog to death. Leah sees him for the idiot he is and goes home to a receive a beating from her mum. Who is the dog of the title? Well it's not as subtle as one would hope, but when Leah starts barking at her mum, all becomes obvious. There are far worse ways to spend nine minutes of your life than watching this. It looks lovely and is stylistically obviously Arnold, Joanne Hill is great as Leah, shame she hasn't been in anything since.

The Acid House (1998) - Paul McGuigan

It used to be all Irvine Welsh around here, of course that was back in the mid nineties when looking like a Jakey and having a brogue accent was all the rage. After the success of Trainspotting it was only a question of time before something was rushed into production, in order to have that all important 'from the author of Trainspotting' on the poster. The Acid House was that film, and boy did it kill off the Irvine Welsh trend. It's a portmanteau film consisting of three short stories adapted from the book of the same name. Two of them work well, one doesn't, and that's what prevents The Acid House from being thought of as anything other than Trainspottings ugly sibling. There is a theme of transformation running through all three chapters, it's none too subtle, but who cares. Like that film, the soundtrack for The Acid House is as good as what's up on the screen.

All three shorts are packed with everything I love about great Scottish films, they are sweary as anything, dark but bristling with humour and packed with a cast of great Scots actors that will have you reaching for the IMDB to find out just where you know them from. The Granton Star Cause is first up. Boab gets dropped by his fitba team, is asked to move out by his Ma and Pa, loses his girl, gets arrested and beaten to a pulp by a couple of the boys in blue, then to cap it all off has a run in with God over a pint. God in his pissed up wisdom decides to turn Boab into a fly. Boab uses this to wreak revenge on those that have dissed him. A Soft Touch is the real centerpiece of The Acid House, Kevin McKidd is Johnny the soft touch from the title. He marries Catriona (Michelle Gomez) the local bike, and they have a kid. Hard bastard Larry moves into the flat above them and starts being more than friendly with Catriona. Will Johnny man up, or mouse off? Last up is the The Acid House itself, Ewen Bremner plays Coco Bryce, yr typical Irvine Welsh clubber, who when struck by lightning one evening ends up in the body of a new born baby.

The first two segments are winners, and would be proudly displayed on any directors CV. It's this last story that let's the side down, everything just goes tits up. It's overlong, the lightning strike scene goes on for what feels like hours. It could really have done with a bit of trimming, the story hangs around for an age. I don't think it helps that all of a sudden we are propelled into the home of a middle class English couple, after spending the previous hour in rundown Glasgow. It's a drag since the other shorts work so well, both sporting that tar black Irvine Welsh humour. McGuigan went on to direct the wonderful but flawed Brit gangster flick Gangster No. 1, and not a lot else. Ho hum.

Deep Red (1975) - Dario Argento

David Hemmings plays Marcus Daly, an expat flared white suit/black shirt combo wearing music teacher, living it up in some unnamed Italian city. One night he witnesses a murder, and from then on is plunged head on into Argentoland. There's twists aplenty, the strangest set of characters since Dickens hung up his quill, the odd red herring, comedy that is embarrassingly unfunny and more than enough to make you think afterwards that none of it makes any sense. That's pretty much the long and short of Deep Red, it contains all those things we love about Argento at his best, bizarre intensely beautiful architecture, Daria Nicolodi, a Goblin soundtrack, gore and of course black leather gloves hacking away at victims. All of this is shot through with Dario's distinctive sense of style, beautiful steady dolly shots, frames within frames, gorgeous rich colour schemes and of course that almost dreamlike style in which his stories unfold. Even if by the time the film finishes and the killer is unmasked it makes about as much sense as an episode of Midsomer Murders.

After the success of his animal trilogy Dario decided the time was right to have a stab (I do like a good pun me) at a different genre. Choosing comedy he made Le cinque giornate, which promptly tanked at the cinema. That was the last time he would direct anything outside of the genre that had made his name. He returned to horror with what most consider to be his best two films, this and its follow up Suspiria. Although confusingly in Japan after Suspiria's success, Deep Red was released as Suspiria 2, even though both films have absolutely bugger all to do with each other. Those crazy Japanese eh?
 
Anyway what you really want to know is how good are the killings, right? Er, I was just joking, but without coming across as Henry Portrait the different ways Dario comes up with to off his creations are always a huge part of the enjoyment of his films. This film utilizes the idea of killing folk via means that the viewer can identify with. So apart from the obvious stabbings, after all everyone has cut themselves with a knife even if they haven't quite had a cleaver rammed in their back, causing them to fall forward through a window and impale themselves on the broken shards of glass. There are a few more elaborate means that Dario employs, so we get death by boiling water, death by repeatedly hitting your mouth against a hard object (in this case a mantelpiece and a table) and so on. We're even treated to the sight of a clockwork dummy running out from the shadows, very odd bit of the film that.

Of course the weird thing about Argento is that while his visuals are gory they aren't particularly scary. You'll be watching it through your fingers, but only in the same way you would with Jackass. Dario isn't all that good at making the viewer jump either (the exception in this film being that bastard aforementioned dummy), so drink hot drinks safe in the knowledge they won't end up in your lap. The other thing Dario likes to do is crank up the prog rock Goblin soundtrack anytime there is any hint of something naughty happening. This is one of the better Goblin soundtracks too, even if one of the main themes does crib liberally from Tubular Bells. So to sum up this is a great film to watch if you are new to the world of Argento, and if you're not then you've already seen this, multiple times. One quick word of warning it's worth seeing the longer version of this film, although portions of it don't have an English soundtrack so it reverts to Italian in these spots. Well worth the effort.

Tony (2009) - Gerard Johnson

I watched this on a train journey up to Stockholm last summer, and thought it was wonderful. Ever since then I've been dying to see it alone from the comfort of my sofa, since a train carriage (even a 1st class one), isn't the optimum place to watch a film. Second time around this was even better than I remembered.

Although this doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere, the lead character in this film is loosely based on Anthony Hardy, who killed 3 people and dumped bin bags filled with chopped up bodies into the bins around the flats where he lived in Camden. So as you might have sussed this isn't a biopic about Tony Wilson. Peter Ferdinando inhabits Tony Benson in a totally realistic way, I think it's fair to say that you can smell his bad breath. Tony likes his 80's action films, and the sad thing is if you have taken a few minutes to look around you then you've seen Tony Benson somewhere before. In the supermarket, or on the bus or doing a bit of top shelf reading in the newsagents. He's one of those people that finds it hard to connect with other people, and drifts into his own fantasy world. They look odd, they are odd, you might even have a nickname for them. Anyway like I said Ferdinando is Benson, he's in every frame of the film. Oscar worthy? Better than that, much better. It's a performance that will make you constantly check his IMDB page to see what he's up to. I really hope to see him in something again, but as usual with British actors I fear that might not happen.

Sadly not everyone in this film is quite up to Ferdinando's standard, with some of the lesser characters being a little clichéd in their portrayal. But that's what happens with low budget fare, and this comes across as being very low budget, not in terms of quality but more in the way that it doesn't allow itself to be any bigger than necessary. So we have a running time of a smidgen over 70 minutes, and what seems to be no sets, just location work. All of this works in favour of the film though, likewise Gerard Johnson doesn't try and show us how good he is at finding exciting camera angles, he just shoots as if it's a documentary. All very Ken Loach in that way, which is kind of the reference I was thinking of as I watched this. It's like a Shane Meadows script shot by Ken Loach on a shoestring budget. Like Loach we drop in on Tony's world for a few days, and then we drift back out of it at the end of the film. We just get a glimpse of what it's like to be him. We don't find anything out about his background, never know just how he started killing, or even why. There are victims scattered around his flat, but we never find out who they are. It's perfect in that way. There is no police squad hunting him down or any of the usual serial killer pap that you get in films. Tony's nearest film cousin is Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. There is a streak of tar black humour running through the whole film too, as there always seems to be in the better British films. However just like Meadows, Johnson is able to go from something almost comical to the darkest horror in the time it takes to blink your eyes.

Props to Matt Johnson of The The fame for coming up with a suitable soundtrack. It tinkles away in the background, not once trying to force it's way to the fore of the film like so many modern soundtracks do. Gerard Johnson is definitely one to watch. I just hope there is more he has to give.

Lasermannen (2005) - Mikael Marcimain

Lasermannen is a three part Swedish mini series based on the best selling book of the same title by Gellert Tamas. Now there was a time when the idea of mini series conjured up nothing more than yawns, usually staring seen better days actors that no one under the age of fifty would be caught dead watching. Well obviously TV drama has changed a lot since those dark bloated days. In fact some TV shows are better than a lot of the pap that's pumped into the local cineplex nowadays. And this little beauty is no exception. It tells the true story of John Ausonius who back in the early nineties spent his spare time shooting foreigners in Stockholm. He started out using a rifle which he had fitted with a laser sight, hence the title of the series, and his tabloid nickname - The Laser Man. He was eventually caught, but like all true crime stories, there are things that happened that had they been in a fictional film, you would walk away from the cinema thinking it was a tad unrealistic.

Running at an arse numbing 270 minutes, it's split into three episodes all of which are over well before you want them to be. Exciting, scary, tragic, thought provoking and at times darkly funny, Lasermannen is all of these and then some. Ausonius is played to perfection by David Dencik, in a role that he will struggle to better. It's a true career defining moment, and it'll be interesting to see if he can shake himself clear of Ausonius in the future. The whole show is shot through in a grimly realistic fashion, guns don't sound like cannons, there is no one amazing policeman who through sheer dogged determination tracks down the killer, things go wrong, leads aren't followed up, murders aren't connected for a long time, not every person that is shot dies (in fact Ausonius only managed to kill one person), in short everything feels real. Dencik is Ausonius. Taking us through the trauma of his teenage years, into the events that shaped him into a killer. All the while director Marcimain manages to keep the swing to the right in Swedish politics from that time firmly in the frame via real news clips. I can't say enough about just how important this film (because ultimately this is a really long film), is for Sweden. Time will tell, but I feel certain that it will be looked back upon favourably long after Låt den rätte komma in has faded from memories.

Now the reason I decided to dig this out when I did was simply because politically Sweden is back where it was in the early 90's. There is a growing nationalist movement, and only a few months ago someone was shooting at foreigners in Malmö (the city I live in), managing to kill one person. Of course the press labeled him nya lasermannen (the new laser man), and for a while there it was horrible to live in Malmö. However the police now have someone who they believe to be the killer in custody, and since then the shootings have stopped. I've always been of the opinion that society creates it's own monsters, Lasermannen backs up that theory 100%.

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) - Dario Argento

Ask any film mentalist who the greatest Italian Directors are, and chances are you'll end up with a list chock full of the usual names;- Fellini, Pasolini, De Sica, Rossellini, et cetera, et cetera (as the king of Siam was wont to say). All very yawn yawn, but true. The one name that often gets overlooked is that of Dario Argento. Now Argento might look like one of the living dead, and have a haircut that looks like an offended wig, but he is one of cinemas greatest living visualists, and anyone that doesn't agree is wrong basically.

All right so I'm being a bit facetious, but I do mean what I say. His films aren't always the best in the story or acting department, (in fact his recent batch are supposedly so bad, that I've decided to just stay away from them altogether), but they always deliver on the visual side. And lets face it cinema is first and foremost a visual medium. In a way he's the Italian Hitchcock if you will. I'd even say if you don't love the film, you will still enjoy gorging yourself on the beauty he throws onto the screen.

You don't believe me do you? Well take the opening scene of the film I'm supposed to be writing about. A band rehearsal in a huge room. Dario fills the frame with all sorts of bizarre camera set ups. Everything from ultra high crane shots, to having the camera on the neck of a bass. Then there is a shot that is from within a guitar, which threw me for a while until a hand came down and started strumming along to the music. He also uses the camera in a very subjective way, often creeping around the strange houses that his films take place in, using the camera as the point of view of the murderer. Ah did I mention that he only really makes horror films?

This is the only one of his films that I hadn't seen up until his recent loss of talent. It's the third part of his so called animal trilogy (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage & The Cat o' Nine Tails being the other two). Like both of those two films it's not Argento at his best, being neither gory or strange enough as the string of classics he would produce after Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

Anyway, the film, write about the sodding film I hear you chorus across the valleys. Well it was good, if not a mite predictable. Anyone used to a typical giallo film will know what to expect. For those that don't know their giallo, it's a string of murders, normally quite elaborate in their execution, the viewer is as much in the dark as the main character, it's very much a whodunit in much the same way as that TV series Midsomer Murders. Normally the first person that died turns out to be the killer, or it's some character that we only saw once briefly zipping up his trousers. Mad stuff like that, it doesn't make any sense or bear close scrutiny after the film has finished, but as I said you don't watch Argento films for the story, and definitely not for the acting. You see the Italians up until the 80's didn't record any sound on a set, everything is post synced. Well I say synced but it all looks like a Bruce Lee film, the mouth is moving and words are being heard, but something looks weird. But that's the way it is, even in Fellini films. It's charming in a way, and plus it means that you can cast around the whole world and have actors speaking all different languages on set without any problems. Just dub it in afterwards.

Anyway, the film, the film. The whole thing plays out rather rapidly, the drummer in the band has murdered someone (or has he), someone saw him, and now they're blackmailing him except they don't want money. There is some uncomfortably unfunny comedy, a strange gay detective and some of the most wooden acting of any of Dario's films (and that's really saying something). On the plus side it does have a dream like quality too it, which crops up in some of his greater films. The whole execution dream being particularly noteworthy. The murders are a little dull, and there are the usual silly moments where you find yourself shouting at the soon to be victim, to not go up into the attic, when she hears the murderer moving through the dark house. But there you go. Great to look at, with a typically odd 70's Morricone score. I can see myself watching this every time I go through an Argento phase (every 5 years or so). Now if he could just make something decent for his next film.