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[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2023.

Sitting in cinema screens in 2023 has continued to re-enforce that it is a weird time for the industry, with huge three hundred million dollar (!) blockbusters attracting only ten or twenty people per screen on opening weekend and highly acclaimed independent movies being given no home except for a dumped VOD release. This year felt ‘tough’ being a fan of both great films and the big screen experience. 

Anyway, scaremongering over... it is time for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of this year, 2023.

[Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive.] 

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. Which was a tough rule to stick to this year because I thoroughly enjoyed the lean and effective b-movie action horror antics of Last Voyage of the Detmer, which could’ve earned a slot on my list had its UK release not been pulled 2 weeks prior to its date due to its European distributor going bankrupt. 

Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make fit yet believe they deserve a shout-out regardless and then I get stuck into what I think are the 25 best films of the year. Anyway, without further ado, here are the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

Action movies that I have enjoyed this year include The Covenant which holds the distinction of being an actually enjoyable and tolerable Guy Ritchie movie, John Wick: Chapter 4 who’s bludgeoning and unnecessary excess gives way to a final hour that is part ode to Walter Hill’s The Warriors and part ‘modern action classic’ effort, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 which was uneven but still the best Marvel effort in quite some time (though that is a low compliment), the first part of the French two-parter Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan which brings John Wick-ian action to the oft-told tale, the Gerard Butler ‘Prime Exclusive’ double-bill that was Kandahar and Plane, Denzel Washington’s (“final”) entry in his Equalizer series and Thomas Jane’s cheapo Brannigan / Coogan’s Bluff b-movie tribute, One Ranger. 

Not many comedies impressed me this year but going off the ones that made me laugh and surprised me some what were the kind of delightful Woody Harrelson sporting underdog remake Champions, the vastly better than we all thought it was going to be / surprise sleeper success of the year No Hard Feelings and the ‘animals saying uncouth things’ silliness that was Strays. 

I liked a lot of horrors this year; the legitimately great (no seriously!) Influencer, the gimmick-heavy but incredibly effective No One Will Save You, the immensely fun Kids Vs Aliens, the Covid-19 slasher that you didn’t realise you secretly sort of wanted that was Sick, the semi-disappointing yet still enjoyable recalibration that was Evil Dead Rise, the Godzilla-homaging creature feature The Lake and the frankly insane / insanely nasty Project Wolf Hunting. 

Not a huge amount of animation blew me away this year but Leo was a stand-out for not just being shockingly good but for the sheer amount of repeated viewings it has gone through in my house with my boys without it losing too much. I have to also give props to Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse which was gorgeous to look at and immensely entertaining but excessive and unwieldly to its own detriment.

It was a good year for documentaries with both Milli Vanilli and The Pigeon Tunnel impressing me immensely. The former being surprising in its depth and emotion. But within the documentary form it was a banner year for the ‘biography’ approach with genuinely excellent and thorough studies of fascinating people. I loved Mr Dress Up, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Judy Blume Forever, Hatton and Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.

Dramas I’ve liked a lot in 2023 have been Till which moved me immensely, the justifiably acclaimed May December, The Burial which was far more captivating than it had any cause to be, the Netflix survivalist preposterousness that was Nowhere, Ben Affleck’s fabulously entertaining Air which was another entry in the ‘business origins’ subgenre that continues to somehow flourish, Michael B. Jordan’s overdirected but strong Creed 3, the ode to old-fashioned 1990s studio potboiler thrillers that was To Catch a Killer, the Sky Original Dead Shot and the smart phone / techno warning Unlocked.

And in a little section all of its own marked ‘better than they had any right to be’ I’ve got to give a shout-out to Elizabeth Banks’ incompetently directed but decidedly fun Cocaine Bear, the Jackie Chan / John Cena greenscreen-heavy team-up Hidden Strike, the wonky but fun Scream 6, the exhaustive Extraction 2, the low-bar hurdling Blue Beetle and the absolutely insane (and mildly better than the last two excretable efforts) Fast X.

And now… my Top 25 favourite movies of 2023… but for those who know me to be an enormous John Woo aficionado I will make clear from the outset that at the time of compiling this I still have not seen Silent Night. Sorry. 

25. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

We must mention William Friedkin’s last film before his death - a reminder that the man was a master filmmaker across the board but specifically a master at letting the material and the performance(s) lead. Never has that felt more reinforced than with his interpretation of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial where, like what he did with his excellent made-for-tv redo of 12 Angry Men, he lets the power of one single setting, a very good cast and exceptional material (in this case a soft update of Herman Wouk's 1953 play of the same name) lead and he gets out of the way and stays there. A more fragile or less confident director at the age Friedkin was, at that point in his career / so close to the end, would've likely been tempted to go big or get flashy to show they've still "got it". There was nothing fragile or unconfident about Friedkin right up to the end. This is an impressively engrossing watch with a great kick at the end that Jason Clarke absolutely sells the shit out of.

24. Talk to Me

I genuinely thought the 'hype' machine was going to have seriously done a number on this, a la BARBIE, but thankfully that turned out not to be the case.

Directors Danny and Michael Philippou have taken a weathered and well-worn concept - that grief and trauma can be open gateways for otherworldly malevolence to exploit - and they've injected it with a fresh voice / energy, whilst respecting 'old standards' like practical effects work.

The concept is decidedly hokey and the lead character isn't particularly likable to say the least (though Sophie Wilde is excellent playing her), but the Philippou Brothers are so thoroughly committed here and the practical effects work is so impressive that it's infectious.

You're almost pulled 'in' despite yourself because the scares are so well-executed and the feeling of dread is so effectively threaded. You know you're being 'played' and you try to fight against it, but it's a mark of its quality that it gets you anyway.

23. Beau Is Afraid 

If Taika Waititi parlayed the goodwill and acclaim from a series of beloved low-budget Kiwi comedies into a mainstream career making multimillion dollar Marvel movies and becoming one of the most sought after studio hires of the last decade, then Ari Aster has used the instantly accepted and highly regarded successes of HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMER to... *checks notes* ... work through some complicated shit involving his relationship with his mother (and his father - who may or may not be an actual 'penis monster') and have arthouse kingmakers A24 pay $35 million for it.

This made less than a third of its $35 million budget back (because, come on now, how on earth do you effectively market this thing?) so it's tiring but true that the label "cult classic" has •already• been applied to it.

Look, I'm offering zero defence to accusations against the film that it is overlong, incredibly self-indulgent, ill-disciplined, carrying nowhere near the depth it claims to, tiresome and exhausting. It IS all those things. By the final stretch it is floundering haaard and there's a serious feeling of being trolled starting to set in.

But, first of all, it shouldn't be discounted how excellent and effective Joaquin Phoenix is here and Aster's wildly uneven material is greatly assisted by his casting. Secondly, it has to be acknowledged that there's moments - long stretches, in fact - where there's absolute brilliance at play here.

There's masterfully crafted moments of genuine hilarity (dark hilarity, for sure) alongside flashes of abject discomforting horror. I'd go so far as to say some of the most interesting, inventive, unique and intriguing moments in cinema this year are tucked away inside this behemoth of a clusterfuck.

People pushed hard for the extended cut of MIDSOMMER to be released. I'm pushing for the reduced cut of this.

22. There’s Something in the Barn 

 I thoroughly enjoyed and had a great time with this. It's not at all embarrassed to lean into its influences, evoking affectionate RARE EXPORTS / GREMLINS vibes without coming across like its heavily plagiarising from them.

 It’s got a terrific dry wit to it thanks to writer Aleksander Kirkwood Brown's script and which the cast, especially Martin Starr (essentially doing his SPIDER-MAN shtick here) and a very winsome Amrita Acharia, sell well. And director Magnus Martens doesn't skimp on the dark stuff and sense of foreboding either.

 There's no snobbishness to put up against this thing - it's a horror comedy that made me laugh multiple times and jump occasionally. That's a very solid success to me and I highly recommend it if the likes of RARE EXPORTS, KRAMPUS, CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS and SINT are favourites of yours.

21. Pearl

I'm a big fan of Ti West and I really enjoyed X, which was one of my Top 25 of 2022 and which in my review I defended by saying:

"... It's very easy to dismiss what West is doing here as just an exacting homage to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE but it's more than that. Obviously there's overt nods to it but you could also suggest West is doffing his cap affectionately to Paul Thomas Anderson's BOOGIE NIGHTS, Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO and, yes, both Lewis Teague's ALLIGATOR and Tobe Hooper's EATEN ALIVE as well..."

This is an interesting companion piece to that movie (with a third entry, MAXXXINE, imminent) made more fascinating due to how it came into existence:

 Whilst in their Covid 'bubble' prior to production beginning out in New Zealand for X, director Ti West and star Mia Goth became so enamoured with the backstory they were creating for the character of Pearl that they wrote an entire prequel, pitched it to A24 and built filming into the back end of the original production. A high value 'two-ffer' if ever there was one.

The end result is something less blatantly and broadly enjoyable than the first (second) story but it's definitely the more curious and interesting one; if X really was Ti West's TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE / BOOGIE NIGHTS / PSYCHO / EATEN ALIVE bastardisation, this is his Douglas Sirk melodrama injected with Technicolor and falsely set loose as a 'follow your dreams' fable gone really, really wrong.

It obviously lives and dies by the lead performance and, by crikey, Mia Goth is so good here. That much-memed final credits thing is lauded but it's that late stage monologue that drops your jaw a little. If horror wasn't so easily dismissed her performance would've won awards.

For years we've always considered horror prequels to be the nadir of the genre. After all, who cares if Leatherface only became Leatherface because he was made redundant? Or Jason Vorhees killing nubile teens because he got his pot farm trampled on? Or... or... how no one taking Michael Myers trick or treating turned him into a psychopath? Here though, PEARL indicates that doesn't always have to be the case.

20. Reality 

For those worrying as to whether Sydney Sweeney's tsunami of scantily-clad content across advertising and social media platforms has left her precariously overexposed (in more ways than one), along comes this fascinating and considered film to remind you that behind the bikinis, the false nails and the airbrushing is an extremely talented actress capable of incredibly powerful work.

Devoid of make-up, carrying the film nearly 70% of the time in close-up shots she can't fake her way free from and regimentally parroting the actual recorded FBI transcripts down to every sigh, stumble and gulp Sweeney is frankly astonishing in how she carries this thing.

Director Tina Satter keeps things tight in terms of both location, framing and running time (it plays as an almost real-time exercise) and as a result the film becomes a riveting, claustrophobic and maddening display (how did Reality Winner's actual charges and ridiculous sentence stand when all of this occurred without correct due process and legal entitlements being followed from the outset?) from a first-time film director showing exceptional command of her cast and her visual space.

19. Fair Play 

Chloe Domont's corporate morality play / torchlight on gender politics by way of a recalibration of the 1990s style erotic thriller is all the more astounding because of how assured and masterfully controlled it is for someone's feature directorial debut.

 Driven by two excellent performances from Phoebe Dynevor (who I'd not seen before in anything and was astonished by her) and Alden Ehrenreich (who I think is terrific and deserves treated way better by the industry), and supported by atypically great turns from Eddie Marsan and Rich Sommer, this thing has no right to be as engulfing and nail-biting as it is for what it is.

 Domont refuses to make compromises or concessions in the way she presents latent sexism, money, toxic alpha cultures, wounded pride and corporate backstabbing infecting her characters. It's a brutal, relentless ride she takes us on.

 One where the brash bloodied cunnilingus opener keeps returning to your conscience like it was heavy foreboding for what feels inevitable - these two can't keep tearing away at each other like this, surely? Not without someone dying at the other's hands.

 You keep trying to shake that feeling off, telling yourself that it's not ~that~ kind of film. But as this thing starts to barrel towards its third act it is testament to Domont, and how Dynevor / Ehrenreich are executing her material, that you come to realise all bets are off.

18. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One 

There's action movie franchises and then there's •this• action movie franchise; hitting its stride at the fourth entry, delivering back-to-back masterpieces with its fifth and sixth and now this - a seventh entry so frickin good it rides out evident flaws (and Mark Gatiss' horrendous "accent") that would absolutely fatally decimate other films!

Because it feels sacrilegious to even say this but the latest entry manages to straddle both being very good, decidedly high end, etc etc and... *whispers it* ... kinda 'samey' to what we've had since Christopher McQuarrie became 'grand master':

Still no one trusts the inherent righteous genius of Ethan Hunt, forcing him to go against one and all. Blah blah. There's excessive shots of Tom Cruise running. Yes, yes. There's elaborate stunts seamed together by a 'not as clever as it thinks' plot. Of course. And too many characters. Far too many. Confoundingly, it feels somehow a little stale and yet brilliant.

The film's 'grand' action sequence this time round has been so overexposed, so heavily spoilt (a making of dissection for it ran before the film itself at my screening for Christ's sake) that you naturally assume it'd deflate a little by the time you see it 'in context'. That's not so. Mainly because it is actually just the entrée to the main course which is the train finale.

The climax is an utter masterwork of technical execution, mixing real stuntwork with very well done greenscreen and (yes, shocking as it is to say for a Tom Cruise movie) CGI facial replacement alongside terrifically accomplished narrative construction.

 If like me you continue to be aggrieved by the presence of Simon Pegg's Benji and how he's ostensibly exactly the same character as Luther with exactly the same skillset, routinely forcibly sidelining a vastly superior Ving Rhames, then that's more evident here than ever before. So much so that they literally 'Poochie' Luther out of the film in the third act. Which is obviously racist bullshit. Also, I know I stand alone in my apathy towards Rebecca Ferguson (I really don't get the adoration for her / her character at all) and my hatred for Vanessa Kirby and all the stupid gurning that comes with her, but both are drowned out by a crackin' turn by Pom Klementieff and a performance from Hayley Atwell that you really need to believe the hype on; she lights up the screen and is a tremendous comedy player amongst all the weighty waffle.

And that's the film's biggest flaw that ROGUE NATION and FALLOUT both managed to masterfully swerve - the minute the action stops the film starts to sink under the weight of really heavy exposition. Mounds and mounds of the stuff, in fact.  I know McQuarrie and Cruise have been open about how they conceive a script around action set-pieces but this is the first time where the stitchwork is so headache-inducing having to listen to it that you start to see a wobble in the method for the first time... even more so now McQ and Cruise have started injecting all this whiffery about "the choice" and portentous context about how IMF agents work, are recruited, etc. Like, what are you doing trying to 'John LeCarre' my fucking MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies, goddamnit?

 Still, it's the most minor of hardships considering you're never more than 10 minutes off from getting out the other side of all that exposition and getting to another sublime action sequence or a close up of Atwell's wonderous smile.

17. Sisu 

"Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness, and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English (tenacity, grit, resilience and hardiness are much the same things, but do not necessarily imply stoicism or bravery)."- Wikipedia

The RAMBO sequels should look to this, kneel before it and weep just for being in its presence.

And we better start doing the same with Jalmari Helander, who in just three movies has done Finnish 'interpretations' of John Carpenter horrors, 80s Amblin movies and now 'lone warrior' action films to magnificent effect.

This is a gloriously ridiculous live action cartoon of violent excess and bonkers propulsion; land, water and air set-pieces of utter insanity stitched together with inventive, nasty gore.

It is outlandish in its speed, its fat-free story construction and its refusal to ever stop or give way to wimpy, silly things like character development.

16. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

I totally get Hollywood's whoreish mentality for seeing something succeed and then bastardising it to the point that what we once loved is something we become bored by - it's why we suffered through a noughties onslaught of what felt like nothing but zombie movies because 28 DAYS LATER landed well or why everyone's trying to do "shared universes" now because of Marvel.

Or why after the massive success and instant affection for INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE every animated movie of late has been plagiarising the hell out of it.

You saw the trailer for this - a heavily belated sequel to a spin-off from a SHREK sequel - pulling that very shit and it just felt a bit like your old dad after your mum's left him, spraying on the 'hair filler' and squeezing into skinny jeans to "get back out there" and prove he's "still got it"...

... and then it just casually reveals itself to be a film of massively inventive design (both visually and narratively), that's surprisingly deep and very funny - and as a result superior to both its predecessor and the entire franchise from which it was born.

You don't •think• you NEED time spent in the company of Olivia Colman and Ray Winstone as Mama Bear and Papa Bear or Florence Pugh as Goldilocks and John Mulaney as Jack Horner... or best of all ELITE SQUAD's Wagner Moura as Death... but you absolutely do! Don't make the mistake of thinking you're 'above' this sort of thing, cos I can guarantee you you're not.

It's a delight!

15. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny 

It feels like I've got to be apologetic in my opinion of this if 'Film Twitter' / the critical majority is to be believed, in which case I'm sorry but I enjoyed this. I just don't think you should ever underestimate the positive impact factor(s) that can be drawn from this particular actor turning up on screen as this particular character, scored to John Williams' music. And I'm saying this as someone who's seen KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

 I can see why people would have issue with this latest / last outing; it's overlong to the point of bagginess (there's a staleness that starts to set in from the repetition of Jones and Co landing at a location, having the baddies immediately show up, outwit them and make off with the macguffin only for Jones to steal it back) and the character of Helena Shaw is a fairly odious and unlikeable one who exists to cause more shit for Indiana Jones than is tolerable (and I was no fan for the most part of how Phoebe Waller-Bridge played her).

And then there's the 'look' of it too. Did it HAVE to have such a shitty, plastic sheen to it? It cannot be overstated that one of the most tremendous qualities of those first three INDIANA JONES movies was in how Spielberg went out to REAL locations and had Vic Armstrong and Harrison Ford REALLY ride REAL horses and jumped on top of REAL tanks or fall under REAL trucks. Here, it's pixels and screens. Again. With nothing learnt from the issues KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL generated.

James Mangold has done a commendable job of 'apeing' Steven Spielberg and there's a lot - and I mean a lot - of great action here. But the vast majority of it has the shine taken off by continually cutting into terrifically adrenalinised action sequences to insert very obvious greenscreened shots of Ford and Waller-Bridge bickering and shouting like they were really honestly / definitely / maybe there involved with the sequence when it was getting filmed.

It's infuriating because this thing is stacked to the gills with thoroughly enjoyable, legitimately well-designed action sequences - the escape from the castle in the French Alps, the Apollo 11 parade and New York City Subway chase, the Tangier sequence, the Aegean Sea set-piece, the Ear of Dionysius cavern stuff and the airfield chase - but in every single one there's moments of really quite shoddy CGI that draws you right out of the moment to remind you 80% of this was done on computers. There's not ever a moment to make you gasp in awe at how the stunt-man survived like in the original trilogy. But there's a LOT of moments that has you thinking "This thing cost $350 million?"

But all that said, Mangold making a 'fan' version of a Steven Spielberg INDIANA JONES movie is better than Steven Spielberg phoning in one. And I'm not going to lie, this thing had me from the minute the font come up in the opening titles and we got a straight-up legitimate 1940s set INDIANA JONES mini-movie (which seemed to sit as an eery bedfellow to MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7, weirdly enough) with the best... though still not flawless... de-ageing techniques I've seen.

14. The Fabelmans

It's more than a little disingenuous for all involved, specifically Steven Spielberg himself, to describe this as "semi-autobiographical" and "loosely based" on his adolescence and first years as a filmmaker when anyone who's read any number of books on the man or watched director Susan Lacy's 2017 biographical documentary can see the beats are all there, wholesale. If THIS is "loosely" then the biopic version would be the greatest invasion of privacy ever committed. This ~isn't~ a "fable", man!

I can also see with it why some have braced against it and the instant critical adoration that was applied to it, because the longer it sticks around the more muddled it becomes about what its point of view is and whether it has anything left to say. By the end it slides to a stop after 2½ hours with an admittedly wonderful (and wonderfully bizarro) comedic bon mot having scattered barely etched vignettes / sketches in its final stretch. And tonally, there's questions as to really what was trying to be said with that late 'Ditch Day' subplot and whether co-writer Tony Kushner was working through his OWN stuff within Spielberg's memory bank.

That being said, I loved it in all honesty. For the first two thirds of its running time, I thought it was •really• something special - and anyone pushing out the notion that this is Spielberg on autopilot ain't watching this properly. That cold pan cutting his [screen] father from the frame in a moment of parental happiness but leaving in his [screen] mother and her lover? That's some brutal, subtle craftsmanship there. And layered on top of choices like that is more precision cinematography from Janusz Kamiński and scoring (for the final time?) by John Williams.

The performances across the board from Gabriel LaBelle (as 'Sammy' / Spielberg), Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, [CENSORED] and Seth Rogen are extremely good. Though as atypically great as Williams is here, I'm not certain this ends up being the 'ode' to Spielberg's mum, Leah Adler, that some think it to be.

I totally understand the perspective of those that see this cynically as a 'pre-designed awards hoover' - you can't help but come away from Judd Hirsch's cameo feeling like the entire thing was written as a Best Supporting Actor Oscar clip reel - but for me it just hit me right in the chest... exactly as it will for anyone who spent some of their best summers with their dearest friends, being creative, making films, watching films, dreaming of a future that involved cinema, fending off unsupportive family and trying to hold close those that did try to help your talent flourish.

13. Babylon

As much as Film Twitter has taken against BABYLON's final moment, it must be said that for a "love letter" to cinema and the movie industry overall, Chazelle can 'sign it off' how he likes (and "SINGIN' IN THE RAIN to AVATAR" is certainly •a• take!) with no obligation to be subtle. However, considering there's NOTHING subtle about this film whatsoever preceding it, why you'd think it's conclusion would be any different is silly.

I'm a Damien Chazelle fan. I liked WHIPLASH and LA LA LAND enormously and I genuinely consider FIRST MAN one of the finest films of the last decade. No matter its flaws (of which there are several), I drew a great deal of enjoyment from this, his latest effort. Repeat viewings have put it as one of my favourite films of 2023.

It's a very, very messy film. Chazelle seems to believe the debauchery and excess of the era his narrative lands within - Hollywood's transition from silent to sound films in the late 1920s - gives him unrestrained reign with an overindulgent running time and a cavalcade of graphic content. Added to all the blood, vomit, excrement, etc etc the opening Kinoscope Studios Exec's bacchanalian mansion party is the "opening sequence of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN" of debauched, drug-fuelled, orgy sequences in cinema.

There's no real consistent throughline to any of this which makes it all the more difficult to embrace across 190 minutes and because it plays like a plethora of sketches it has massive peaks and troughs Chazelle doesn't always seem to have total control of - the vignette involving Margot Robbie's Nellie LaRoy first experience of recording a 'sound' take starts solid, gets funny, outstays its welcome and then beats you into submission.

There's a lot of excellence here though. Whether that's in Brad Pitt's surprisingly layered, moving and deft turn or through the sojourns onto the desert location shoots of multiple oscillating productions, topped off with the very 'on' appearance of Spike Jonze's 'Not Otto Preminger' Otto Von Strassberger.

I'm thinking that opening on elephant defecation and sordid acts of urolagnia is something that in retrospect director Damien Chazelle may well be regretting now critics have been "pissy" about his latest film and it's now considered the big box office "turd" of the year.

12. The Killer 

I've seen a few people talk about this as if it's "beneath" David Fincher, inarguably one of our greatest working filmmakers today. Like a tight hitman-out-for-revenge yarn based on Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon's comic book series is not "worthy" of him or something. Clearly these people are forgetting this is the same guy who spent 6 years in development hell on a WORLD WAR Z sequel, gave us the glorious (if flawed) bit of pulp that was THE GAME, the immensely effective b-movie in an a-picture gown in PANIC ROOM and remade an adaptation of a popular airport potboiler with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO in amongst whatever is regarded as his "prestige" flicks.

It's absolutely a David Fincher movie; that's apparent in the droll humour, the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack and the clever visual flourishes - like the entire Amazon 'bit' in the final stretch.

It's a caper. A yarn, if you will. A bit of pulp, just with high end flourishes - such as Fincher's meticulous choices, Erik Messerschmidt's cinematography and the casting itself (Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell and Tilda Swinton).

There's this brilliant layering here between the clinical, detailed voiceover Michael Fassbender provides (that leads us to believe this is an assassin at the peak of his 'game') and the actions we physically see from him on screen (missed shots, beat downs suffered, etc) that indicate there's a little bit more than what's on the surface.

I had an absolute blast with this - a tight / immensely refreshing sub two hour, jet black comedic (the aliases!!) thriller that sits as Fincher's hat tip to Jean-Pierre Melville's classic, LE SAMOURAÏ.

... Though I do want to deduct a star off my final rating for the bit where Tilda Swinton co-opted my favourite 'go to' pub joke that I've relied on for 20 years. Now whenever I tell it people are going to say I've just ripped it off this, goddamnit!

11. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

What an absolute gem of a film!

You knew you were in steady hands because Judy Blume's 1970 source novel is just that good, Kelly Fremon Craig's EDGE OF SEVENTEEN is an instant classic and there's a dependable excellence that comes with casting the likes of Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates.

But there was always the risk that this COULD'VE got fucked up. Some idiot at the studio might have tried to modernise it. Or believe that it needed more 'incident'. Or cast someone too precocious in the lead role. But James L. Brooks clearly bodyguarded this thing correctly.

The final result is a sweet, funny and very lovely little film with an absolute sweetheart of a turn from Abby Ryder Fortson as the title character.

I genuinely loved spending time watching this.

10. 20 Days in Mariupol 

There's a moment in this - Mstyslav Chernov's truly harrowing frontline documentary of the twenty days he and his colleagues spent besieged in Mariupol after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine - involving an emergency cesarean and an unresponsive newborn that is more upsetting, more thrilling and more uplifting than the combination of every horror and every feelgood drama released in the last five years.

This is the most important and vital film you'll see this year and then never ever want to see again.

More so because as humans in this modern age we rather callously only seem to have the heart / stomach / attention-span for one 'war' at a time, and we appear to have abandoned the Ukrainian conflict to refocus our outrage on what's going on in Gaza instead.

For large parts of it we feel like Mstyslav Chernov's been given exclusive access to the pits of hell and he's taking us on a tour. This is intense and riveting, shockingly so considering the unrepentant footage of dead or dying children.

9. The Night of the 12th 

I've worked in the field of investigation for over 20 years and I can tell you this much - this movie fuckin gets 'it', man.

In opening with the title card that it does it offsets any eventual disappointment you may feel when the ending arrives. You don't feel short-changed because you've been brought in from the start to share the frustration with the characters.

There's nothing easy here. Nothing pat. Just real investigatory pathways followed with dead ends jumping out in front when everything in your gut says this lead, that lead or the next was going to be 'the one'.

It painstakingly shows that the work is in the hours. And the work can become an obsession. An obsession that gives nothing back equitable to what it takes from you.

It starts with a suitably harrowing and upsetting sequence and it ends on character uplift in lieu of narrative resolution. It also sits as one of the best movies about the art and reality of investigation in modern cinema.

8. The Creator 

If there's anyone out there still 'over crediting' Tony Gilroy for the success of ROGUE ONE - one of the best (and the last great) STAR WARS films - this is the "fuck you" exhibit.

Gareth Edwards' sci-fi action epic doesn't entirely land its thematic intentions and hampers itself somewhat by placing dramatic reliance on the anti-acting vessel that is Gemma Chan, but by crikey is it an enthralling and gorgeous-looking ride. (John David Washington remains a magnetic watch, though I do wonder because he sounds so much like his dad whether we're all just hooked on the idea that they've 'prequelised' Denzel?)

You're gifted something here that feels like 1982 Ridley Scott and 1993 James Cameron have got together to play with action figures and do a sci-fi Vietnam movie... it's glorious stuff!

Full of some of the best effects and well realised set-pieces of the year, it's the old 'protect the child' trope given a beautiful lick of paint thick to feel make it feel just about unique enough and a) stand out in an ocean of comic book movies and sequels, and b) probably make Neil Blomkamp go "Ahhh. That's how you do this? Riii-ght!"

So of course no fucker showed up to watch it!

7. Close 

I don't really have friends. I don't have the sort of 'personality' that lends itself to people being able to find me tolerable at the most basic level - at least for more than a couple of hours at a time anyway. 

I've come to accept and acknowledge this fact the older I've got in life. I've always tried to make friends / keep friends etc but the type of person I am seemingly lends itself to being easily used and/or quickly put down.

It wasn't always like this though. When I was a child there was a boy who saw something in me that others did not and could not. He was in my class and lived close by my grandparents, where I spent most of my time. We were bonded by our loneliness amidst a sea of heads at school as much as our shared sense of humour. Even at a young age I came to appreciate this friend for simply •liking• me and we quickly became inseparable.

On the last day of school, with a vast and limitless summer ahead of us before separate high schools would provide an inevitable divide, we had an argument. A silly, stupid, ~nothing~ argument - significant enough in postscript that I can still recall it now 31 years on - that degenerated into shoving and me accidentally banging his head off a bathroom wall during lunchbreak.

We left school that day with our friendship impacted and the first week of the summer holiday's heavily damaged by him not being by my side in it. And on the very night that I finally decided I didn't want this to continue any longer... that the very next morning I would pick up the phone and ask him if he wanted to go ride bikes in the dene... he died.

An asthma attack. A fuckin asthma attack.

He died not believing that I was his friend and that devastated me. It still does. 31 years later, I think about Neil at least once a week. I see clips of talent show magicians and KNOW that'd have been him. I've tried all my life to replicate a friendship like it and I've never succeeded. But can we ever generate that closeness in adulthood towards someone like we could as children, when we were free of responsibility and bonded by limitless possibility?

I've frequently wondered what my life would've been like if Neil had still been in it, telling myself over and over that this would've been one of the rare pre-teen childhood friendships that lasted.

I miss him and would give anything to be able to deliver the apology to him that he deserved then and is still owed now.

So... all THAT said... it goes without saying that this deeply human, carefully etched and very naturally drawn drama hit me like a train travelling at 150mph.

This is one of the most effective and important films about grief, trauma-processing, adolescence and friendship that there's been in some time.

It really is a brilliant piece of cinema that should be shown in schools to every kid from twelve upwards.

6. The Eight Mountains 

Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch's adaption of Paolo Cognetti's novel is a (both visually and emotionally) astonishingly beautiful effort with two fascinating and textured performances from Alessandro Borghi as the adult Bruno and Luca Marinelli as the adult Pietro.

It's an intimate epic; a careful, patient and quietly profound treaty on friendship, life, love, ambition, Buddhist concepts, ancient Indian cosmology, growth, nature and the weight of legacy.

Come for the stunning footage of the gorgeous Italian Alps, but stay to be deeply moved by something really rather special, wholehearted and sincere that steps right over whatever BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN esque expectations or assumptions you may well carry into this.

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

I've never understood anyone - especially the aged fanboys frequently responsible for ruining the STAR WARS and MARVEL 'discourse' - who's shown territoriality over the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES as a "franchise".

The reason this ramshackle 1984 indie comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird has blown up into five television series, seven films, multiple video games and a range of toys / merchandise for four decades is mostly down to the way it sorta reinvents itself every five or so years. Which means there's some form of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 'content' now for all of us in one way or another.

And one of the most impressive - but not THE most impressive - things about this film is how it incorporates something from everything that's gone before without becoming a complete mess. The spirit of the comic book source material is front and centre alongside the legitimate effort of the 1990 movie adaptation. The "that'll do" crappy clart of its sequels is avoided whilst the huge scale of the maligned Bay-ified 2014 - 2016 movies is represented. It definitely captures everything about the first Saturday morning cartoon that enamoured the property to us way back when.

It's a glorious effort. It truly is. I watched it with my son and his friends and the huge grins on their faces was infectious. I struggled to think of another entertainment entity that has moved so effortlessly through the generations like this has.

It's a visually resplendent film. It takes the reconfiguration of the animated form a la the SPIDER-VERSE movies and delivers a surprisingly more focused and tighter effort than the latest SPIDER-VERSE sequel. It is dripping with an energy and confidence that will surprise you, as well as a whole heap of heart and humour that will delight.

Yeah, there's moments here and there where the energetic visual styling becomes a little too cluttered in its action sequences but it is a minor grumble against what is a surprising instant masterpiece of its type:

A sweet and funny teen movie walking in the shoes of an animated giant sized comic book blockbuster wearing the coat of a New York conspiracy film, drenched in classic East Coast hip-hop and a score by by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and performed by one of the most impressively eclectic voice casts of recent.

(Within a roster of Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, John Cena, Ice Cube, Natasia Demetriou, Ayo Edebiri, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, Rogen, Paul Rudd, Maya Rudolph, Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr, Nicolas Cantu and Brady Noon, it is Jackie Chan that absolutely steals this thing by a considerable distance!)

4. Asteroid City 

If you aren't a Wes Anderson fan this is not the film that is going to convert you. An immaculately stylised and composed metatextual 'Russian Nesting Doll' celebration of the construction of art and the art of storytelling? No way. No how.

There was elements of it that didn't work for me but what •did• work I was head over heels in love with. The [CENSORED]*constructs felt almost like afterthoughts and didn't particularly resonate. A lot of reviews hit Anderson for being unfocused and overindulgent, and I kinda can see where they're coming from. But only with regards to that particular element.

[* censored by me and hopefully by everyone else because they've done a wonderful job of hiding the story construct from the marketing]

The rest of the film is primo Wes Anderson in his most astonishingly stylised form with his attention to detail never more sharp.

A complaint that must be noted though is in the casting, where the usual 'Anderson Players' appear to have ran a 'pyramid scheme'; bringing in actors who's casting has attracted other actors to the point of it being too cluttered an ensemble in too lean a film to let everyone truly shine. Despite all the plaudits, I think Scarlett Johansson is well out of her depth here. And I just think if you're going to hire the likes of Steve Carell (replacing a Covid-addled Bill Murray at the last minute), Margot Robbie (who should've played Johansson's part, and vice versa) and the sublime Sophia Lillis but barely use them properly it's almost a crime!

When it's funny it is hilarious. When it is delightful it sits as a heavenly confection. And when it wobbles it still isn't as ponderous and disappointing as some of the lesser elements of THE FRENCH DISPATCH.

3. Oppenheimer 

I found every plaudit for this to be true and what a reward it was to receive as cinema lies stale in its current state, crusted with the stale decay of innumerable shitty-sheened superhero movies and sequels to things no one was asking for.

Here's a mature, complex, expertly constructed character study of great depth and intelligence; a film primarily made up of scientists and mathematicians thinking and squabbling amongst themselves whilst a non-linear deep betrayal born of immense pettiness plays out almost as an appendices to the traditional biopic... yet, thanks to the music of Ludwig Göransson and editing by Jennifer Lame, it moves like this insanely kinetic action thriller instead.

The ending stretch feels almost ~too~ trite and neat though, it must be said. Although maybe I'm tarnished by a feeling that no movie should depend on the cripplingly irritating overacting of Rami Malek to play last-minute 'saviour'.

Cillian Murphy is frankly outstanding here and whilst most critics have the Best Supporting Actor Oscar locked for Robert Downey Jr (who's brilliant and who's Lewis Strauss receives a 'kiss off' by Nolan here that almost feels like a Marvel Cinematic Universe esque tease for a sequel about Strauss arranging the JFK assassination!) it would be good to see Matt Damon get some recognition here as his General Groves very nearly steals the whole movie with very little.

The casting is so sumptous overall that every scene induces a "Hey! That's..." as the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, David Krumholtz, Matthew Modine, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke, Michael Angarano, Jack Quaid, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, Macon Blair, Tom Conti, James D'Arcy, David Dastmalchian, Dane DeHaan, Alden Ehrenreich, Tony Goldwyn, Alex Wolff, James Remar, James Urbaniak and (is it a spoiler to say?) Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman roll out to 'play' for one or two minutes.

It's the sort of movie so stacked and packed even at 3 hours that it puts Emily Blunt (as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer) in such an undercooked and underdeveloped role you wonder why they cast a 'star' in it... until that clearance hearing scene near the end where she goes and delivers the impact of a... well... an atomic bomb and you think to yourself "Oh. That's why they cast Emily Blunt!"

It's a gorgeous-looking - Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography is luscious - cinematic achievement by Christopher Nolan, where his visual ambition and clinical cinematic technique have really come together once again to remind you the term "modern great" as a filmmaker is well earned.

2. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves 

A "great time" - seeing as the film itself had my beloved GAME NIGHT's Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley at the helm - perhaps. But a resoundingly delightful time that left me instantly eager for more of these movies and DEFINITELY future revisits of this one? I'm shocked at just how brilliant this was.

I can't believe that one of my favourite films of the year is a 'fantasy heist action comedy adventure' based on the infamous tabletop role-playing game.

Especially considering I've never played nor have any frame of reference / interest towards the tabletop game (my sole DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 'knowledge' stems from the 1980s cartoon series - which gets a pretty terrific nod here!) and one-third of the cast is made up of actors (Michelle Rodriguez and Regé-Jean Page) I can't normally stand.

I've been a big Chris Pine fan for a long time now and his performance in this only increases the fandom. And I've flat-out crushed on Sophia Lillis since IT and she's pretty tremendous (if a little underserved) here. The whole cast - yeah, including Rodriguez - are pretty wonderful with Hugh Grant clearly having a grand ol' time, a "big star" mid-movie cameo that'll only land depending on your opinion of this diversive 'talent' and Justice Smith very nearly stealing the movie out from under Pine.

This thing is built within the framework of a marriage between THE PRINCESS BRIDE and the aforementioned GAME NIGHT. It's ostensibly LORDS OF THE RINGS meets OCEAN'S 11; a series of ever escalating challenges and heists that are thrillingly executed within a film that's very, very, VERY funny. The opening prologue is a complete statement of intent ("Where's Jonathan?") that tells you exactly the movie you're going to get.

Killers of the Flower Moon / Godzilla: Minus One 

Simply astonishing to indulge in - there's such a deft, surprising delicacy to elements of Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon that's all the more astounding considering the abhorrent subject matter.

That comes mainly from the performance Lily Gladstone provides this film with. In a sea of tremendous work - and by God it's both magnificent to see Robert DeNiro be great again and for Leonardo DiCaprio to finally do something in my eyes that lives up to his [overstated] reputation - she is working on some other stratospheric level.

Comments about the length by some don't resonate with me. I certainly didn't feel it, necessarily. It's probably the length it needs to be to do justice to the masterful source material its adapted, deliver a legitimate love story (of which, don't be fooled by its toxicity, this is), a film of weighted historical and cultural context AND a true life / true crime procedural.

It's surprisingly less gratuitous than you'd probably expect too. Especially considering we're in the hands of our greatest living filmmaker, someone who's never shied away from presenting us with absolute violence of an uncompromised nature.

There's also these splashes of jet black comedy occasionally popping up too - like the horribly bleak but darkly funny scene in which one henchman asks a lawyer about whether adopting then killing his Osage wife's kids would make him a benefactor of their riches. When the lawyer rightly points out it sounds like he's confessing to planning child murders he replies not unless the lawyer's answer would be affirmative.

This is a film that consumes you. It pulls you in and drags you down - you're in the presence of pure evil and weak character, and Scorsese expertly holds you there so escape feels as impossible as justice must have to the Osage.

It's very easy to 'throw around' the term "masterpiece" when it comes to Martin Scorsese. Mainly because the fucker keeps effortlessly making 'em. But by crikey this really is one.

Equally majestic as a piece of cinema, but in an entirely different form and genre is Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla: Minus One.

By concentrating on making an interesting drama with genuinely well-etched characters (that just so happens to have a giant radioactive monster passing through intermittently) equal to a barnstorming blockbuster creature feature (that allows itself to be infected with enthralling drama and character development), this steps up in the year of the Godzilla franchise’s 70th year to take the position as its best entry [by a considerable distance] in its illustrious history.

Buzzing with some of the best set-pieces of the year soundtracked to a thumping and all-consuming score by Naoki Sato, there’s genius in recalibrating a Godzilla movie – of all things – in order to develop an incredibly touching human drama and social commentary about what makes a family, what is the true definition of patriotism and courage, what real service to one’s country presents as and how to find air to breathe / the will to go on in a post-war Japan where unrelenting despair hangs in the atmosphere wherever your head turns and ‘fear’ manifests itself as a skyscraper-sized lizard-of-sorts.

We know we’re being played with the cute kid and the manipulative makeshift family relations, but that doesn’t stop it being wonderful. The marriage of sincere impacts caused by war and loss with sci-fi fantasy (but no less tense) fantasy action shouldn’t work, but they very much do. This thing is firing on multiple levels and it succeeds across the board to stand as the best blockbuster of the year.   

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a Letterboxd link for this whole thing if you're that way inclined.

Tell your mum I said hello.

See you next year...

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2022.

It has continued to be a weird time in cinema, post-pandemic, as we've started to get used to the glaring evidence that studios will sabotage their own content line to honour some new 45 day streaming deal... and the films that brace against said deal offer tsunamis cash in return but seemingly no means to change the studios' course.

We're now two or three back-to-back $250 million comic book disasters from the total destabilisation of cinema as we know it now! Anyway, rant over... it is time… or at least tradition… for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year. This time for 2022.

[Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive.]

Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make fit yet believe they deserve a shout-out regardless and then I get stuck into what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. Anyway, without further ado, here are the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

Of the animated movies released this year - and in a year when I was drowning in this genre through content-overload due to having two young boys - Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Wendell & Wild, Mad God, Fireheart, The Bad Guys and The Sea Beast were all stand-outs.

Comedy-wise I liked both Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and The Lost City way, way, way more than I thought I was going to in the case of both. And when it comes to dramas I was impressed by The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Survivor, Thirteen Lives, Amsterdam (somewhat controversially, apparently), The Outfit and A Hero.

In the world of b-movies, exploitation flicks and straight to dvd/blu-ray/streamer I very much enjoyed Fall, Hell Hath No Fury, Violent Night, Smile, The Northman and Fresh. And blockbuster-wise, I really enjoyed Avatar: The Way of Water in all its heavily flawed / long-awaited glory, The Gray Man, RRR, Beast, Ambulance, Bullet Train, Raging Fire and Dune.

But really 2022 was where documentaries got to shine and I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend the varied selection of subjects offered up in Is That Black Enough For You, The Super Bob Movie, The Alpinist, Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis, The Tindler Swindler, Sidney and Into The Deep: The Submarine Murder Case.

Now...

... without further ado, my TOP 25 MOVIES OF 2022!

25. Beavis & Butthead Do The Universe

I've spoken before of my accepted hypocrisy surrounding these characters / their show and how my apathy towards them turned to affection when their 1997 film was released.

I'm hereby cementing that hypocrisy by acknowledging that whilst I STILL don't get the appeal of those original shows, this sits solidly alongside the first film... and currently stands as one of the best comedies of 2022.

Nope, I can't explain it either.

But funny is funny and there's some terrifically funny stuff here.

24. Ted K

I can't believe there's apparently zero 'chatter' around this. It sneaks up on you as one of the best films of the year - a small-scale character study of the infamous Ted 'Unabomber' Kaczynski, measured in its approach but fiery in its central (and mostly solo) performance from Sharlto Copley.

I have a friend who's worked with Copley on both HARDCORE HENRY and FREE FIRE and described him as one of the most unnecessarily cruel people they've worked with - an egotist quick to flash between machismo-drenched "mate-iness" and irrational fury at the smallest of things.

A performance like this from Copley indicates there's truth to the old industry saying that all the best are bastards.

Written and directed (as well as produced and edited) by Tony Stone, the film is quietly methodical and completely involving. It has an unmatched authenticity to it by utilising only the content of Kaczynski's manifestos for dialogue and matters of court record for the plot.

It's so committed to staying within Kaczynski's "voice" that it is scary how you catch yourself occasionally agreeing with his perspective on certain matters now the things he 'warned' against have come to pass... then have to remember he was a fuckin lunatic first, a psychopath second and a 'prophet' much, MUCH further down the line!

23. X

I'm a big fan of Ti West. He's not prolific - though this already seems like an ‘out of date’ statement seeing as he used the pandemic lockdown(s) to turn this into an entire trilogy! - and he doesn't claim to be anything that he absolutely isn't (hello Eli Roth!) but he quietly delivers the goods.

His debut THE ROOST isn't a great film but there are flashes within it that show a filmmaker of real potential. THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is one of the best slow burns and has one of the best third acts in modern horror. THE INNKEEPERS is an absolutely underrated gem and his play on Jonestown with THE SACRAMENT slowly flips into a nasty and absorbing effort. I'm also a massive fan of his legit Western, IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE, which is fuckin mint and you should definitely seek that out.

It's very easy to dismiss what West is doing here as just an exacting homage to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE but it's more than that. Obviously, there are overt nods to it but you could also suggest West is doffing his cap affectionately to Paul Thomas Anderson's BOOGIE NIGHTS, Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO and, yes, both Lewis Teague's ALLIGATOR and Tobe Hooper's EATEN ALIVE as well.

As both writer and director, he knows you've read the log-line - a group of 70s young filmmakers set out to make porn on a Texas farm but have to fight for their lives when their elderly hosts take against them - and he knows you're here for the sex and the gore. And he delivers solidly in both regards... but only as camouflage to play around thematically with cinema's complicated relationship with sex and violence, whilst commenting of sorts on religious/political conservativism and the well-known adage that nothing makes an old person feel old quite like the young.

The cast - Mia Goth (in dual roles, wink wink), Jenna Ortega, Martin 'Remember Him?' Henderson, a surprisingly great Brittany Snow and Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi - do grand work with what West gives them.

No one should try and suggest this is anything unique or any sort of game-changer in the world of horror. It isn't. It's a standard stalk-and-slash in most regards - that's a cut above the norm due to what West is bringing to the table.

22. Benedetta

I had an absolute blast with this - constantly enthralled as to whether it was ever going to lose balance of the precarious pile of tones it had amassed for itself, and plummet from one to the other beyond repair; high campery, religious/historical document or erotic psychological thriller.

Paul Verhoeven - long since done with Hollywood excess - masterfully curates and cultivates each so they somehow feel a complete companion to the other in ways that just simply shouldn't work.

After all, how many borderline camp historical erotic psychological nun dramas do you know of that are drowning in plaudits?

Verhoeven's handling is relaxed because he knows that he's hit a lottery win in casting Virginie Efira as Benedetta and Daphne Patakia as Bartolomea. With them nailing the material and the tone he is shooting for he can afford himself confidence that the end result will be as excellent as it is.

21. Christmas Bloody Christmas

I'm a Joe Begos fan and was very much looking forward to this, though I'll absolutely understand why it ain't going to be for everyone. Begos - who's ALMOST HUMAN and VFW I like a great deal (BLISS and THE MIND'S EYE somewhat less so) - makes movies for fans of 1980s exploitation and gutter cinema. He's the bastard step-child of Frank Henenlotter and James Glickenhaus and he writes and directs like he doesn't have a single fuck to give.

Nowhere is that screamingly more apparent than in the set-up for this, his latest movie where his attitude seems to be "Yeah, there's a department store robotic Santa Claus that has old military hardware in it, so fuckin what? Deal with it!"

Begos makes threadbare Carpenter / Romero homages; bargain basement gratuitous genre movies full of inventive gusto and practical effects - his movies don't 'mean' anything, he just wants to ink his influences onto a filmic bat and then bludgeon you with it.

A delightfully game and fully committed Riley Dandy really sells the schlock here. And there's a great time to be had here. It's a 'five beer masterpiece' of sandpaper raw creativity, with Begos rolling out a green and red neon-drenched BEFORE SUNRISE for piss-heads that evolves into a gory festive hack-and-slash horror flick before, with a quick salute to ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, kicking the gear up to the highest notch as a punk rock TERMINATOR.

20. Kimi

I was obviously going to be predisposed to liking this on the grounds that it is the master Steven Soderbergh working from a script by the repeatedly excellent David Koepp to do a modernised REAR WINDOW but with a 21st-century spin involving virtual assistant technology, starring "soooo hot right now" Zoë Kravitz.

But I wasn't prepared for just how thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable it was.

It's a master craftsman making unashamedly pulpy, tight-as-hell, mainstream genre fare.

Kravitz is magnificent. Soderbergh barrels the whole thing along at a rate of knots...

... It was the first goddamn great ride of 2022 for me.

19. Elvis

I was pretty damn sure I was going to haaaate this because the marketing of it had me royally turned off and Baz Luhrmann tends to leave an inconsistent 'taste' in my mouth with his films.

Shockingly though from the get-go, this thing knocked me back and put a huge grin on my face - the Elvis "legend" done as a massively overblown live-action 'cartoon' with all the visual gaudiness that the man himself would be proud of.

It's so dazzlingly kinetic straight-out-the-gate that you wonder how they're going to maintain this - and the answer is they don't. Around the 40-odd minute mark, the giddy overblown live-action 'cartoon' gives way to a conventional biopic and you think to yourself "No. Wait. Where is the ~other~ film?"

It intermittently returns in fits and starts to that level of energy and when it does the film is all the better... the overblown live-action 'cartoon' area is where Tom Hanks' sort of iffy, insanely broad 'almost Batman villain esque' performance sits best for obvious reasons. In ELVIS' grand dramatic "straight" moments it's the super rare thing; a Hanks performance that could be considered bad.

The marketing and the trailers would have you believe Baz Luhrmann's choice of Elvis is stupefyingly basic and prettified. The reality is that Austin Butler does something here of real depth and texture that will surprise you. Especially seeing as he achieves this amidst Luhrmann's most gaudy excess.

John Carpenter's miniseries may well remain the granddaddy of the Elvis Presley mythos. But inconsistencies bedamned, there's still a grand time to be had here.

18. Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers

I was as shocked as you probably will be yourselves that one of the funniest comedies of the year is this:

... a fucking CHIP N' DALE: RESCUE RANGERS movie - recalibrated by The Lonely Island trio as a, get this, redress of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT with a loving ode to the work of Shane Black's action buddy movies and PI capers.

It's astonishingly good and, thanks to the insane amount of background gags and ridiculous in-jokes, its rewatch factor will prove to be insane.

Frankly, any movie that takes the best breakout comedian of the last few years and builds a role for him around the best Internet joke / biteback of 2019 deserves to be regarded as a masterpiece!

17. Lou

I saw the 'Bad Robot' production card come up instantly at the start of this and I immediately bristled because I can't remember a time when that wasn't a bastion for "fucking up a good thing". But I have to admit this thing bloody rocked - hard!

Like with NOBODY, the snarky expectation that this was going to be a smirk-inducing irreverent take on those 'elder-action' movies - with the casting of someone thoroughly unexpected (in this case character acting legend Allison Janney!) then building a crazy action b-movie around them - gives way to something surprisingly... legitimate!

Director Anna Foerster (a longstanding colleague and collaborator of Roland Emmerich) works closely with cinematographer Michael McDonough to make a great-looking, lean as fuck, propulsive film full of washed-out greys and vibrant greens as characters barrel through a drenched wilderness in an extremely solid play on TAKEN and DEADLY PURSUIT.

And Foerster's best asset is in the casting of folk like Allison Janney, Jurnee Smollett, Logan Marshall-Green and Matt Craven - none of whom are phoning this in, at all. Janney, in particular, is fully committed to this and its that commitment that accentuates the shit out of this.

You can go into this with your nose turned up and your standards dialled down, but that'll only serve to have the surprise hit you harder at what an excellent character study and impressively ace action movie this reveals itself to be.

16. Speak No Evil

"Why... are... you doing this?" "Because you let me!"

I'm very conflicted here on what I can or should say about this film by way of any sort of recommendation.

There's elements to it that easily secure it a place in my end-of-year Top 25... yet by granting it a place it works against my desperate need to do everything I can to forget I ever saw this.

It's the sort of film that in my twenties I'd be calling a "masterpiece" but now, as a parent (with its dialogue so on the nose that at its most harrowing it has characters saying reassuring things I say to my eldest all the time - only for them to be devastatingly proven a lie here!) I was left broken by it.

So much so that, no word of a lie, when it was finished I sat up into the early hours watching 'comfort movies' whilst muttering to myself "Why did they not run?" "Why did they accept their fate so willingly?" "What the... FUCK?"

Christian Tafdrup should absolutely be commended for making a film so expertly calibrated as he moves the narrative through observations on masculinity and assertiveness then onto a dark satire of social graces and expected norms... before throwing his hands up in a 'Yeah, you got me. I was just fucking with you - This IS a horror movie!' sort of manner.

His film wouldn't work without that quartet of performances either. And Morten Burian and Sidsel Siem Koch are exceptional as the Danish couple taken out of their depth by their own politeness, whilst Fedja van Huêt and Karina Smulders are outstandingly vile as the Dutch couple who... invite them over.

It all leads to a place that has to be left undescribed and unspoiled. Its potency will be at its highest if you go in knowing nothing. But it will and should destroy you. You can grimace and grumble at the lack of proactive protectiveness displayed by its leads (and no parent worth their salt is going to watch this without pulling a 'Mark Wahlberg after 9/11' by going "That ain't how it would've gone down on MY watch, motherfucker!!") but it won't dilute the truly upsetting and disturbing power of it anyway.

15. Nope

I went back for a second go-around and really liked it even more. I definitely appreciated it a lot more for what Jordan Peele was trying to pull off and genuinely admired it for pushing to be different.

Once it gets its 'ducks in a row' it goes off and goes off hard and fast. It delivers what you're wanting it to - effectively and efficiently, but not necessarily by way of "the little green men" route many will be expecting.

It's a terrific though wobbly horror thriller. Another sign that Jordan Peele is •developing• into a great director (not necessarily a great writer). He's just not your "new John Carpenter" right now so let's calm down, huh?

I just still don't 'get' the manner in which we have elevated Peele to "master craftsman" status as a filmmaker after just 3 movies when his efforts are in no way flawless or particularly 'masterful' as such.

I'm even saying this as someone who has really enjoyed the guy's work thus far too. Including this film. But each one shows a filmmaker who's really good... but just not quite there yet. Certainly, as a writer/director, whereby he displays a skill as the latter that's nowhere near matched with the former.

GET OUT is great but absolutely overcooks its own second act, allowing you the viewer to 'get out' ahead of the film and wait for it to catch up. There are elements of US that indicate Peele is even better there, only up until the end of the second act when it becomes obvious the man is all 'concept' and no 'clue'.

Here, the film feels positively laborious straight-out-the-gate as pieces are moved into place - it's another film that seems unwilling to acknowledge we've seen the trailer, we know what we're fuckin here for so there's no fun for us in watching Peele find his way on screen in the film itself to get us to the destination we're come to it for.

As I said though, once it gets its foundations laid it's a great ride with some very intense, effective and evocative set-pieces. This could actually be my favourite of Peele's movies so far.

14.  The Batman

Did you watch SE7EN and ZODIAC and think to yourself "Man, this thing would kick so much more arse if BATMAN was the lead investigator?" Then boy oh boy do I have the film FOR YOU!

Revisiting it at home on a smaller screen, this 'breathes' differently. The reality is that it is an overindulgent 2-hour action thriller in the body of a 3-hour blockbuster. It's surprisingly less stacked in the grandiose action set-pieces than you'd expect for a comic book movie of this ilk (it's 70-odd minutes before it puts anything remotely blockbustery on show in terms of bombastic action) so watching it in your living room means you can off-set its length by pretending it's actually a miniseries type of deal.

There were things that aggravated me about this (it's far too long - unnecessarily long) and the cinematography by Greig Fraser is just TOO damn dark; there are moments here where the lack of visual clarity in simple dialogue scenes makes it impossible to see who the hell is talking to who.

And the film's excessive length is padded out with investigations into riddles that are rudimentary at best and kind of lack sophistication considering the speed it is taking "the world's greatest detective" to solve them.

But overall I had an absolute blast with it.

It took me a ~little~ bit to bed in with Robert Pattinson, an actor I've never really rated outside of the phenomenal GOOD TIME, yet overall it didn't take me very long to fall into the world Matt Reeves has built.

Reeves - a stupendously talented director of high-end spectacle, as the APES reboot sequels showed - has nailed 'Gotham'. Christopher Nolan still regarded the city in his movies as a cosmopolitan one 'with fractures'. Here Reeves presents it as the dirty, broken cesspool that is consuming its inhabitants - and we are able to recognise it from the greatest comic books in the Batman run.

Okay, admittedly his homages get a LITTLE heavy and on the nose (there's a scene in which Batman kicks down the door of The Riddler's apartment that is framed, lit and even staged with the same red doored corridor in the background to match the moment Mills does the same to John Doe's in SE7EN... with both serial killers' having the same interior decorator) but you're not going to quibble when Reeves over-delivers on the spectacle.

(That car chase with The Penguin is a phenomenal experience - but, again, pedants could argue how wholly 'original' it is when elements of it are lifted from James Gray's WE OWN THE NIGHT.)

Reeves has also cast interestingly rather than big and, for the most part, it works (the Colin Farrell thing is... kinda... sorta... brilliant?)

I think if we've reached the point of accepting that the comic book movie now fully controls the cinematic market across all demographics than this is how you deliver your 'fight back':

You make your big, thematically dark serial killer / investigatory procedural movie with all your broad cap doffs to everyone from David Fincher and Christopher Nolan through to Sidney Lumet and William Friedkin... and you stick it inside of the mould of a BATMAN movie!

13. Av: The Hunt

I'm frustrated that one of the best action-thriller releases of 2022 is sitting right there on Netflix with zero promo and seemingly absolute silence in terms of internet chatter.

Emre Akay's AV (aka AV: THE HUNT) is a propulsive, timely, hard-edged Turkish spin on THE FUGITIVE esque 'man on the run' movies that sets its engines going 6 minutes in and doesn't stop for another 80 minutes thereafter.

The unique hook lies with its female protagonist (Billur Melis Koç's commendable and impressive turn as Ayşe) and the bare notion of her "crime" (infidelity) setting her up against what feels like one Turkish town's entire patriarchy.

Not everything Akay's attempting here works, the ending is abrupt to say the least and some may find a modicum of monotony sets in. But for the most part, it has simplicity in its structure on its side; Ayşe is set running and only stops to find herself in low-level situations that become high-wire tension drenched concerns every time a man walks into them.

12. Licorice Pizza

I was reminded watching this of an assertion David Mamet once made long ago about how a screenplay should 'throbbingly pulsate' with the *need* to be told. Because Paul Thomas Anderson's latest kinda/sorta proves Mamet wrong.

There's nothing here that screams out a story you 'need' to involve yourself in (a very good friend of mine would argue that would be true of all of Anderson's oeuvre, really) but that's not to say you wouldn't have a grand old time with it regardless.

Lazily (and incorrectly) attributed by some critics as being Anderson's paean to his own childhood in the Valley, it is in fact the filmmaker's ode to SOMEONE else's - hearing anecdotes of friend and producer (and co-owner of PlayTone with Tom Hanks) Gary Goetzman's childhood acting in YOURS, MINE AND OURS with Lucille Ball and starting businesses in his teens selling waterbeds and pinball, Anderson became fascinated by his life and was eventually tipped 'over the edge' into bringing it to the screen after finding out a teenage Goetzman once installed a waterbed in legendarily insane producer Jon Peters' home.

Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood composes a score that compliments Anderson's terrific curation of 1971 - 1974 musical 'deep cuts' that serve to soundtrack a loveably shaggy and messy movie (but a considerably less shaggy/messy one than Anderson's still mostly misunderstood INHERENT VICE).

There are things that work absolutely delightfully here and then there are things that don't (amongst them the entire John Michael Higgins bon mots with him using shockingly un-PC "Ahhh So" accents when speaking to his Japanese wives; Anderson saying its attitudes that would be "contemporaneous and accurate portrayals of the movie's time period" don't make them any less uncomfortable).

That same split exists in the performances. Sean Penn makes no attempt other than to play his usual 'notes' in embodying his William Holden facsimile whilst Bradley Cooper completely ~nails~ hairdresser-turned-producer / perpetual maniac Jon Peters. Alana Haim fluctuates scene-to-scene in terms of 'competency' as an actor (but mostly comes good in the end) whilst the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman's son Cooper lands straight-out-of-the-box as an actor of natural talent. And Skyler Gisondo drops in early to steal scenes left, right and centre as is his way these days (see also BOOKSMART).

Those 'outraged' by the age difference are right to highlight the hypocrisy that it would be very unlikely that a film of this ilk about a 25-year-old man falling in love with a 15-year-old girl would be met so rapturously. So it's a testament to Anderson's skill at play here that we spend the movie willing the two protagonists to end up together and thoroughly enjoying being in their company along the way.

11. All Quiet On The Western Front

I see some questioning why they did another adaptation of the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque when Lewis Milestone's 1930 version is still so definitive, effective and beloved.

Perhaps to some, it's 'quaint' by today's standards and the epic anti-war sentiments deserve to be reconfigured for an audience of today whose sensibilities are calibrated (desensitised, even?) by CALL OF DUTY, etc?

Edward Berger has done that; equaling Lewis Milestone's 1930 achievement in delivering a truly horrifying, sobering anti-war screed with a flow of violence so unabashed in its reality and extreme it'll shake the 'first person shooter' to attention and must •surely• deter anyone from ever refusing to believe warfare is only futile and unappealing.

Director Paul Schrader recently used his [wonderful] Facebook account to discuss this film thusly:

"There's a valid argument that all war films are pro-war films. It's not possible to dramatize the fetishisms, the comraderies, the energies, the strategies, the technologies, the common purposes of war without glorifying them. Every anti-war film is a pretend anti-war film. Netflix's German update of All's Quiet is as close to an anti-war film as anything I've seen. There's no bravery, no comradery, no honor, no intelligence - just stupidity and brutality. A searing indictment of war. But it's still a pro-war film."

I'm not sure I agree entirely with Schrader there but it rolls me back around to something the late Samuel Fuller once said about how it was the responsibility of the studios to never let the war movie die as a genre though for it not to be used as a means to entertain but to educate, that an audience member should come away with no desire to see a frontline or that filmmaker had failed.

When Ridley Scott learnt US armed forces applications went •up• after the release of BLACK HAWK DOWN he acknowledged he'd failed in his intent. Edward Berger hasn't failed here, have no doubt there. And he's given tremendous assistance from Volker Bertelmann's thumbing trumpet-blast score.

His decisions within his adaptation aren't flawless. The addition of a secondary plot (as represented by Daniel Brühl's Matthias Erzberger) following the creation of the November 11 armistice is well intended but it pulls away from the intensity of the singularly first-person narrative of the novel and the 1939 version. It lengthens the film unnecessarily and dilutes (only ever so slightly) the intensity of Paul Bäumer's journey.

As Bäumer Felix Kammerer is nothing short of exceptional. In the final stretch of the film he is utterly unrecognisable and your heartbreaks for the inevitably of his character's fate.

In the conversation of great war films to land in the last 10 - 20 years, this has to hold a place.

10. Everything Everywhere All At Once

I will admit that the first 20-odd minutes of this provoked more anxiety and stress in me than the whole of (the still sublime) UNCUT GEMS. At the exact moment it wondrously kicked into gear I was frankly already exhausted... and then it didn't stop for the full stretch of its 2½ hour run time.

To say it is unrelenting is an understatement. It is completely exhausting. In its unwieldy, epic state it is the most ill-disciplined and unrefined film to be born of a film so clearly built upon refined structure and narrative discipline. To put it simply, there is just TOO MUCH of a good thing going here.

And it IS good. Very good in fact.

But I could only just about cope with it. And I'm intrinsically built for a Michelle Yeoh showpiece that doesn't just lean in on her martial arts majesty and her worth as an actually brilliant actress, but also delivers thematically on the meaning of life, existentialism, metatextuality, what some are referring to as "dadaist absurdism", Asian-American identity in today's society, nihilism and the concept of the 'multiverse' done in a manner FAR greater than Marvel have done thus far.

Come "Awards Season", if the conversation doesn't include Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan (the man responsible for the brilliant 'Data' / 'Shortround' double-strike of the 80s) and Jamie Lee Curtis - all of whom are frankly tremendous - than legitimate questions have to be asked about a race / age bias or some sort of lack of comprehension as to what "best" actually means at these awards.

Yeoh is the anchor and obvious star of the show. It's a given that her martial art skills are fabulous but it's the additional shades she brings to this too; the dramatic depths, the genuine human emotion and the surprisingly exquisite comic timing.

The whole cast are equally great too though, including the legendary James Hong, Stephanie Hsu (saving the film from the shitter by thankfully replacing Awkwafuckwit) and, yes, the mighty Randy Newman "as the voice of Raccacoonie".

It's all astonishingly well directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as "Daniels") in a manner that will frequently drop your jaw... it's just they cause a drop so often and stay around for too long thereafter that you eventually begin to notice the jaw ache more than the film.

9. Hustle

I wonder whether Adam Sandler and director Jeremiah Zagar got some sort of early screening of TOP GUN: MAVERICK whilst it lay in 'pandemic situ' for 2½ years and realised there was still a way forward / no shame in unabashed feel-good cheese; staking a pole in the same warm, rewarding ground off the back of it.

Here's a film that stares at all the tropes that come with this sort of thing and lovingly embraces all of them - put-upon underdogs, stacked odds, boo-hissable villains and antagonists, training montages, rewarding endings - whilst finding a couple of new spins on a few of them.

It will probably reward more for those with an arcane knowledge of basketball and its current players (many of whom play themselves or roles herein) but it's rewarding in its own right too.

It's also a surprisingly funny film too. Sandler (who is very good here - he's sincere and natural, earning big laughs from being real and engaged) shows that his future must / should lie not in those soulless, joyless 'holidays with the buddies' broad anti-comedies he's become known for but in dry 'dramedies' that get to show how deft he can be as an actor whilst killing it with zingers dropped in his lap.

Sometimes you want cinema that's going to blow you away with something unexpected and unique. And sometimes you just need a new spin on dependable old standards to give you a good time.

8. Nightmare Alley

I absolutely ate this right up - loved it!

Yeah, it is drastically overstretched (does 150 minutes REALLY have to be the new 120-minute 'normal' now?) and there's a slight cruelty in putting someone like Bradley Cooper - who is considerably more a "movie star" than a strong actor, no matter what his ego tells him - up against wall-to-wall pitch-hitting exquisite acting talent as robust as [deep breath] Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Clifton Collins Jr. and Tim Blake Nelson...

... but those are the most minor of issues offset by the fact we get to spend time being spoilt by a master craftsman who's made one of the most sumptuously framed and shot films of the last few years.

This is a film where Guillermo del Toro's sheer passion (and the gorgeous cinematography by Dan Laustsen) seeps through every shot. There's an entire layer beneath the film's narrative and performances where you could watch this with the sound off and still fall into the images like it's a warm bath.

Those praising / criticising Del Toro for making a 'homage' to old film noir really miss the point that he's actually made less a homage and more an actual entry into the noir pantheon. It's not a tribute to the greats of yesteryear. It's an equal that happens to be set in that era.

7. Barbarian

I was really worried this wouldn't hold up as joyously once all the 'revelations' were out there and what not - though I can't imagine a first-time experience of it would hit as hard knowing all of its directions beforehand, so thanks for *that* Empire Magazine - but it does; slightly less impactful yet still absolutely a fun thrill-ride!

Easily one of my favourite horrors in quite some time and one of the best films of this year, you've GOT to go into this knowing as little as possible. Preferably nothing, in fact. The joy (one of the film's many) lies in being routinely wrongfooted at each and every point that a 'standard' horror would drop a 'typical' trope, whilst the dial keeps getting ratcheted up and up and up - until you're neck deep in expertly crafted scares.

There is absolutely a reason that it is an old-fashioned word-of-mouth sleeper hit and a "Fuck You" variation of it at that, grossing over $42 million worldwide (currently) off a $4.5 million budget after a disastrous door-to-door trip around every major and mini studio in town and getting rejected by all of them initially.

Honestly, there are some truly terrific horror beats in this thing; big dollops of shadowy manipulation, "Ooooh you fucker!" jump bits, gratuitous gore, stomach-turning gross stuff and exceptional levels of foreboding. That this is all delivered by Zach Cregger in a solo directorial debut (after a career in Twitch streaming and comedy troupe membership!) is nothing short of astounding. This thing plays like the work of a genre craftsman.

The film is a really interesting construction that offers up mini-movies within a... Actually, even THAT is saying too much. Let's just say that the accentuating of its quality level and its ability to throw you on the backfoot is achieved in the casting of Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long.

Campbell gives one of my favourite performances this year in this and I think the whole thing only works overall because of what her and Skarsgård pull off early on. And Long, who I'm a big fan of, is just... just... so deliciously wrong here that it's tremendous.

God, I can't wait to dig into this again and again. An instant genre classic, if you ask me!

6. Prey

I remain really impressed with this. Whilst a definite high watermark in the PREDATOR series (though is that THAT hard?), the notion that it may be an "instant action masterpiece" as stated by some critics is somewhat overblown. It certainly holds up to repeat viewing though as a terrific little actioner.

Dan Trachtenberg, working off a script by Patrick Aison and working with a performance by Amber Midthunder (an absolute find, by the way), delivers a clean, lean, rousing, thankfully streamlined action b-movie that in its final moments sets itself out as not so much a prequel but an opening chapter in a story trilogy that ends with the reveal in PREDATOR 2...

... and cuts out all the 'noise' drawn from the pretty naff PREDATORS, Shane Black's pretty disappointing THE PREDATOR and those pretty unwatchable ALIEN Vs PREDATOR 'side movies'.

There was a clear Joel Silver cultivated bombastic, borderline surreal, specifically McTiernan glossed perfection to the original PREDATOR that the franchise has frustratingly tried to emulate or flat-out rip-off. There's something very admirable here about how Trachtenberg manages to pay homage to it whilst trying to do its own thing.

5. Athena

Those opening 11 minutes are so audacious, so kinetic, so exhilarating and so sublimely choreographed and executed they serve to remind you how thoroughly tremendous cinema can be... on a streaming screen of your choosing through the Netflix app! Go figure.

What follows thereafter is a sheer rollercoaster ride whereby the film's smaller moments feel like a complete deflation because of the intensity of what's occurring on either side of them.

As a provocative political drama, it isn't entirely successful. It makes jabs in that regard rather than delivering effective blows. But the opening sequence is such a mighty, immersive 'statement of intent' that you're hooked and the film sneaks up on you as one of the best action thrillers of 2022.

And tucked away within this astounding, incendiary actioner is an acting debut from [then] 19-year-old Sami Slimane that isn't just thoroughly captivating but possibly one of the strongest debuts in the history of film.

Watch it as a double-bill with the very underrated and underseen Danish action flick ENFORCEMENT for extra accentuating!

4. Midnight

I put this up as the first truly great thriller of 2022. I was legitimately blown away by it - Kwon Oh-seung has crafted a high concept thriller (a deaf woman witnesses a serial killer's latest attack and must begin a silent flight and fight through one long night when she becomes his new target) that is so relentless and exhilarating there were long stretches where I forgot to breathe.

The film would be an absolute instant modern classic of its type just based on its jaw-droppingly impressive propulsion and the ingenuity of using deafness as a means to create additional danger out of everyday elements, but what it also has is two utterly exquisite performances:

Wi Ha-joon is deliciously odious as the serial killer but it's Jin Ki-joo as Kim Kyung-mi that will stagger you, most definitely in the film's final stretch where she delivers a monologue begging for her life that shatters your heart.

There's no country that is creating consistently magnificent cinematic content at the moment like the Koreans, who've absolutely mastered the ability to take the mainstream thriller and reconfigure it to fit a varying amount of co-genres (action, horror, sci-fi, etc) and themes. See the likes of THE YELLOW SEA, BEDEVILLED, THE SUSPECT, I SAW THE DEVIL, TIME TO HUNT, THE CHASER, THE MERCILESS, #ALIVE, THE GANGSTER THE COP THE DEVIL, AGE OF SHADOWS, THE VILLAINESS and now this.

3. Nitram

I was left genuinely shaken by this - a forensic recounting of the years of Martin Bryant's life (here identified as "Nitram" - 'Martin' spelt backwards - in order to continue the practice of 'dead-naming' him) leading up to the unfathomably evil 1996 massacre he committed at Port Arthur in Tasmania, in which he killed 35 people and wounded 23 others - several of whom were toddlers and children.

(This massacre - the worst in Australia's history - led to historic and fundamental changes in the country's gun laws in a manner that puts America to shame, though this film's postscript indicates the current statistics aren't impressive under scrutiny!)

It's easy to understand why this film was met with widespread concern and controversy within Tasmania itself. Only 2 cinemas in the whole island state chose to screen the film but opted out of advertising or listing showings. But those understandably perturbed and unsettled by its existence should draw something from the fact this is not a salacious nor gratuitous 'recreation'.

Justin Kurzel's previous jaunt around similar territory with his brilliant but thoroughly sadistic study of The Snowtown Murders easily leads you to believe the same level of unrestrained and unforgiving violence will be present here. That's not the case. The massacre itself is not shown other than to contextualise its beginning. There's an admirable restraint here that should be acknowledged.

Nor does the film seek to provide an 'out' or a rationalisation for Bryant's abhorrent behaviour. It presents his clear intellectual disabilities upfront and centre but never uses them as an excuse. Instead it leans in on how thoroughly damaged and dangerous he was long before 1996 and then clinically addresses how his social isolation and thirst for any form of inclusion on whatever term he could comprehend as 'normal' married with the neglect and lack of intervention from relevant authorities (parental, law, social services) created a harrowing / deadly storm - accentuated by decidedly odd circumstances and monies acquired.

The performances are across the board first rate; Essie Davis has the showy, quirky role that doesn't go where you think it will and Judy Davis is as dependably phenomenal as we've come to expect, but whilst this is very obviously Caleb Landry Jones' film and he is doing excellent and interesting work, it's Anthony LaPaglia who very softly and very delicately takes his role and uses it to break your heart.

This truly is one of the best films of 2022 - an uncompromisingly dark but important study that doesn't seem as interested in the "Why" as much as many suspected and instead quietly analyses the "How".

2. The Banshees of Inisherin

I fell instantly in love with this - hard! The marketing and Martin McDonagh's past work leads you into believing this is going to be a caustic comedic fable on fractured social graces and broken friendships, done 'the Irish way'. But that's just prologue.

Instead, McDonagh leads us into a tale of bizarro escalation and dysfunctional communication, of dented machismo, human warmth, unrequited love, repressed anger, extreme vengeance, loneliness and... maybe... metaphors for the Irish Civil War.

The script is dryly and frequently funny and the performances from the cast submerge themselves in the dialogue, knowing full well that they're being handed pure gold here.

Brendan Gleeson and Kerry Condon are dependably sublime as you'd expect but this is Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan's film. It takes a lot to say this, having spent decades either detesting the dude or apathetic to him, but Farrell's work here completely broke through to me once and for all. Farrell made me laugh and made me well up...

... but it's Keoghan's work here - specifically THAT scene with Condon down by the river's edge - that quietly devastated me to an extent that I didn't even realise I was crying until I'd drenched my own face. There can be no conceivable way the Best Supporting Actor Oscar isn't his.

I genuinely, genuinely adored this film and how it almost seems to take perverse pleasure in luring you in with the notion of some Irish GRUMPY OLD MEN redo with 'The IN BRUGES Boys' - only to slowly dim the tone and wrongfoot you into darkness!

1. Top Gun: Maverick

I had some degree of reticence that this wouldn't hold up 'at home'. Because, well, that IMAX experience really is a fuckin drug rush. But I need not have worried because everything that made TOP GUN: MAVERICK the inexplicably joyous filmic experience of 2022 is still all present and correct on repeat viewings. The most shocking element of all is that one of the greatest blockbusters / best films of the decade is a 36-year-old... sequel to TOP GUN??

That first TOP GUN movie is beloved for reasons totally disassociated from judging the film conventionally as a whole. It suffers enormously from being an empty confection with a main protagonist who is conceited, selfish, pretty misogynistic, unprofessional, predatory and by the film's end the character hasn't journeyed THAT far from those characteristics at all.

Here, you have a film with actual arcs - character-wise, dramatically and whatnot. So successful is it in this regard that I had a 'bit of a weep' at the end... over characters I couldn't have given two fucks about 130 minutes earlier. A lot of that has to do with the casting choices with an excellent Tom Cruise being backed up well by a shockingly good Miles Teller, a really lovely Jennifer Connelly, a brilliant Glen Powell, an underused Ed Harris, and a tender appropriate turn by Val Kilmer - and Jean Louisa Kelly (aka 'Uncle Buck's Niece') as his wife! The only weak link is the continually odious Jon Hamm, who takes the role Harris should've had.

How do you make this a truly flawless blockbuster? You cast either Tom Skerritt or Michael Ironside in Ed Harris' role. And Ed Harris in Jon Hamm's role. Coz MORE Ed Harris is NEVER a bad thing... and Ed Harris has never tortured a man and left him sterile by dragging him by his testicles with a claw hammer. Fuck YOU, Jon Hamm!

It is a film that finds ~something~ to say about time, legacy, regret, grief, ambition, responsibility, surrogate fathering and ageing and it says it inside of a sequel to a • 36-year old• film of which the best thing you can say is that its soundtrack is great.

All of that though is just the "soft centre" at the core of what you're REALLY here for, which is some of the greatest cinematic craftsmanship in the history of blockbuster filmmaking. Seriously. Shitteth ye not one jot. In an age of ugly, cheap, less-than-competent greenscreen CGI in the likes of DR STRANGE 2 and UNCHARTED marvel at real actors being taken to the skies in actual planes and barreled/battered at legitimate high velocity for our entertainment in action sequences that are stunningly visualised and carried out with clean geography.

Director Joseph Kosinski has pulled off an astounding achievement here. Believe the hype - every word of it! This is a movie totally unashamed to not only lean in but actually fully embrace old-fashioned sensibilities in cinema; like wearing its heart on its sleeve, being unembarassed by 'high cheese', manipulative high octane musical scores and (best of all!) the BEST narrative trope in all of cinema:

Here is a film riddled with the highest tier of technical sophistication yet it's driven by a (story) engine of completely perfect simplicity - the 'men on a mission' structure; we watch our main man assemble a team, introduce a mission, train for it and complete it. There's nothing more to it than that and yet it really is quite brilliant.

So much so that it actually does the unthinkable and adds texture to Tony Scott's empty 1986 original.

I've legitimately been trying to think of a situation where there's been a belated follow-up to a film I didn't much care for that I ended up liking a great deal more than its predecessor. The best I could muster was the likes of RAMBO or SCREAM 4.

Then I started thinking about belated sequels that came, landed and blew me away on a vastly greater plane than where my affections sat on the preceding movie. I came up with CREED, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (of course) and THE COLOUR OF MONEY - the Tom Cruise connection being not at all lost on me in this scenario.

TOP GUN: MAVERICK is a genuinely terrific piece of cinema. It is without a doubt built to be a euphoric blast of cheesy feel-good blockbuster filmmaking. And in the process it will likely end up as the absolute feel-good movie of the year. It's almost unfortunate that it is dependent on its association to such a lesser film.

---

And that’s that! 

See you all next year... Find me on Letterboxd as Gonzo McNulty if you fancy more of this, but daily.

[gazzhowie]

Hey, man. Just wanted to tell you I enjoy your lists, even if I don't always agree with certain movies on certain positions, lol. Take care and greetings from Costa Rica.

Aww, cheers man. I've just seen this and really appreciate you taking the time to write!

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2021.

It has most certainly been a ‘funny old year’ with the “traditional release strategy/format” all but kicked to pieces due to the global pandemic, but keeping things ‘ongoing and normal’ it is time… or at least tradition… for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year. This time for 2021.

Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive.

Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit yet believe they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. Anyway, without further ado, here’s the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

Documentaries that I enjoyed this year included Class Action Park, Tina, Assassins and Val. And animated movies I liked that deserve mention are Away, Luca and Raya & The Last Dragon.

Within the realms of big action blockbuster and b-movie fare, the likes of Space Sweepers, Without Remorse, Black Widow, No Time To Die, Boss Level, Force of Nature, Copshop, Love & Monsters, Beckett, Gunpowder Milkshake, The Paper Tigers, The Ice Road, Below Zero and Those Who Wish Me Dead all deserve a shout-out.

Comedy-wise, I liked Free Guy, The Climb, Werewolves Within and 8-Bit Christmas all proved likeable. And in terms of horror movies I very much enjoyed Run, Boys From County Hell, Come Play, The Boy Behind The Door, Halloween Kills, The Forever Purge, Freaky and The Djinn.

And in terms of dramas the likes of No Sudden Move, The Dry, Hunter Hunter, Enforcement, Finch, The Power of the Dog, News of the World, Promising Young Woman and Sound of Metal are all worth seeking out.

And finally, I don’t know what on earth you’d categorise Prisoners of the Ghostland as, but I know that I very much enjoyed it.

Anyway, with all that out of the way, here’s my Top 25 favourite films of 2021:

25. Coming Home In The Dark.

I was legitimately caught unaware by the sneak attack this film bestows upon you. The atypical psycho/cat-and-mouse horror you're expecting in the vein of say THE HITCHER or WOLF CREEK from this story of a school teacher being forced to confront his past when a pair of drifters take him and his family on a road-trip actually gives way to something darker and more meditative.

It settles under your skin somewhere between BLUE RUIN and RED HILL. It's clever and unsettling with brilliant performances. Both Daniel Gillies and Matthias Luafutu are outstanding, bringing texture to "villain" roles you've possibly never considered in movies of this ilk. James Ashcroft, in his debut as director, shoots this thing with an eye to capturing New Zealand's inherent natural beauty whilst framing and lighting his film in ways this type of white-knuckle survivalist ride has not been presented before.

This is not a film languishing in the stalk-and-slash tropes of the genre. It's a film that uses the form to present a more quite type of study on abuse, complacency, culpability and the empty futility of vengeance - and not necessarily drawing the conclusion you'd expect from it all!

24. Four Hours In The Capitol

I got the same feeling watching this as I did watching Jules and Gedeon Naudet's 9/11 documentary - the level of access and resultant immersion is equal parts awe-inspiring and distressing.

You're not just seeing footage from within the riot that is so much the 'eye of the storm' that in one harrowing moment you, as a viewer, are inches away and unobstructed in viewing a woman die. You're also being presented with interviews with the very insurrectionists who attacked Congress. It's the fucking true crime documentary that actually has the criminals rock up to brag about their crimes. It's not only shocking how brazen and unapologetic these talking head insurrectionists are, it's jaw-dropping how casual and self-reasoning they are about their actions. There's no regret or remorse on show here.

And that's what's possibly most terrifying - based on how the documentary lays it up there's no reason for these scumbags to reflect on their actions and think differently because, for a large contingent of Americans, January 6 was just the beginning of a very dark time ahead for the country.

23. A Quite Place: Part II

I was really, really impressed by this if I'm honest. I'm a massive fan of the first movie but the reverence with which it left John Krasinski being spoken of as a filmmaker had me worried the dude would fall into 'the hype machine' and end up overcooking any sequel.

And whilst it takes the tradition of getting more money (a $61 million budget this time round versus the first movie's $22 million, which is the reward you get when you spin that $22 million into $350.3 million!) to go bigger and bolder, it manages to keep the "big" and the "bold" in perspective: It's an equally nerve-wracking continuation even with its more spectacular set-pieces (the "Day One" prelude sequence at the start of the movie is •sensational•!) without ever losing sight of its 'heart'; this is about one family's plight... not a mass international military fight back!

It’s a really effective and engrossing follow-up to the out-of-nowhere "little movie that could". It's all for this franchise to fuck itself up now with spin-offs, side-movies and continuations that lose sight of what really works.

22. Don’t Look Up

I really think the vast majority of reviews are doing a disservice to this; Adam McKay's satirical allegory to climate change and the government, media and our own indifference towards it for the crisis it is. To McKay's credit he absolutely spotlights the apathy, incompetence and financial self-interest of the people in power in the face of such a crisis. He may well be symbolically using an "asteroid" for his narrative but the most interesting/barbed/shocking moments are when he has his characters saying things that actual government figures, lobbyists, TV anchors, etc have actually said about climate change but utilised in a different context here. It suddenly feels less funny. And he's assembled a truly stupendous cast too - eclectic doesn't quite cover it really; Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Himesh Patel, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Tyler Perry, Melanie Lynskey, Ron Perlman, Mark Rylance, Michael Chiklis and Paul Guilfoyle!

The film's biggest issue lies in the fact that it has not one ounce of self discipline. It's wildly self-indulgent and insanely overlong. There's a legitimate darkly comedic satirical comedy masterpiece hiding instead this near 2½ hour monster. One in which McKay drives home the points he's making again and again... and again. For example, are we really getting anything more out of Blanchett and Perry's vapid TV anchors in their fourth 'bit' that we didn't get out of their first? Could Lawrence and Chalamet's "romance" have felt less rushed if we'd had just maybe one less go-around with Jonah Hill's 'diminishing returns' Trump Jr shtick? It's all well and good having an audacious ending like this one has. But not when you've got a viewer rolling their eyes / checking their watches by the time it arrives.

If the 'Extended / Unrated / Wild Director's Cut' of the DVD boom of the noughties could be reversed, I would like to see the 100 minute version of this. Because THAT could honestly be a real modern comedic great. And, look, whilst I’m defending the shit out of this here let me be perfectly clear: THAT end credits scene? That’s as painfully unamusing as everyone is saying. I will go with you on that.

21. Pig

I can't quite think of another example whereby a particular actor's professional decline would serve to both accentuate for some and damage for others their newest (and best in a long time) endeavour. You look at the straight-to-VOD schlocky action shite Nicolas Cage has been making these last 10 years and then you look at the logline for this (a truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped) and you think you know *exactly* what you're getting; an off-kilter black comedy of sorts about a man and his pig mixed in with a rip-roaring exploitation flick with Cage carving his way through a load of disposable goons to rescue his pet pig, where his wife / girlfriend has stood in other movies. And this thing just steps right over your expectations, for a start. Absent of any bombast or octane whatsoever, it's actually anti-revenge and anti-violence in its standpoint.

But what it is REALLY about is loss - the pain it generates in all of us yet also how each of us choose to deal with it in different ways. Sure, it's also about the rejection of materialism and capitalism too. Really though, it's about loss and grief; how we process it and how we fill the void created by it. You weren't expecting THAT with this, were you?

Cage is magnificent here. If he weren't an industry 'outlier' and moviemaking 'figure of fun' nowadays, we'd be hyping this up as the Best Actor Oscar performance to beat. In one particular scene, with 3 little words ("I love her!") when talking about his missing pig he manages to talk about so much more - all without saying another single word!

20. Palm Springs

On the one hand this suffers from that thing I thought we'd long since moved past whereby a little film pops and buzz builds, then it gets sat on outside the US for an ungodly amount of time whilst international distribution rights are negotiated and the hype machine rolls relentlessly on.
On the other hand though, it is a film that more than lives up to the hype by just being so thoroughly delightful.

It's so good that not even Andy Samberg's creepy yellow milk teeth can turn you off (... seriously though dude, you've got all that BROOKLYN 99 'bank', pay to get them sorted for Christ's sake!).


Films that follow the GROUNDHOG DAY 'model' live or die by the tone they take and/or the originality they can muster within the concept. PALM SPRINGS' tone is a massively appealing one but its secret weapon is Cristin Milioti.
Milioti gives a performance here so great - so funny, moving, real and sexy - that the Academy Awards were immediately destabilised the minute they shortlisted "best" actresses for this last year and none of them were her for her work here.

19. The Beta Test

I've drank from the "Kool-Aid" and I'm a full blown acolyte at the altar of 'The Church of Jim Cummings', who's proven enough by now that his interesting 'point of view' in cinema is definitely worth following. THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOWwas one of my favourite films of last year. Whilst that film took the idea of a "horror comedy", as you THINK you know it, and infused it with Cummings' own very specific sense of humour to give us something that was very much delightfully off-kilter this time round he's gone bolder but also so *incredibly* idiosyncratic:

This is Cummings' (and co-writer/co-director PJ McCabe) "ode" to shitty low-rent late night Showtime/HBO soft porn erotic thrillers by way of an updated insider-industry take on Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT, told in a decidedly up-to-the-minute post Harvey Weinstein landscape. You never know where this thing is going and you're delightfully captivated to find out. But like many a sexual-thriller of the 1990s, which this openly homages, the end point is not as satisfying as the journey there.

Reveals and revelations feel rushed, cluttered and in a lot of ways anticlimactic. Maybe in hindsight that's because we're so used to thinking lazily and conventionally (It's his assistant! It's his wife-to-be! It's a massive inter-celebrity conspiracy to wipe out agents!) that we're not recognising the filmmakers' purposeful intent to always keep things off centre? It's enthralling. It's sexy. It's dryly funny. And its got a good handful of those tremendous 'Jim Cummings losing his shit' moments that we all secretly love coming to his films for.

18. Spider-Man: No Way Home

I had a whole heap of fun with this - despite myself, really. It's quite churlish of me to complain about this ~now~ as a [waning] MCU obsessive but, as the teaser trailer for DR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS finished up I found myself fondly recalling a time when this whole "MCU" thing was a two-times a year blockbuster 'event' you could look forward to. Now it's so unwieldy I came away realising that it's starting to feel too much like homework - with the 23 main movies, 2 alleged 'side' movies, 4 Disney+ shows, 5 - 6 Netflix shows and 5 additionally added films all subsequently now considered "part of the narrative".

It's possibly TOO extravagant in some ways and decidedly messy as a result - as messy as you'd expect for a film that ostensibly has 3 protagonists, 5 antagonists and expects you to walk into this with knowledge of not just the last two SPIDER-MAN movies in this franchise but also the other 21 main movies, the 2 VENOM movies that no one can seem to decide on whether they're narratively "in" or not, all 4 of the current Disney+ shows, 1 of the Netflix shows and films of this 'ilk' from 17 years and 9 years ago respectively.

Anyone at this point wanting to throw out this particular film as being "Fan Service: The Movie" has absolutely lost sight of ALL of them being nothing BUT 'fan service' through and through from the minute THE AVENGERS premiered. Everything is thrown up on screen here, sometimes coherence be damned. And as detrimental as that is in some regards, in other ways it means that when one element flounders something else comes along that excels fairly quickly. It's enormously entertaining and enjoyable as a blockbuster 'event' but as a film it's a decidedly weird beast whereby it wants you to invest emotionally in the seriously SERIOUS drama (its ending is profoundly sad when you think about it) whilst putting it up alongside some incredibly, incredibly stupid and silly hokum.

17. The Last Duel

I've absolutely no time for y'all trying to pin this film down under the weight of its dreadful (and rocket-fast, gun-it-and-done-it) cinema run where it only pulled in an 'embarrassing' $29 million return against a budget of $100 million - and drew an admittedly disastrous $4.8 million opening weekend. If motherfuckers aren't going to show for an absolute master craftsman like Sir Ridley Scott tackling the themes of today resultant from the 'Me Too' movement within the wheelhouse of his historic epics, whilst reuniting my beloved "Matt & Ben" both on the screen and on the page then... you know what? Fuck 'em. It's their loss. (Rather interestingly, in the same year where Scott - 84 years of age and still killing it professionally - made double impact with both this and House of Gucci no one is saying SHIT that the latter is currently at the time of writing sitting on a paltry $37.6 million worldwide return on a $75 million budget. No, they're too busy wittering about Lady Gaga. Whereas this film's underperformance is the focal point of every piece currently.)

And it's infuriating that the box office returns are the lead here because this is really frickin good, man. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not all of the 'chapters' are equal to each other in effectiveness. The last part for example, which hands the narrative over to Marguerite de Thibouville is intriguing and well-meaning but very overcooked. It would be hurtful to the film overall were it not for the fact its the lead in for the magnificently staged 'duel' we're ultimately here for.

Overall though, it's a very well-acted and thought-provoking drama. Damon and Driver are both excellent. Affleck is having a complete blast with this. And whilst Jodie Comer teeters dangerously close to going OTT with the 'face-actoring', overall she manages to hold her own with her most high profile role to date. The whole thing barrels along with the epic visual grandeur you've come to expect from Ridley Scott. It doesn't feel like a 155 minute movie at all, and that's saying a lot for a film that essentially reboots/repeats itself every 40 - 50 minutes.

16. The Suicide Squad

There's a great time to be had here. Yeah, it's overindulgent - the film has natural end point opportunities at the 95, 100 and 110 minute marks - but sometimes it's okay to have too much of a good thing... and this is a very good thing! And very, very good is ALL it is. And that's enough. Not that James Gunn would've had you believe this... for the last exhausting 18 months! And in turn the Internet's ~thirst~to treat this movie as the "rebirth of the whole of all of cinema" along with James Gunn as "the second coming of Christ" (something Gunn himself actively endorses and seeks to propagate) does the ACTUAL FILM a total and utter disservice.

Taken as a big, broad piece of coarse action extravagance it is immensely enjoyable. It's a really good ensemble of people. Idris Elba finally delivers something akin to the promise that he's a 'movie star" and not just a "television actor" here, but what's most interesting is that all of the 'tier one' hires (Elba, Cena, Robbie, etc) can even get close to Daniela Melchior and David Dastmalchian who steal the whole movie effortlessly.

The gratuitous violence and cavalcade of profanity work a treat. It's frequently funny (the whole "Who the fuck is Milton?" bit is very well played with a great secondary punchline later) and the action set-pieces are clean and well executed. It just isn't the "visionary" experience from a "visionary" director that we've been relentlessly and ridiculous forced to chew on for a year plus. And maybe its poisonous box office numbers had little to do with its tandem HBO Max debut and more to do with everyone was pig fucking sick of it before it had even landed?

15. The Empty Man

I had read all the 'blah' on this - last film to ever have the 20th Century Fox fanfare at the start, lost amidst the Fox/Disney merger, abandoned onto screens with a misleading ad campaign, better than its reputation suggests, etc. etc. To be honest, I only watched it because I'm an enormous supporter of James Badge Dale's work.

And I was really, really impressed by it. This is not at all the movie you'll think your getting. It's a messy, shaggy, unruly fucking movie at 130+ minutes and it doesn't land the execution of everything it's trying to pull off. But, by God, when it lands its borderline brilliant. Seriously. There's a couple of genuinely terrific scares tucked away in there and James Badge Dale, as always, is fully committed which really lends the film some extra gravitas.

The marketing leads you to believe you're getting a throwaway Dimension-esque release circa 2003 or something. Instead it's a early Cronenberg type of Lovecraftian PI procedural. Though maybe that is even saying too much? Seek it out for yourself. It's a bit of gem.

14. I Care A Lot

I absolutely adore Rosamund Pike and think she's the finest actress of my generation that this country has produced. I'd heard great things about this too and was excited to give it a go. But by the time it hit the 30 minute mark I was worried whether I could stick with it because it was just SO unrelentingly nasty and gleefully so. It just felt borderline perverse in projecting sociopaths winning out for the most horrendous cruelty...


... and then in a RED ROCK WEST style spin it sort of becomes a whole other thing. It's kind of hard to describe because it does admittedly get VERY silly and hokey but just when you think it's a jet black, bleak satire on the realities of the US guardianship system it becomes a modern femme fatale driven noir, a twisted Coen Brothers esque crime caper, and a one-upmanship comedy thriller.


Pike is truly exceptional. If there's any justice whatsoever then the Oscars this year will be a righting of the GONE GIRL wrongs by giving her and Ben Affleck (for THE WAY BACK) the acting Oscars they inarguably deserve. It's also enormously pleasing to see the wondrous Dianne Wiest be given a meaty enough platform to shine again these days too.

13. Time To Hunt

I was really impressed by this. It made me kinda miss my days of putting on 'thematic triple-bills' for a select few - because this sandwiched between KILLING THEM SOFTLY and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN would •really• be something.

It could be considerably tighter. That's seemingly a common trait in Korean cinema nowadays though, with most films tapping out at 135 minutes as 'standard' regardless of whether they ~need~ to be that length or not. The only thing actually working against this film is its own length. There's a LOT of padding going on within. It neither needs as much lay-up as it takes nor requires as much repetition of sorts once the "hunt" begins.

But the general execution of it all outside of its length is solid, putting forward a near-dystopic OCEAN'S 11 then mixing it up with some (and here's a hard geek deep cut for you) NIGHT OF THE RUNNING MAN vibes. It's one of the strongest thrillers of the year.

12. Nobody

Many, many years ago screenwriting-cancer-in-human-form, Ehren Kruger, once apparently pitched a movie to Jack Black that would've been a parody of the [then] massively popular BOURNE movies - with Black getting a knock on the head and coming to assume he's an undercover spy on a secret mission, when really he's a buffoon who no one gives a shit about. Apparently that project died when Black rightly pointed out Kruger was just walking in THE WRONG GUY's shadow. I thought about that (thankfully) lost project whilst watching this for the second time. The easy and totally disposable version of this would've been the one that leant right in on Bob Odenkirk's comedy background to parody the new age of everyone trying to ape 87Eleven's JOHN WICKian approach to action - have Odenkirk as a useless fuck-up who goes on a rip-roaring but thoroughly incompetent campaign of violence.

That it didn't... That it went all in instead in this direction? With Bob Odenkirk in the lead? That's ballsy as fuck, man. I can't think of another film who's pre-release attitude from people was actually beneficial to how the film itself ended up being received. We treated this as a bit of joke when it was first announced, underestimated what it could actually be and jibed away with the "JOHN WICK's Dad" and "BETTER CALL SAUL An Ambulance" zingers... and then it lands in front of us and shows itself to be a •legitimate• action movie about an underestimated bit of a joke who's actually better and more of a threat than he's given credit for.

Odenkirk is fantastic here. The whole thing lives and dies by his performance. Forget the aforementioned slapstick comedy version of this. There's the poe-faced Liam Neeson version of this that would've been stale before the opening credits finished. Then there's ~this~ version: It may well walk the JOHN WICK line a little TOO closely but its such an easily forgivable act of semi-laziness from that team to have lifted all the best component parts of that movie and dropped them into... *checks notes* ... suburbia.

It's forgivable because it's bullet-fast, lean as hell, violent bit of pulp that holds tight to the precariously balanced tone it's executing, managing to be darkly funny as fuck and thrilling. It's huge amounts of fun in a snack-sized package. I thoroughly enjoyed this even more a second time.

11. The Rescue

I was equal parts impressed and enthralled by this recounting of the 2018 mission that saved a kids football team from an underwater cave in Thailand. More so because as a claustrophobic, this played like the most effective horror movie ever made to me.

Born from a complicated production process whereby filmmaker Kevin Macdonald signed on with National Geographic Documentary Films a year after the events to make a documentary feature only to flee once 'rights issues' became "difficult". And that's saying something: National Geographic could secure the rights to the *British divers'* story but the Thai government were wanting to do their own piece about their Navy SEALS. And Netflix had acquired the life rights to the soccer team which prevented their story from being covered in any film that wasn't streaming there. Eventually in February 2021 Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (the team behind FREE SOLO) replaced Macdonald as director and delivered this; a documentary no less powerful or potent for the restrictions applied to it.

In fact, with the restricted focus, Vasarhelyi and Chin deliver a lean feature that has a truly unique angle other films on this subject will only be able to ape - that this monumental achievement was executed not by the greatest combined military might but actually a handful of nerdy, 'weekend hobbyist', middle-aged Brits!

10. The Mitchells Vs. The Machines

Maybe I'm going through the 'manopause' or something but this resonated much deeper / harder. Growing up in an abusive household where my passion for creativity was stemmed with a smack, the initial scenes of "Do you expect to make a living from stuff like this?" parental whine resonated effectively. This thing is ~layered~ man. It's got your high energy blockbustery blast of enjoyably bonkers mayhem. And then it's got your big dollops of heart and sweet messaging.

You can resist against this as much as you like but it's going to 💯% beat you into submission and cuddle the shit out of you until you come round to loving it. It's a joyous, relentlessly inventive, wonderfully visualised, very very funny little film that's going to sneak right up on you with that aforementioned emotional core hidden away amongst the hilarity and knock you for six a little.

It's a lovely, warm delight of a family film that - I must state this again - is frickin hilarious. All those people "outraged" at the notion ''queer representation'' has been 'trojan-horsed' really don't seem to understand the covert nature of 'trojan-horsing'. There's a difference between natural representation and beating you over the head with "LGBTQ wokeness". If there's any flaw the film should be called out for its in staking a belief in Chrissy Teigen and John Legend being able to scrape by as supporting comedy actors... they can't!

9. The Harder They Fall

I had a fabulous amount of fun with this. Five minutes in you're concerned that this is going to be one of those wanky, over-stylised "the directing is the star" Edgar Wright type ultimately empty endeavors. Five minutes later your concerns are abated as you realise the style is tied to the tone - and you're in for a grand old time.

Key here is that as much as this is absolutely an irreverent, revisionist, left-of-standard genre entry, it's made by Jeymes Samuel with as much an honour to the traditions of these movies as a thirst to 'jazz up' the tropes. Samuel clearly is someone who intricately knows and unashamedly loves Westerns. He's not making an off-kilter Western. He's making his own legitimate version. What's rather brilliant is that with not a white person in sight and an African-American principal cast (all characters are based on real 19th-century lawmen and outlaws), their "blackness" is never once used as a 'beat' or as characterisation. DJANGO UNCHAINED this is not.

And what a cast: Jonathan Majors, my beloved Zazie Beetz, Regina King, the mighty Delroy Lindo, Lakeith Stanfield, RJ Cyler, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, Deon Cole and Idris Elba - who, by sharing scenes with Majors and King, is really forced to step up his game and stop lazily phoning it in like he normally does. The template it all plays out within may be well-worn but it still manages to inject proceedings with very much its own style, energy and a fabulous soundtrack.

8. Another Round

I genuinely adored this, even more so on learning how it was born from being recalibrated out of the filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg's own personal tragedy: This is a deeply tragic and moving ode from Vinterberg to his daughter Ida, who the film is dedicated to - she pushed her father to adapt a play of his and helped him update it by telling him stories of the drinking culture within her friendship group and together they developed the intended film into "a celebration of alcohol based on the thesis that world history would have been different without alcohol". Vinterberg rewarded her by casting her as Mads Mikkelsen's daughter. Four days into filming, Ida was killed in a car accident. Vinterberg paused filming before channelling his grief back into this film, reworking it away from being a broader comedy and into something deeper.

"It should not just be about drinking. It has to be about being awakened to life" said Vinterberg of the newer version of this, which ended up being partially filmed in Ida's classroom with her classmates and friends as Mikkelsen's students. The end result is exactly that; a celebration of one's awakening from the stupor of a life in stagnation, a hangover from complacency and a lack of appreciation for what we have... life! The alcohol element is the "tool". It's symbolic, don't you see?

Mikkelsen is atypically tremendous. But he's at the forefront of a uniformly brilliant cast. It's funny - until it doesn't need to be. It's deeply and profoundly moving - because its earned the right to be. That final "dance" works both ways because of what we've cathartically gone through with Vinterberg and his characters.

7. Sheep Without A Shepherd

Blighted only by Chinese cinema's continued semi-insistance on portraying moral consequence upon a 'conflicted' protagonist (thus locking them in on only one of two narrative outcomes, time and again), this is an otherwise outright delight.
Definitely one of my favourite films of the year.
I was obviously predisposed to love any film that puts up the art of investigating against a passion for cinema. Like, come ON?


Li Weijie is a movie obsessed family man desperate to protect his family from the dark side of the law represented by the corrupt career-obsessed Laoorn, after his loved ones commit an unexpected crime. Laoorn believes her expertise in policing will bring about justice on her terms. Li Weijie believes his knowledge of movies and story structure will save him and his family. Let the battle commence.


This was probably one of the most enthralling, witty and genuinely well-constructed thrillers I've seen this year. It seems to delight in managing to deliver first-rate drama in its own right, whilst expertly playing off the tropes and conventions of these 'type' of investigatory procedurals - building out constantly in directions that are always a surprise.

6. Riders of Justice

I knew I was going to like this. I could tell from the trailer. I didn't know just how much I was going to love it though - so much so it's taken a hammer to the draft list of my end of year Top 10, which has felt fairly formalised for the last 4 months.

Mads Mikkelsen, a man incapable of giving anything less than an excellent performance, affirms his place once more as one of the great working actors here. As great as he is though, it's the script and its execution that is the major selling point. Taking the tired notion of a "Liam Neeson esque aged star slumming it in some mid-budget Euro-actioner", the film spins itself from a revenge movie into a darkly comedic treaty on coincidence, chance, statistical anomalies, friendship, family and the correct pixilation of a computer monitor.

It is quite simply a thoroughly enjoyable right angle swerve of a film - you go in thinking it's a Louis Leterrier or Pierre Morel action movie and you come away realising you've just watched the equivalent of Joel and Ethan Coen make a TAKEN movie.

5. The Eight Hundred

This is an unashamedly sprawling film (the opening title isn't raised until 20 minutes in) and doesn't stay focused on any one character long enough for you to get emotionally attached to anyone but it doesn't hurt the overall impact one jot.

I absolutely adored this. It's a massive, unwieldy epic of a film full of big, grand, tremendously captured action set-pieces filmed on IMAX cameras by a director who rarely keeps the camera still; sweeping and gliding the camera in amongst the brutal war sequences.

It's a genuinely fascinating and enthralling piece of history conveyed brilliantly, displaying the relentless determination to survive and endure in the face of completely insurmountable opposition.

4. Greenland

I was genuinely taken aback by how bloody great this was. When the director and star of ANGEL HAS FALLEN reunite for this sort of movie you kind of assume it's going to be a certain 'type' of action movie pish. But it isn't that. It leans away from "Gerard Butler saves the world" bollocks and into a societal breakdown movie that's played completely straight, with the film itself constantly ramping up the more the craziness does.

The casting masterstroke is in someone FINALLY looking back to what made Butler so wondrous in DEAR FRANKIE and moving away from trying to push him into the "great actor" or "action hero" mould with accompanying ill-fitting accent, and instead have him play the 'everyman' in the way Sean Connery would've done in such a role. He's really, really good here playing to his abilities for once.

The film keeps itself so grounded that you remain wholly invested and the tension soaks into you. It's such a surprise how incredibly effective it is in this regard. It earns such goodwill by being so legitimately great that by the time it sort of slides towards convenient silliness in its final 10 minutes or so you're way more forgiving.

3. Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar

This is fast becoming one of my favourite comedies of the last decade. Seriously. I love it even more than BRIDESMAIDS. And that's saying a lot because, Jon Hamm aside, that is a near perfect comedy confection.
This is the film we •need• right now; a joyous, unabashed, full lean into pure unadulterated, completely committed absurdity that sets its stall out within mere minutes, letting you know you need to climb on board for the ride or take the exit ramp straight away.
I laughed loud and frequently and a lot of that came from the fact the trailer(s) did a terrific job of hiding what the film •truly is• and, as a result, a lot of the best jokes.


It's definitely not going to be for everyone nor does it seem to want to be - and those coming to it because it's from the ladies who wrote BRIDESMAIDS are going to be very disappointed / surprised / appalled / etc. If that movie birthed hundreds of 'fatty fall down' comedies for its break-out star Melissa McCarthy that slowly slid into mediocrity and awfulness then, if there's any justice in the world, Annie Mumolo should be getting a 6 picture deal somewhere for her to be the blockbuster comedy star she deserves to be. And not just someone who David O. Russell fucks over for the ego trip. She is fabulous here and pitch hits 100 out of 100 with every line of dialogue or physical gag.
Close behind Mumolo is Vanessa Bayer who nearly walks away with the whole movie off just a couple of tiny scenes. She is genuinely hilarious and leaves you screaming for a 'Talking Club' spin-off movie or streaming show.


Not every element works (the whole thing with Damon Wayans Jr doesn't work at all, for example) but that's the genius of this movie. It stacks itself so sky high with care-free comedic effort that when something clunks its only a matter of seconds before something ~brilliant~ comes along. Okay, Andy Garcia as "the real life Tommy Bahama" playing 'Tommy Bahama' is no high point but would you sacrifice it to lose Barb's 'journey of independence'?
This is definitely one of the best modern comedies. #ByThePowerOfTrish

2. Let Him Go

I knew I was predisposed to ~like~ it because of the actors involved but I was not prepared for how good... nay, grrrr-eat it actually was.
Costner and Lane are severely underappreciated and consistently excellent actors and they're absolutely all in here. It's been a long time since you've seen two actors standing across from each other who's singular goal is to elevate the other. Possibly knowing that they're reap the ancillary benefits from the other actor soaring.


There's a film here on the face of it - a modern-of-sorts western that's two parts family drama struggling to stay in control to keep the third part (a violent, spiralling eye-for-an-eye confrontation) unsuccessfully at bay. And then there's the film... or even a THOUSAND films... that exist in the silent glances and tender spaces between Costner and Lane's characters.


And because this is a film that acts like •great• isn't enough, Lesley Manville gets added into the mix in a role that should you wish to look up "against type" in lieu of an explanation you'd just find a photo of Manville staring back at you.
I completely loved this film and hope more of you will seek it out.

1. The Kid Detective

I got my arse well and truly handed to me by what a terrific, dark thriller this turned out to be. I went in thinking it was going to be a broad comedy leaning heavily on a one-note concept - and it's certainly not that at all.

It's a legitimate and effective PI investigatory procedural on one hand, an acerbic black comedy on another and somewhere in between a surprisingly deep study on self-worth and depression; knowing you're better than the joke you're made out to be by those around you but 'lost at sea' emotionally in knowing how to prove it. To say it resonated haaaaaard with me personally right now is an understatement.

Adam Brody - long held as the guy to turn up and knock a zinger out the park in projects vastly beneath his level of talent - finally gets the right project to show what he's truly capable of and, by Christ, he kills it. That final dining room table conversation is phenomenally well-played. And that last scene as the credits roll? Heartbreaking.

And that is that...

ME: “See you same time, same place next year!”

YOU:

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2020.

It is indeed time… or at least, as is tradition, it is indeed now overdue for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year. This time for 2020. That funny old year, huh? Where - if some are to be stupidly believed - “no films got released because of the pandemic”.

I thought I was done with this after 12 years and concluding with my Top 25 of the decade effort and yet here I am. Back rather egotistically because 2 people told me how much they look forward to reading this. Go figure! Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive. Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit yet believe they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. Anyway, without further ado, here’s the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

Setting my stall out straight away, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe was very much TV to me and won’t get ranked within my film listing. I loved two of the efforts a great deal (Education and Mangrove), liked two but found them lacking (Red, White & Blue and Alex Wheatle) and did not get what everyone else seems to from the other (Lover’s Rock).

In terms of documentaries this year, I thought Frank Marshall did a fabulous job with The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart; a comprehensive study of the personal complexities and professional excellence of an incredibly underappreciated band. I found On The Record to be a difficult but inspiring watch and its background ‘politics’ exposed the hypocrisy of Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey in a manner we’re not talking loud enough about. Hitsville: The Making of Motown was an extensive, lovely historical tribute to an era and a style of music, full of great tunes and equally great talking head anecdotes. And finally Belushi managed to find fresh angles and previously untold stories about one of the most mythologised comedy stars of all time, simply by pulling the man to the forefront ahead of his talents.

For dramas, I enjoyed Trial of the Chicago 7 a great deal and am an absolute sucker for the work of Aaron Sorkin but bad casting (Eddie Redmayne) and stunt casting (Sacha Baron Cohen) hurt this film. I’m a sucker for a disaster movie and Pål Øie made an incredibly entertaining one with the Norwegian high-melodrama, The Tunnel. Edward Norton’s long-gestating Motherless Brooklyn was a solid, old-fashioned PI yarn with some great casting to back it up. It’s the most alive Bruce Willis has been in years and it served to remind you that Alec Baldwin can be quite the terrific actor when he’s not being an utter joke of a human. I liked The Vast of Night a great deal when in the throes of watching it but liked it less in the aftermath. Cut Throat City was the underrated dramatic gem of the year in a lot of ways and showed that RZA has a great deal of skill as a legit filmmaker, when not being caught up in the ‘gimmicks’. O.G finally landed here via Sky Atlantic of all places, rather than any sort of VOD release, and it was an enthralling drama that served to remind us all how brilliant Jeffrey Wright can be when not overacting to the point of cringe or being stuck with really terrible writing (hello, TV’s Westworld!).

With the blockbuster season at the cinema all but dead from the outset, the joys of the action genre were to be found in the little b-movies tucked away on streaming platforms and VOD. Quick notable exceptions were The Outpost which was a reminder that Rod Lurie can deliver a hell of an action sequence, blighted by truly awful film-damaging casting and Extraction which was a well-directed derivative piece of hokum. Donnie Yen delivered an earnest, entertaining end to one of the surprise action franchises of the last decade with IP Man 4 that not even Scott Adkins could fuck up. Hack director Deon Taylor accidentally delivered Black and Blue; a pretty good ode to the ‘man on the run’ non-stop action thrillers of the 80s and 90s – with Naomi Harris killing it in the lead role. Netflix tucked away two of the greatest b-movie actioners of 2020 with The Decline (a ‘Doomsday Preppers’ training camp goes horribly wrong) and Earth & Blood (a sawmill owner uses his place of work as a battleground to take on the cartel). And, finally, the Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee) Taken rip-off Unstoppable arrived to streaming and turned out to be vastly superior to all of the films it was a knock-off of.

It was a great year for horror, especially if you were open to the sort of scares you were after. Sea Fever didn’t stick the landing but delivered an ace sense of foreboding and tension building for the most part. Harpoon was a sneakily nasty, surprisingly engrossing, violent little film. VFW was a lot of fun but nowhere near as good as its concept and cast suggested it was going to be. It’s also been subsequently marred by the stories coming out of its production and the revelations about Fred Williamson. I thought Come To Daddy was an absolute gift of a horror comedy that kept swerving whenever you thought you had a handle on where it was going. And Elijah Wood continues to show himself to be an American national treasure. After Midnight was an intriguing relationship drama with a horror bent and You Should Have Left, the Stir of Echoes reunion we’ve all long sought, would work as an off-kilter double-bill with it. Kevin Bacon is brilliant in it. Vampires Vs The Bronx is a totally disposable but immensely fun ode to The Lost Boys and The Monster Squad that’ll serve you well on a lazy Saturday night. Black Water: Abyss was a really good little creature feature with a ridiculous ending that infuriates. And Train To Busan: Pennisular was a pretty shit Train to Busan sequel but an immensely entertaining post-apocalyptic zombie action movie.

Onwards is worth mentioning for the fun and moving animated ride it initially presents as but, like too much Pixar nowadays, it does not hold up to repeat viewing.

Comedy-wise, I thoroughly enjoyed Bill & Ted Face The Music but thought its gag-rate was far too hit and miss for it to take a place on the top spot. Buffaloed was a kind of “M’eh” blue-collar Wolf of Wall Street with yet another fantastic ‘How the fuck isn’t she a huge star already’ turn from Zoey Deutch. Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made was a quirky out-of-leftfield oddity that me and my eldest son enjoyed a great deal. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was not the travesty you would’ve thought it’d be, mainly because of Rachel McAdams, but if Will Ferrell had just leaned a little harder towards his more absurdist style of humour (the killer fairy shit for example?) this could have been so much more. Finally, the second Borat film had some utterly majestic moments of cringe-comedy that make it worthy of a mention but the mechanics of joke-execution and faked set-pieces were far more on show this time around.

And now, if you’re still hanging in there that is, here is my actual Top 25 films of 2020…

25. Skyfire

I don't know whether it's because I’ve been starved of my usual 'Summer Silly Season' this year but I absolutely fucking LOVED this. It's the stupidest, most ridiculous, relentlessly bonkers "Jurassic Park - but with volcanos" fare you could ask for. I have no idea what the fuck Jason Isaac is doing in this but I’m so glad he is because it just adds to the glorious WTF-ery of it all. It's 30 minutes of mechanical lay-up followed by 60 minutes of non-stop, audacious carnage. It's been a long time since me and my wife have had this much fun watching something.

24. Bad Education

Dropped exclusively to Sky Cinema here, this is a great little film that has a shocking true story at its centre. Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney are absolutely terrific. Both of them are the sort of talents who've been in bad movies but never ever given a bad performance regardless.

Here both Jackman and Janney are having a ball with the material and they elevate a very good film into something that demands to be seen.

23. Blood Quantum

This was definitely one of the first-class b-movie horrors of the year for me. It does wonders on screen with very little AND it gives a shot in the arm to the zombie subgenre. It leads you into thinking you're getting yet another zombie-breakout film before expertly wrongfooting you into growing into something else. It's a Native American NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets MAD MAX!

22. Bad Boys For Life

This was a first-rate blast, it really was. From the inexplicable reusing of the 'Simpson/Bruckheimer' production card to the reworking of Mark Mancina's original theme, it draws you straight back to that 1990s blockbuster vibe. It's not just very funny and stacked with some pretty decent action sequences but, rather bizarrely, it actually has something interesting to say about ageing and masculinity... because nowadays Joe Carnahan is killing it when it comes to introspective recalibrations on what it means to be a man. If you were to spoil this movie for someone and reveal what the "twist" is it would sound like the stupidest, hokiest shit ever. And yet inexplicably they make it work. And furthermore, Martin Lawrence goes from the tag-along in this franchise to the platinum level MVP here. The entire final third is held up higher by his insanely good line delivery ("Would you fuck a witch without a condom?") and it's most likely how he plays shit as to why that stupid, hokey plot twist works as well as it does.

Over the course of three separate decades each BAD BOYS entry has, in itself, served to be a somewhat accidentally perfect reflection of the very cinematic decade it landed in: The first is possibly one of the last to truly and wholeheartedly successfully land that perfect marriage between the 'MTV era' and the blockbusters; bringing about the boom of the "music video director as filmmaker" that the 1990s became well known for. The second was a pitch perfect reflection of the gratuitous, often empty-headed, completely excessive pop culture period we were birthing in the 2000s. And the third lands now, right in the very time period where masculinity is being put under a spotlight and men are being asked to be more self-reflective about themselves and their conduct.

With that said, the fourth will obviously therefore land sometime in 2029 and deal with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence wandering a pandemic-ravaged Miami wasteland.

21. Wolfwalkers

This is one of the most lovely, visually wondrous, sumptuous animated films you'll experience this year. Or in quite some time, actually. It’s not just a great adventure film but it’s also a really effective ‘message’ movie that manages to teach about tolerance and friendship along with the perils of fear-mongering, without ever being overly preachy.

20. An American Pickle

This was one of the surprises of the year for me; I THOUGHT I was getting a quirky Seth Rogen fish-out-of-water comedy and instead I got that... with a massive dollop of heart, humour and interesting things to say about legacy and 'cancel culture'. I liked it a lot. It's also further evidence of how intriguing a talent Seth Rogen is becoming; jumping between broad commercial fare and original off-kilter stuff like this, producing and developing fascinating projects for film and TV and working to pass the ladder back down to others too.

19. Get Duked

I say this with only a modicum of bias as I know someone who worked a little bit on this film but this was genuinely brilliant - the absolute laugh-out-loud delight we all need right now. At the time I watched this I don’t think I’d smiled in nearly a fortnight but this broke through with me. Its wrap-up is a little too silly for its own good but that aside, this thing is absolutely stuffed with some TRULY great gags! This is one of the best comedies of the year for me.

18. Host

I had been giving this the big ol' swerve because it sounded like unoriginal, overhyped pish frankly and... fuck it, if that hype isn't absolutely deserved: It's a lean, effective, scary incredibly enjoyable ride. Made all the more fascinating by the fact it was made remotely on a shoestring with the director apparently never being in the same room as his cast at any one time due to Covid restrictions.

NB: I could not find a GIF to represent Rob Savage’s Host sufficiently so here’s Jack Black doing a backyard pandemic dance instead... 

17. Sweetheart

What a crackin, lean, little horror thriller it is. It gets straight underway from its fade-up and never overcooks itself or leans hard on lazy exposition, silly character actions or bad deus ex machinas. Remember when Jonathan Mostow made BREAKDOWN and it felt like such a shot in the arm for the man-against-the-odds/standard thriller? This is like that - but for survival dramas and creature features! It commits fully to its high concept, helped along by a truly excellent performance by Kiersey Clemons and some really well-delivered set-pieces (that first flare scene is very well done!). If you watched Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY and thought to yourself "This film is great but what it really needs is a monster!" then this is definitely the film for you. And if you believe the rumours, it’s allegedly a sneaky Creature From The Black Lagoon redo for Blumhouse’s expanding ‘Monster Universe’ too.

16. Soul

I really connected with this. I like Inside Out a great deal but I’ve never understood why it's spoken of as a flawless masterpiece when it's overlong, tonally all over the place and has clunky as fuck casting. In the same breath, I don't understand why the reviews for this are so disparate. I thought it was a wonderful way to spend 100+ minutes. It was visually inventive, funny and inspiring. It doesn't quite seed its VERY deep otherworld-building foundations and Graham Norton doesn't really work in his role but overall I thought it was a delight. And, unlike Onwards, it really does lend itself to repeat visits.

15. Tenet

I had real trepidation about seeing this what with the reviews being all over the place but... well... Is it complete, barely comprehensible bunkum of the highest order? Yes. Could the film have benefited from Nolan letting his brother Jonathan have a pass at the script? Hell yes! Is it most definitely not the majestic masterpiece of masterpieces it thinks it is? Yup. Yet in spite of ALL that I had an absolute blast with it, I really did. If you give it a seconds thought it crumbles completely as the utter egotistical piffle it really is. But where it excels is in looking so gorgeous, being so kinetic and massive with its action and casting with actors who sell the shit out of a hokey script that you're so consumed with the spectacle you don't smell the bullshit until its over. Washington Jr has come out of nowhere these last few years to make me a big fan of his work - and Robert Pattinson has went from being an actor I couldn't fucking abide to being someone I now really rate and who I came away from watching this thinking "Yeah, that's your goddamn perfect James Bond right there!"

14. Da 5 Bloods

It works infinitely better as a 'men on a mission' action adventure shot through the off-kilter lens of a Spike Lee "joint" then it does as a searing commentary about race, war, etc. And that's probably why Spike's choice to include real war atrocity photos and documentary footage alongside the narrative doesn't land as successfully as he probably intended it to. But as an overall film, it's a genuinely great watch. Delroy Lindo has always been one of the greatest working actor. Here he perhaps delivers his ultimate masterclass. Regardless of whether awards season moves online or not, you cannot have any SERIOUS dialogue during it that doesn't have his performance heading the conversation. Ignore the dickheads online putting this in the same bubble as TROPIC THUNDER or DIE HARD (??). This is a wink and a nod to TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and APOCALYPSE NOW, through and through. It's big, bombastic, broad and unafraid to swing out in every direction. It's not flawless but that doesn't mean it's not fuckin ~great~!

13. His House

This very much stands as both one of the most impressive debuts and modern horror movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It's an effective, lean, interesting film that buries under your skin and takes up residency there. Go into it knowing as little as you possibly can and then let it scare the shit out of you and, in its reveals, kick the shit back into you.

12. Tread

I really, REALLY liked this. It's my favourite documentary film of this year - made by that fella who did the bonkers-bad killer dog in the warehouse movie with Adrian Brody, no less! It's an absolutely fascinating true story I knew nothing about, brilliantly intermingling talking heads, archival news footage, dramatic reconstruction and audio recordings. It'll really drop your jaw - it's most definitely one of those 'needs to be seen to be believed' type deals because if you described this to someone as having happened they'd never believe you!

11. Bacarau

No plot description really does this film justice and the less you know going in the better an experience you’ll have. It’s an odd, deeply violent, unsettling, darkly funny, bizarro confection of The Most Dangerous Game meets Assault on Precinct 13 and… well… even that doesn’t really do the film any justice whatsoever. It’s a critique of dire political circumstance mixed with political satire mixed with the tropes of the Western, the siege movie and both horror and comedy. It’s very much its own thing. And that’s what makes it so wonderous.

... and it’s sort of both wondrous AND weird that when searching for Bacarau related GIFs, this was the Brazilian offering I was given! I apologise.

10. Alone

I found this came out of nowhere to be one of my favourite films of the year; a crazily efficient, brutal B-movie without an inch of fat on it that works its propulsive and well-structured screenplay hard to make you feel like you're seeing a new variant on the "stalked woman in peril" film. John Hyams - son of Peter and the man who reconfigured the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER franchise to superb effect - has made one hell of an effective movie that beautifully captures the vastness of the Pacific Northwest: this is one part DUEL, one part FIRST BLOOD, all parts odes to everything from THE GREY, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and the last third of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. It's very easy to make films like this. But it's clearly hard to make them as great as Hyams has done here, otherwise everyone would be doing it. Maybe coz what those films don't have is lead performances as strong and brilliant as Jules Willcox and Marc Menchaca give here.

9. American Murder: The Family Next Door

This is an incredibly powerful true crime documentary on a horrific tragedy, in which Jenny Popplewell tightly and clinically weaves through police interviews, news coverage and Shanann Watts' phone, laptop and social media to weave a moving and ultimately devastating portrait of her and her children's death at the hands of one of the worst forms of evil I’ve ever been exposed to. This still haunts me to this day.

8. Greyhound

I was really impressed with this. A crisp, lean, tension-drenched watch with yet another rock solid Tom Hanks performance centring it. It strips back all the tropes of these war pictures - the character backstories about post-war hopes and dreams, the cutaways to the families back home, the subplots involving the villains - and keeps a propulsive commitment to just this situation, this boat and the people on it; who only talk to one another about the job they're doing. As a result, it's completely involving and committed with action set-pieces that are clean, tense and entertaining as hell. Genuinely had a great time watching this and highly recommend it.

7. #Alive

Whilst the TRAIN TO BUSAN sequel earned rightfully shakey reviews, think of this as an unofficial prequel / 'side-sequel'. It is a tight, disciplined thrill-ride that throws up some interesting spins on old zombie set-pieces (climbing zombie vs. toy drone, for example). It may well deflate as it heads to its denouement but all before it was strong and entertaining enough for it to stand as one of his favourite horrors from this year.

6. The Invisible Man

This started good... then got very good... then got quite frankly flat-out tremendous and then entered a final third flipping anyone the 'bird' who thought that the trailers gave too much away. There is some truly tremendous, inventive and not at all 'cheap' jump scares. In fact, the whole second act is nothing else BUT terrifically effective scare after scare. All bolstered by a REALLY committed lead performance by Elizabeth Moss. Between this and UPGRADE, Leigh Whannell has not only become seriously one to watch but he's possibly just outed himself as John Carpenter's one-true heir.

5. Lynn + Lucy

I was left completely broken by this - what a truly fantastic piece of British cinema; a dark, uncompromising morality play for the modern age with a truly jaw-dropping performance by Nicola Burley. And, Jesus Christ, what an unbelievable find Roxanne Scrimshaw is?? THIS is her acting debut? Holy SHITBALLS! It's harrowing stuff that'll really make you think.

4. Parasite

This really is absolutely ~everything~ people are claiming it to be and more too! It's an exquisite piece of work, in love with the art of spinning out a story, narrative layers, sociological parables and effortlessly terrific direction. It builds and builds in an utterly enthralling manner and then... the pressure valve pops, taking you down a whole other audacious avenue that'll have you giggling at the insanity but still completely hooked.

3. Uncut Gems

It’s alright been memed and GIF’d to death but that doesn’t change the fact that it really is an astounding film - it's completely exhausting and quite honestly one of the most anxiety-inducing films I’ve seen in a long, long time. Even on multiple go-arounds, I found myself screaming at the screen, begging Adam Sandler's character to just fucking STOP for five seconds and... and... it's inescapable as to the direction down in which it heads but it goes there at such a propulsive rate, it is actually scary. An absolutely astounding film - it's like a John Cassavetes film shot with the adrenaline drawn from a Michael Bay action movie... and believe every bit of the buzz: Adam Sandler is jaw-droppingly fucking excellent in this!

2. Wolf of Snow Hollow

I thought this was a complete delight. Once again Jim Cummings has taken a film 'type' you THINK you know and infused it with his own very specific sense of humour to give us something that's very much delightfully off-kilter. What's more, as a sophomore directing effort, Cummings deserves all the plaudits for the massive advancement: There's action scenes and scary set-pieces that are really first rate and are way more accomplished than what you'd expect from someone only on their second movie and have never worked in the horror genre before. Cummings is REALLY funny in the lead role too but it's Robert Forster's final performance that'll break your heart. He was a hard miss anyway but this very much drives home what a great guy we've lost.

1.     The Way Back

Gavin O'Connor has hit the trifecta with this, Miracle and Warrior on making a masterful sports drama and using it as a platform to 'say something' and draw a career best from a talented but under-appreciated actor (first Kurt Russell, then Nick Nolte and now Ben Affleck).

Affleck is astounding here. Fallible, real and pained. He's truly brilliant. There’s a realism to every movement he makes and every breath he exhales that only someone who has struggled with addiction will recognise. And around him is a deconstruction of the sporting underdog movie as we know it - it's only by the end that we truly realise that this has always been about the connections made through the game rather than the game itself.

Like with Warrior, you can go back and watch this umpteen times and find different strokes in the human and unspoken moments. If ever there was a secretly feel-good film for 2020 it is this – the movie that tells us that it doesn’t matter how hard or how far we fall, we are defined only by the moments in which we rise again.

And that’s that. See you all next year. Maybe ;) 

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of the DECADE

I have absolutely hated every moment of trying to compile this and I’ve went back and forward, recalibrating this list and wishing that it was a Top 100 and beating myself up about choices and rankings and... stressing out that I can’t find places for the likes of The Social Network, Nightcrawler and Dear Zachary and yet I can inexplicably do so for a fuckin Marky Mark action buddy comedy (?) but...

... yeah, here you go. Here’s my Top 25 of the decade, 2009 - 2019!

25. GAME NIGHT

24. 13 ASSASSINS

23. MONEYBALL

22. BLUE RUIN

21. GOOD TIME

20. WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

19. JOHN WICK

18. DRIVE

17. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

16.CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLIDER

15. FIRST MAN

14. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT

13. THE OTHER GUYS

12. DUNKIRK

11. EDGE OF TOMORROW

10. INCEPTION

9. ZERO DARK THIRTY

8. THE RAID

7. THE REVENANT

6. ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD

5. THE NICE GUYS

4. THE GREY

3. WARRIOR

2. THE IRISHMAN

1. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

... I will be taking no questions at this difficult time. See you all in ten years.

Unless you’re regular visitors to my annual Top 25. In which case... see you all in 12 months!

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2019.

It is indeed time… or at least, as is tradition, it is indeed now overdue for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year.

This time for 2019.

Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive. Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit yet believe they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc.

And no, despite several attempts, repeated proclamations on social media AND owning the bloody thing outright for the last 6 months, I still never got round to seeing Ash is The Purest White in time for my self-imposed deadline for this so if you’re here to see that lauded, I will dash your expectations now.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

In terms of comedies, I very much enjoyed The Breaker Upperers, The Favourite, Always Be My Maybe, Mega Time Squad, Good Boys, Brittany Runs a Marathon and – as ultimately disappointing as it turned out to be in comparison to the original – yes, Zombieland: Double Tap.

Dramas I really liked this year were The 12th Man, The Old Man And The Gun, The Man Who Killed Hitler and then Bigfoot, White Boy Rick, Stan & Ollie, Deadwood: The Movie, The Sister Brothers, the first two thirds of Feedback, Hotel Mumbai, The Mule, Shadow, Thunder Road, The Clovehitch Killer, The Nightingale, Destroyer, Vice and, as uncomfortable as it made me, Ray and Liz.

Documentaries I rated highly in 2019 included Leaving Neverland, Free Solo, The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley, Divide & Conquer: Roger Ailes and The Amazing Jonathan Documentary.

In terms of horror movies, rather controversially I seem to stand alone in saying I rather liked both Velvet Buzzsaw and The Dead Don’t Die. I also thoroughly enjoyed One Cut of the Dead, Happy Death Day 2 U and In Fabric, the last of which VERY nearly made the final Top 25 cut.

Action movies I was a fan of this year were both Triple Frontier and Triple Threat, The Quake (or The Wave 2: The Quake as it is inexplicably retitled in some countries), We Die Young which features a wordless and stellar Van Damme performance, Furie and Stuber.

On the blockbuster ‘stage’, I fully embraced the absolute utter insanity (or stupidity?) of The Wandering Earth, really liked Shazam! As well as Spiderman: Far From Home and Terminator: Dark Fate. Somewhat controversially, I also had a lot of fun with Jumanji: The Next Level, 6 Underground and Joker (a straight-up masterpiece that last movie most certainly is not!).

Finally, in terms of animation that I liked in 2019 I’d pay mention to How To Train Your Dragon 3, The Lego Movie 2 and Toy Story 4 – the last two being very likeable but totally unnecessary. And of course, Klaus which was a lovely, moving, visual joy that me and my family will return to a lot over the years.

Now… onto that Top 25:

25. BOOKSMART

I really loved this first time I saw it earlier this year. I found it very funny and thought the performances were delightful by the two main leads. I had issues with the clusterfuck that is the film's third act but not enough that I didn't hold a place for it in my Top 10 of the year for pretty much the last four months or so. Then I revisited it again recently and I’ve still got a huge amount of affection for it and there is still a large amount of it that makes me laugh out loud - but that third act REALLY rubs me the wrong way.

Asides from the clunky plot developments that exist purely to give the film conflict and some sort of narrative 'propulsion' it doesn't necessarily need AND on top of the fact that Billie Lourd's entire thing is embarrassing and awful (are we allowed to kind of lean in together and whisper yet that she can't act very well?), what really smarts is for a film that is meant to be this 'progressive' and female-centred, it leans in on the laziest and most horrible of high school comedy tropes - the horny teacher who beds the student! And like cliche dictates it is always a female teacher and male student because even a film as allegedly "progressive" as this is self-aware enough to know that if the sexes were reversed they couldn't / wouldn't get away with it.

In an age of #MeToo and #TimesUp the idea that a female filmmaker would go with this iffy fuckin cliche in her debut movie and have no problem at all leaves a horrible taste over the back end of an otherwise pretty great little film... But yeah, definitely still check out BOOKSMART. Its progressive, millennial bullshit stance is complete piffle. But its comedic set-pieces are a lot of fun.

24. IT: CHAPTER TWO

I don’t understand anyone who's coming away from IT CHAPTER 2 complaining there's a lack of scares. There's not a lack of scares at all. The problem is there scattered across a running time that is not structured well enough to accentuate them. There were some moments where I very nearly jumped out of my seat and left because of their effectiveness - the pay-off to Bev returning home as teased in the trailer? Fuuuuuuck THAT!

I think it is fair to criticise its flabbiness though… How the hell its director can talk about his intentions for a four hour cut of this pushed up alongside a three hour cut of the first chapter as some sort of hope for the future feels insane - FOUR hours? This thing is ten minutes shy of three and it feels excessive!

The lack of discipline in the editing bay is quite possibly the reward that comes from delivering a $700.4 million return on a $35 million budget the first time round. That lack of discipline doesn't make for a film as focused as it needs to be... Once you realise an hour in that the story structure is one in which each character is split off to revisit their past and then each character is then going to be given a 'teachable moment', you realise that you've essentially got to watch the same plot point be repeated SIX times round each time. And from a narrative perspective that's both annoying and exhausting, frankly.

Hand on heart though, it's a minor quibble overall because what is there is effective as hell and very entertaining. Think of it cinematically as too big a portion of a great frickin meal... It's a hypocritical complaint also because ultimately there is so much joy in watching these actors go at playing these characters (Bill Hader is an absolute marvel in this and Jessica Chastain lives up to the 'dream casting' suggestion the minute Sophia Ellis turned up in the first one!)

It may well be overlong by a good thirty minutes but it is still an incredibly scary, funny ride... just with a denouement that, once again, shows how hard it is to deliver the climactic goods when Stephen King has given you such utter excrement to work with.

23. THE GANGSTER, THE COP, THE DEVIL

I watched this and flat-out loved it - yet another reminder that you can spin the dial and pick a genre, any genre, and the reality is that South Korea are delivering the best efforts in it nowadays. This is a big, broad, bombastic slice of action pulp that has its cake as a thriller/procedural and eats it as a blockbustery burst of car chases and violent dust-ups.

The remake rights for this are with Stallone and that's a scary prospect really coz if there's one thing problematic about that guy is that he's not ~great~ with playing "evenly" (the stories that came off the CREED II production are terrifying!).

22. AT THE HEART OF GOLD

I watched this with my wife and the both of us just kept shooting aghast and pained looks at one another the longer it went on.

Forensic documentary studies like this are a big interest to me but this was a gruelling yet kind of inspiring watch because it did the right thing in putting the victims front and centre from the get go and throughout.

Child abuse is an abhorrent thing. Doubly so on a scale like this. BUT when you're watching the revelations that it was so commonly known to be going on and covered up to the extent and at the level it was? That is just... there's just no words!

Fantastic little documentary though. If you think you know the full facts on this, you don't! And if the last 4 years are any indication, our generation have found our own Errol Morris coz Erin Lee Carr is responsible for 4 of the best documentaries in that time with this, I LOVE YOU NOW DIE, THOUGHT CRIMES and MOMMY DEAD & DEAREST.

21. ABDUCTED IN PLAIN SIGHT

I find that once in a while there's a true crime documentary so flat-out, jaw-droppingly fuckin... out there, that most of its enjoyment isn't in how utterly astounding it is but mostly the fun you have in telling people the details of it and watching them incredulously go "Fuck the fuck off! This didn't happen? Surely not!"

I saw this in early January when no one was talking a single word about it here in the UK and I spent roughly three months banging on and on about it to anyone and everyone and, sure enough, everyone looked at me like I was mad and kept saying "Fuck the fuck off! This isn’t a real thing, surely??” Then it landed on Netflix and… everyone went bonkers!

It is a tight 90 minute uncomfortable, grim, totally incredulous jaw-dropper detailing what are two of the STUPIDEST parents and the most horribly manipulative paedophile you could imagine. You've GOT to check this out because without this documentary no one would EVER believe the story of… ** SPOILERS here on out ** ... the most horribly manipulative paedophile you could imagine, who moves his family into the house next to a husband and wife with three daughters, befriends them, tricks the dad into giving him handjobs, seduces the mum into heavy-petting sessions - all with the intent of lowering their defences so he can get access to their youngest 11 year old daughter... who he abducts, manipulates by pretending to be an alien into believing there's an alien invasion that can only be prevented by her having his baby and sneaks across to Mexico once she's 12 so he can marry her. Then he gets arrested by the FBI, brought back to America, uses his previous intimate dalliances with BOTH parents to blackmail them into dropping the charges, re-seduces the mother into a long-term sexual relationship, reabducts the young daughter, hides her in a boarding school, poses as a CIA agent and...

... and... and... not one single element of this is UNTRUE! What the FUCK, right?!?

20. MIDSOMMAR

There's issues to be had with this in the sense that at two and a half hours it is needlessly self-indulgent and from a storytelling point of view it suffers like many from that flaw of walking in the wake of THE WICKER MAN's story beats without finding much in the way of variation.

However, it is exceptionally well directed and the building of tension and concern (despite knowing exactly where it will inevitably go) is impressive. It basks in its weirdness and then seemingly delights in getting weirder... You can say you've heard this story before but you won't have SEEN it told with imagery quite like this. The whole shebang wouldn't work half as effectively if not for the performances and they really are great here. Florence Pugh is quite exceptional. She joins Toni Collette in what will clearly be Ari Aster's roster of "Tremendous Performances That Deserve Awards But Won't Get Them".

By the film's end you come to realise the film is leaning into THE WICKER MEN comparisons purposefully - to show us what that movie would look like today, in Trump's America: Obnoxious Americans pissing up against and fucking around with longstanding tradition and history.

19. Us

Ignore all of the bullshit 33,000+ deep dive 'think pieces' spewed out across the internet about this and just judge it for what it is: a great horror thrill-ride with some terrific jump scares etc. but it's not without its flaws. For one, it's too strong a film to get landed with that big and lazy an info-dump conclusion... especially one that kind of clunks against what's gone before - but then, as much as we're clearly not meant to call Jordan Peele out on anything it seems, he IS a vastly superior director then he is a writer if this effort is anything to go by.

Was it really, really requiring of those penetrative essays though on what it "really" means or what Peele's hidden intent was? Could it not just be that the guy made a great horror film with all the very clear subtext of a Romero or Carpenter classic, and there's just nothing more to it than that? Because that's how I’m taking it. Because if I don't and I do actually have to wade through all this internet word clunge about how US is "really" about "the effects of classism and marginalisation" or how the antagonists are "effigies of situational classism", I'd write the film off as a failure of achieving its intent.

To dress it up as more than a relentless, scary cat-and-mouse shocker is like trying to put a monocle on a pig and call it a professor.

18. WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOUR

I went into this as a British person completely unfamiliar with Fred Rogers or any of his past work / impact on America and came away completely reverential to the man and what he stood for and achieved across generations. So much so that this documentary completely changed my outlook on a lot of things. It certainly changed the approach I take in how I communicate with my own children now.

It’s a heartwarming, inspirational ode to a clearly great man and I urge everyone to watch it and allow Mr Rogers to give your jaded perspective on life a reinvigorating kick in the butt.

17. APOLLO 11

This really is magnificent. The 70mm archival footage makes the whole thing make it look like you're watching a big studio blockbuster... and not actual real never-before-seen footage from decades ago.

There's moments within this that are just astounding and intoxicating, making you become completely engulfed in something even though you are well versed in what the outcomes are.

16. LONG SHOT

This was the surprise delight of the year. It was very lovely, fun and funny with a great cast being just thoroughly delightful. Charlize Theron is very rarely utilised in comedy (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Season 3 was so long ago) which is a shame coz she's really gifted, as is proven here - the scene where she does hostage negotiation on molly is one of the funniest scenes of the year!

Seth Rogen makes the sort of stuff that is just game-set-match for my particular sensibilities (40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN to SUPERBAD to KNOCKED UP to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS to OBSERVE & REPORT is in itself an all-timer run that puts him up there with Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Albert Brooks) and this is a further reflection of that.

They should never have changed the title to something this generic. And it could comfortably lose 15 minutes here or there. But they're minor niggles for a romcom that we'll still be holding in high regard for years to come. And June Diane Raphael SHOULD get awards for the graft she puts in here. She won’t because films like this never get respect like that, but she totally should.

15. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM

I flat out loved this (though I still maintain that I don’t even think the star and the director themselves have referred to the film by its 'full name') and I would be more than happy to see an entry to this franchise every two years if they're of this calibre.

CHAPTER 2 had me worried because it looked like there was a limit to just how much 'throwing people down to the ground and shooting them in the head with CGI gunfire and blood added in on top' you could push into a film before it felt tiresome but this completely circumnavigates all worry around that by dialling up the 'quirk' factor which has always been this franchise's most bizarro and interesting element.

And the introduction of Halle Berry to 'the floor' led to a stand-out set-piece that was nothing short of astounding!

I WOULD however have preferred it if this film had adopted a bit of the ol' VH1 Pop-Up Video Show (remember THAT??) approach and just stuck a bubble up during the motorbike sequence that said "We stole this wholesale from THE VILLAINESS because we know it’s unlikely you saw that movie!")

14. READY OR NOT

I offer up the heartiest of recommendations for this - an absolutely first class horror comedy that finds a delightfully irreverent spin on the cat-and-mouse / slasher movie. It really is the ‘little movie that could’ of 2019 that offers up way, way, way more than its marketing and log-line suggest. It’s very funny and has some truly effective jump-scares and, best of all, it has a great ensemble cast doing great work. Double-bill it with KNIVES OUT and thank me later!

13. ARCTIC

This really worked as an effective, throw-you-into-the-mix survival thriller. Mads Mikkelsen is terrific and he really sells the hell out of it.

You don't know just how successfully it has burrowed under your skin and pulled you along on the ride until the final five minutes when you're screaming "NO!" at the screen.

12. AD ASTRA

I still can’t believe this flopped. I genuinely can’t. It's fair to say it doesn't quite stick its landing in making the end of the journey as narratively thrilling as what it took to get there but it doesn't matter - the journey itself is a sumptuous, thrilling and truly exquisite ride taking an easy "APOCALYPSE NOW in space" label and delivering something so, so much more.

For anyone who grew up with any "sins of the father" issues this will act as a ten ton weight dropped onto their chest.

... It also has space pirates and space monkeys!

11. MARRIAGE STORY

The plaudits are all well-earned and I’m saying this as someone who's connected with very little of Baumbach's work other than THE SQUID & THE WHALE.

It's a genuinely enthralling watch due to a fantastic group of actors being set loose to do tremendous work; Adam Driver is superb and Scarlett Johansson raises her game considerably to go toe-to-toe with him but Laura Dern, Ray Liotta and Alan Alda deliver a trio of masterclasses under one roof.

(If there's ANY justice whatsoever in awards season Alda will split everything Best Supporting Actor related with Joe Pesci… He won’t, because there is no justice when it comes to the vast majority of awards season but that is not to say he doesn’t deserve it!)

This is a delicately crafted piece - where your favoured side in a fight you feel you really shouldn't be privy to, is expertly switched around - that comes from a very obvious place of truth.

10. STAND-OFF AT SPARROW CREEK

I really, really liked this. I can see it's a film I'll go back to quite a few times over the years and see if I can spot the 'turn' because, first time round if I’m honest, I very much did not see the reveal coming.

It's a great little film. The performances are terrific (James Badge Dale is the best actor of our generation, frankly) and Henry Dunham has delivered a hell of an interesting film - all long shots into dark corners of a big dank space, scenes shot with natural torchlight and headlight beams. It's never not interesting to look at.

It's essentially RESERVOIR DOGS re-spun so the diamonds are replaced with missing fire arms and the back alley warehouse in LA is replaced with a militia compound in backwoods America.

9. KNIVES OUT

I found this to be a tremendous amount of fun; the somewhat obvious result that is birthed from a great writer/director putting a terrific script in front of an exceptional cast, designing a fabulous set for them to let loose inside of and then stepping out of their way for quality to reign.

There's a barely tolerable Edgar Wright version of this where the filmmaking is of course "the star", the editing is distracting and the music is purposefully kitschy.

This very much isn't that.

It's decidedly UNshowy and by being so comfortable in its own skin, emulating a classic style of storytelling not so much told anymore, it really stands out as an excellent piece of original cinema.

8. DOLEMITE IS MY NAME

I urge you all to completely buy the hype: DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is every bit as fantastic as everyone is saying and Eddie Murphy is like awards-worthy great in it.

You don't have to have seen DOLEMITE to have fun with this but having done so certainly accentuates it.

It's very funny, surprisingly moving and is a genuinely great ode to the importance of following your passions and not letting anyone stifle your creative aspirations... Hell, if this thing existed 25 years ago I myself would be as prolific as Lee fuckin Childs by now.

Da'Vine Joy Randolph gives THE best supporting actress performance of the year. From straight-up out of nowhere.

Genuinely can't wait to watch this a few more times down the road.

7. AVENGERS: ENDGAME

I think there's two ways of looking at AVENGERS: ENDGAME - as a film in its own right with an atypical start, middle, end, etc. AND as a piece of cinematic event-level entertainment.

In the case of the former, it is pretty damn great though not entirely without its flaws:

Give the narrative set up and logical lay out a single seconds thought and this entire thing crumbles to the ground. On top of that, it takes a while to bed down and get going and its tonal scattershot approach across the first forty-odd minutes is a little jarring. Quite literally you're coming out of that first hour with your head-spinning from laughing and then getting whipped into sombre, dour moments... slapped with narrative leaps and 'we're putting the team back together' beats.

Then the 'points of purpose' settle in and quite frankly we're off to the fucking races, man. Captain Marvel is a repeated, annoying goddamn useless 'deus ex machina' and the entire use of Paltrow/'Rescue' is just irritating. BUT everything 45+ minutes is so, so, so, so flipping ACE that shit like that can't even destabilise it.

There's critics out there deriding this as 'Fan Service: The Movie' and, you know what, damn fucking straight it is and there's nothing wrong with that.

(Although it could be argued that a clunky 'let's put all the women together in one shot' moment that lands with a thud is 'fan service' taken too far and not pitched within proceedings well enough for it to be anything other than cloying.)

The entire middle hour of these three hours is a play within a play; only the play its playing in just happens to be TWENTY-TWO OTHER MOVIES!

They could have phoned this in haaaaaard by this point and it is so, so, so commendable that they didn't. Hell, a lot of the films problems lie in the fact that they tried as hard as they did to really do doing something you wouldn't be expecting with this!

As an 'event', there will never be anything like this again in my lifetime, I don’t think. I knew this walking out of it. There'll be more JUSTICE LEAGUE type failed rip-offs. Marvel themselves will try and replicate it with the law of diminishing returns playing into effect. But there will NEVER be something so accomplished from something so long-form on such a grand stage as this again as far as I’m concerned.

6. CRAWL

I’ve went back for multiple viewings of this and absolutely LOVED it even more each time.

It's a lean, bullet-fast, brutal B-movie creature feature that does not fuck around: There is a complete lack of JAWS like foreboding, skulking around... This is straight-up, in your face, nasty, fast carnage. Anyone going in expecting a knowing, winking PIRANHA 3D / SNAKES ON A PLANE type deal is in for a hard slap.

It's pitch perfect entertainment in the sense that it grabs you and then just keeps turning the screws ("Oh, she's battling an alligator in a flooded crawlspace!" "Aww, man! It's a full on storm and there's TWO alligators now!" "Holy Fuckballs - There's MANY alligators and a hurricane now??").

The last 25 minutes alone are an all-out, relentless assault upon your ability to breathe steadily.

This is the best B-movie of 2019!

5. DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE

My wife and I are big fans of S. Craig Zahler's BONE TOMAHAWK and BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 (two of the best films of the last decade) even though it's becoming more and more apparent he's quite far from our own political stance.

This, Zahler's latest effort, drops the latent suggestion and presents its right-wing, racist immoral world view with no restraint or apology. And regardless of your political stance, if you're there for the story and the filmmaking craftsmanship you'll find this to be tremendous stuff.

It's like a cut-price, gutter level version of Michael Mann's HEAT; a tale of cop and criminal convergence, told at a thoroughly unhurried and unconcerned pace... Only Zahler would think to interrupt his narrative to propose a short story within the story (about a mother returning from maternity leave) that's only there so that he can hurt you with it.

Mel Gibson's presence here laid up against the subject matter is the very definition of provocative and contentious but there's no getting around the fact that he is as tremendous an actor as he is an awful, awful human being. And by all counts he's REALLY very awful.

Gibson is every shade of ace in this and he's ably supported by Vaughn, who's rightly leaning away from the comedic persona he's broken too badly.

This is a languid, unapologetically nasty film but it's also an excellent one. It's so not for everyone but if you've liked BONE TOMAHAWK and BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 then this is a must. In fact, it's both easily Zahler's best film and one of the best films of the year.

4. MISSING LINK

I think this really is an absolute jewel and I can't understand why more folk aren't screaming about it. It's very funny and visually wondrousness (that boat-in-the-storm INCEPTION homage action sequence is fabulous). The magnitude of talent that would have gone into making this via stop motion... knowing that it takes one week to complete one to two minutes of useable footage!

The creases in the texture of each characters clothing as they move too? WOW! I’ve always adored Laika's output but this was the first for me where the sheer care and attention to detail really shone!

For one, it's easily one of the funniest movies of the year. For another, it looks totally gorgeous. And best of all, it gives kids their very own GUNGA DIN / RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK cinematic adventure type experience.

3. FORD VS. FERRARI (aka LE MANS ’66)

I’m so glad in the same very year where ‘Film Twitter’ nearly blew itself up over the ‘Marvel / Tentpole Cinema / Scorsese / No original studio films anymore’ debate, I got to experience something as majestic and very nearly perfect as FORD VS FERRARI (aka LE MANS '66).

It's got such a tremendous old fashioned style to it that I hope they do what they did with LOGAN and give us a black and white edition and we have 60s era style movie credits to open and close it. It's that kind of movie.

Yet at the same time it manages to display all the high end technical filmmaking majesty backed up by wall-to-wall terrific performances (only Josh Lucas lets the side down with his inability to deliver anything above unsubtle, cartoonish panto villainy).

It's a gorgeous, kinetic, enthralling and by the end a surprisingly tender and moving piece of cinema. I completely adored it.

2. ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD

I fell in love hard with Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD straight-out-the-gate and fell harder with repeated viewings. It's a beautifully shambolic, meandering 'day in the life' sort of deal that plays out as a dry, knowing comedy with a sideline in impending, escalating dread... before becoming, well, something else entirely that's so shocking and out of left field that it feels so courageous because of how swiftly it will divide a viewer.

What's so monumentally lush about it is that it is made by a cinematic craftsman who is essentially writing a love letter to everything he adores/adored about a very specific time in a very specific place within the industry that made him. It is framed, lit and shot with aplomb but on top of that every single thing inside of the frame is chockfull of things that are background noise to somebody and yet incredibly meaningful, funny and knowing to true TV and cinema fans.

If there's any complaint to be made about this movie it's that Tarantino's continued insistence on shoe-horning Zoe Bell into his films is absolutely hurting his product: The woman can't act, can't judge the tone of a scene, is flat-out incapable of putting in a performance consistent with what is going on around with other actors and she is routinely a very hard, very annoying distraction that draws you straight out of the film.

You could argue that it is a listless movie because, in the conventional sense people expect of a narrative, does anything truly happen in the atypical Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3 type of way. But I'd counter-argue that all the enjoyment is in just spending time watching these characters move around and interact with one another.

Knowing the history of Sharon Tate and what happened to her at the hands of The Manson Family fills the entire proceedings with a sense of nausea-inducing nervousness about what we're going to see and to what degree. It's like a pressure valve sat in the background, slowly filling and expanding and just waiting to explode. That it eventually does but in the manner it does, is... well it's audacious... and yet questionable... and still entertaining as hell.

1. THE IRISHMAN

Without a hint of exaggeration, at least once a day every day since I first saw this film I’ve found myself thinking back to both DeNiro's "phone call" scene of which no words would convey its brilliance and Pacino's final scene and the sound he makes in it. The former is genuinely just one of the most haunting, astoundingly natural pieces of acting you'll see from a truly great actor you'd kind of forgot was capable of going to places like this.

This really is a straight-out-the-gate, instant, flawless, completely majestic work of art. It is a master craftsman signing off on a genre he revolutionised in much the same way Clint Eastwood closed down his connection to the western with UNFORGIVEN.

It is three and a half hours long and it doesn't feel remotely close to that... and that's saying something considering most of the film's real awesomeness lies in scenes that are allowed to breathe and just sit or in points being driven home through the repetition in the mundanity of these characters' lives. Because that's the other thing that's really terrific about it - it's not a re-tread of GOODFELLAS or CASINO; there's nothing remotely glamorous about this 'life' - Scorsese presents it as this 'working class stiff' gig where being the right-hand man to some of the most powerful crime figures and industry heads of the 50s, 60s, 70s, etc is really not all that higher up past being a truck driver in the same era.

The much-talked about de-ageing stuff on the actors is a little jarring at first (the first scene of DeNiro in his late 20s or something makes you squelch in your seat a little and think "Fuck, this is going to be bad isn't it?") but it settles in and gets much better as the timelines between character and actor shorten - the work on Pacino in particular is first rate.

The performances are across the board superb - DeNiro and Pacino in particular are so bloody brilliant here that it wakes you up to how fallow and shit they've been for so long. But really, this is Pesci's movie. He gives what is the performance of the year by turning in a really human, considered turn... and in the process circumnavigating the expectations that comes from having this particular actor in this particular genre with this particular director.

Not enough reviews talk about how extremely fuckin funny the movie is - and it is very laugh out loud funny with some of the lines and interactions (Pacino and Stephen Graham together are hilarious!) - and no words accurately describe how truly sad and surprisingly moving it is in the final stretch.

... I don't believe a single word of the source material it’s based on but it's resolutely not important to have to buy into the ('fake'?) memoir in order to appreciate the film adaptation as this massive, majestic piece of cinematic myth making - one that I genuinely can't wait to see again many times over the years!

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2018.

It is time – belated once more – to pull the dustcover off my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year. This time for 2018.

Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive. Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit yet believe they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year. Because if this was about what YOU think then we’d be over on YOUR Tumblr account right now, huh? ;)

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. And no, despite several attempts, I never got to see Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse so if you’re here to see that lauded at number one, I better dash your expectations now.

Without further ado…

Non-Fiction/Documentary wise; Alex Gibney proved once again with No Stone Unturned that he and his investigative team are some of the best working today. Andre the Giant was a really lovely and touching tribute to what was an icon of a man. Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette was transformative – you can argue about whether it’s a ‘stand up performance’ or a ‘one-person show’ or whatever but the truth is its funny and moving and challenging and wholly unique. And finally there was King Cohen which was a brilliant, entertaining retrospective on Larry Cohen’s career as the ‘king of the concept’ and the forefather of B-movie cinema as we know it today.

In terms of thrillers, I am a huge fan of Jeremy Saulnier and I really liked the book of Hold The Dark; the film itself doesn’t quite equal it and some of the narrative choices in the adaption weaken it but regardless, Saulnier’s movie has one of the best shoot-outs of the year as its centre-piece. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s The Endless is an incredibly impressive sci-fi drama with an excellent sense of foreboding. However, I stand by my belief that a viewing of it is fairly useless/most definitely less effective without the duo’s 2012 film Resolution before it. Ingrid Goes West is an excellent play on the 90s style psycho-within thriller, updated for the Instagram age. I’ve long had a poor opinion of Audrey Plaza and the film is well above her capabilities but not even that can hamper an otherwise great cast doing great work with a great script. Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge was a savage, unrelenting and insanely graphic revenge thriller/drama with a stellar turn by Matilda Lutz that takes the standard imperilled woman/cat-and-mouse movie and re-spins it in a way you certainly won’t have seen before.

When it comes to horror in 2018, this was another strong year; Matthew Holness’ Possum was a deeply disturbing psychological horror film that showed Holness had a confidence that bellied his inexperience. Daniel Goldhaber’s Cam was a grossly enthralling watch that kept you on your toes by never taking the film down many of the routes you would expect a film of this ilk to. Gareth Evans’ much anticipated Apostle was admittedly overlong and shambolic in places but it was never not beautiful to look at and when it kicked its gears correctly into place it delivered some very effective scares. The much derided Christmas slasher Better Watch Out was generally hated or ignored by most but I had a great deal of fun with it. Mom & Dad was a tremendous bit of B-movie horror that sold its high concept hard with two deliciously OTT performances by Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair. Steven Soderbergh’s much-touted iPhone horror-thriller Unsane more than delivered. The long delayed sequel The Strangers: Prey At Night was a brilliant thrill-ride with a couple of genuinely horrifying and deeply effective set-pieces. The Night Eats The World was the I Am Legend movie we truly deserve, replacing vampires with zombies and doing great things on a threadbare budget. Finally there was Summer of 84 which didn’t achieve necessarily everything it tried to do but deserves respect just for the bravery of its dour third act.

From the pool of big studio blockbusters, I liked Sicario 2 a great deal and I’m well invested to stick with this (now inexplicable) franchise through all its sequels and intended spin-offs. The plot itself couldn’t have been more poorly timed in the Trump age and left a bad taste in the mouth watching a lot of it. Deadpool 2 loved itself more than I ever could but that doesn’t distract from the fact it was very, very funny. I thought The Commuter was a legitimate surprise as both conspiracy actioners AND Liam Neeson B-movies go. So much so that its big, explosive, CGI laden extravagant finale is a betrayal of all that was great about the film that preceded it. Both Black Panther and Ant-Man and the Wasp were as dependably great fun as you would expect from Marvel now. The former more so than the latter which seemed to have less of an engaging plot and more just a confidence that you would show up and watch this cast muck around with each other regardless. Solo was probably more of a surprise than The Commuter as blockbusters go, especially considering the mess that was the film’s production. It looks flat-out gorgeous, has some truly excellent set-pieces (that train heist!) but flounders across the finish line. I’m an unashamed fan of what Denzel Washington is doing with these Equalizer movies and, as with the first film, The Equalizer 2 would be nothing of any worth with anyone else in the lead. But Denzel absolutely sells the shit out of this and the films are appealing solely because of him. Hotel Artemis was another movie that would have offered nothing much if not for that cast coming together to really put the graft in selling a crazy B-movie concept that spins off of work John Wick and its sequel was laying down years earlier. Finally there was the Dave Bautista ‘straight to Sky Cinema’ actioner, Final Score, which in the year of Dwayne Johnson’s execrable Skyscraper, is the (no, I can’t believe I’m going to say it either) vastly superior Die Hard knock-off starring an American wrestler.

Of 2018’s dramas, I really liked Happy New Year, Colin Burstead but then I have a predisposed love of Ben Wheatley efforts. The film doesn’t quite return a pay-off for your investment but the cast more than make it worthy of your time. Molly's Game was as excellent as you would expect when Jessica Chastain surrounds herself with that cast working off an Aaron Sorkin script that he chooses to make his directorial debut with. The aforementioned Denzel Washington does really understated, effective work in the too-easily dismissed Roman J. Israel. Esq which was the year’s ‘solid, mature, standalone, potboiler’ that studios don’t have a general interest in anymore. There’s a lot of people that were quick to dismiss The Post as ‘lesser Spielberg’ too but I really enjoyed it and loved spending time with that phenomenal cast having a crack at that particular subject matter. Stronger was, overall, a middling movie on a really moving subject matter that just happened to have another stellar Jake Gyllenhaal performance in it that should have seen him take all the awards but sadly didn’t. Paul Greengrass’ 22 July was incredibly effective, unsettling and harrowing in all the ways he intended it to be and should be but the subplots it introduces outside of the attack and the courtroom are way too heavy handed. I really, really enjoyed Paddy Considine’s sophomore effort Journeyman and thought it was one of the rare movies that actually needed to be less lean and have more time to explore the heady amount of drama it packed into its short running time. Hostiles was possibly the most underseen movie deserved of more attention with wall-to-wall great performances amidst really beautiful cinematography. Finally, both I Tonya and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were fantastic films with fantastic performances – all very much as good as you’ve heard but both of which (pardon the pub in the case of I Tonya) didn’t quite stick the landing.

It was a banner year for World Cinema, greatly helped by the fact that Netflix made a strong commitment to importing long delayed Korean and Chinese cinema titles on mass this year. Amongst the sea of foreign cinema landing on streaming platforms across the UK, there were some exceptional standouts (five of the Top 25 slots alone are taken up with foreign titles!); John Woo’s much-touted return, Man Hunt, was an ‘interesting’ misfire that started out as a ‘wronged man’ thriller and descended into complete piffle about super soldiers and experiments on the homeless (yes, it’s even crazier than that description!). Wolf Warrior 2 was as much a heady expansion into ridiculousness as Rambo 2 (Stallone’s franchise is very much the blueprint for these films) was to First Blood. This is an insane action movie that demands to be seen – if not for the moustache twirling turn by Frank Grillo or the ‘punch-up’ between two tanks then definitely for the relentless car chases and shoot-outs that come every ten minutes! Shim Sung-Bo’s 2014 psychological thriller Sea Fog (aka Haemoo), based on the true story of 25 Korean-Chinese illegal immigrants who suffocated to death in the storage tank of the fishing vessel Taechangho (their bodies were dumped by the ship's crew into the sea southwest of Yeosu on October 7, 2001), finally arrived legitimately here in the UK this year and it was more than worth the wait. Cambodia’s answer to The Raid was Jailbreak, the title of which is also the film’s plot in its entirety, and if bone-snapping, relentless, draining 100 minutes close-quarter fighting is your thing then this is well worth a watch. It works in fact in a nice double-bill with Erik Matti’s Philippine action thriller, BuyBust, which takes the ‘team of cops out of their depth’ thing and applies it to a non-stop shoot-out in a Manila slum. Finally there was Steel Rain, a conspiracy thriller / action movie about a former agent from North Korean intelligence and a senior member of the South Korean security services who have to team up to prevent the breakout of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. It’s a little flabby overall but still a great ride.

Not a huge amount of comedies blew me away this year (except ONE, obviously!), but the ones that did were all out of nowhere surprises; Blockers was an out-and-out delight with a starmaking turn from Geraldine Viswanathan. Gringo was seen by barely anyone but was a star-laden romp with a surprisingly deft comedic turn from David Oyelowo and another absolutely blinding scene-stealing performance from Sharlto Copley. More people need to seek this little gem out. There are multiple arguments as to whether Death of Stalin is or isn’t a 2018 release – I loved it enormously but I’m informed that it counts as a 2017 film I missed rather than a release from 2018! Finally there was Super Troopers 2 which didn’t get a cinema run or even a DVD release (!) here and instead went straight to VOD. It’s not as great as the first, obviously, but it’s still a delight with a large amount of laugh-out-loud moments.

And last but by no means least there was animation. And if you’d told me that there would be a sequel to The Incredibles in 2018 but it wouldn’t break my Top 25 of the year I’d say you were insane yet here we are. I loved The Incredibles 2 a great deal and it is never not incredibly (pun intended) gorgeous to look at but, as with Bird’s previous film Tomorrowland, his unsubtle messaging about the perils of this, that and the other as he sees it becomes seriously overbearing and in some points distracting. Also, frankly, his churlish reaction to people online who complained about the level of swearing and violence in the film soured me even further. Lee Unkrich’s Coco was a resplendent and moving joy that had my jaw-dropped and my eyes misty in large parts. And finally there was Early Man which was another Aardman gem with a huge amount of laughs but with two seriously awful and distracting performances from Maisie Williams and Tom Hiddleston.

And now, as always, without further ado…. The Top 25!

25. Chasing the Dragon

This is a terrific, relentless, true life crime drama about an illegal immigrant from China who sneaks into British-colonized Hong Kong in 1963 and transforms himself into a ruthless and emerging drug lord – and the corrupt cop who tries to take him down. It completely gets how to utilise the GOODFELLAS and DEPARTED vibe for its own benefit instead of just shamelessly ripping on it poorly like most crime epics these days. Donnie Yen and Andy Lau are dependably excellent, the story is gripping and the action is first rate.

24. Creed 2

Anyone who knows me knows that this was one of the films I was most nervous for in 2018. I just didn’t see how they could make a sequel to a film as grounded and real as the first Creed felt by tying it to the silliest (borderline 80 minute pop music video) in the Rocky franchise. And yet, for me, it worked and it worked surprisingly well – turning out to be one of the most bombastic, feelgood films of the year.

23. Mandy

You can call this a cult curio, a piece of crap or a modern masterpiece but what you can't argue is that you've seen anything like it in film this year... or, really for what it is, ever. It's a conventional revenge B-movie injected with LSD and then set loose to shower down a psychedelic rainstorm of violence, relentless in presenting its unique hellscape vision until there's actually nothing conventional left.

22. A Prayer Before Dawn

This is a brave, committed piece of filmmaking. I was genuinely blown away by it. It was so all encompassing that it completely engulfed and, at one point (the gang rape scene), I had to pause the whole film and physically retch. It was so grim yet so driven in the detail of a very specific story that it wanted to tell without a single compromise that I came to thoroughly respect and admire what it was doing. There was the mid-budget, studio-backed Charlie Hunnam version of this that thankfully fell apart months before production and it would have been a TOTAL disaster. This film needed to be as low-to-the-ground, real and pushed by natural performances. And boy, it IS that.

21. Ghost Stories

This is an effective as HELL ride. It absolute burrows underneath your skin. It's not at all what a modern horror audience will be expecting and that's very much a good thing - we need things like this that draw us back to a classical and traditional 'ghost' story every now and again, and away from everything being zombies and slashers!

20. First Reformed

This is absolutely not an easy 'entertaining' watch in the conventional sense but if you want your thoughts, feelings, religious leanings and opinions on climate change and the environment prodded and provoked then this is absolutely well worth a watch. Somewhere along the way to securing his place as a solid and reliable performer in B-movie genre fare, Ethan Hawke has quietly cemented himself as one of the great actors of our generation too. And whilst all the plaudits will inevitably lead towards him, there's some serious 'Best Supporting Actress' level work laid down by Amanda Siegfried. This is a really brave, original piece of cinema.

19. Hereditary

I would've loved to have been one of the minority who turned my nose up at this and bucked the trend on pouring adoration all over it but... it's SO good! For the first hour, one monumental shocker aside, I spent it admittedly transfixed by the wondrous work Toni Collette was doing but still thinking the movie needed to be tighter and less wishy-washy with its intent and then... at the seventy minute mark it started to burrow under my skin, making me deeply uncomfortable and yet thoroughly enthralled. By the final third I was a complete wreck and I have to admit that HEREDITARY delivers hard on relentless and intense scares that left me a tiny bit ringed out by the end. If Collette isn’t nominated for her work in this film it will be a crime.

18. Roma

I’m going to be 'that' guy who sat down to watch this under the weight of all the acclaim and buzz and found myself struggling to connect with it. I could see and appreciate all the technical marvel that makes Cuarón one of the all-time greats but it just didn't pull me in and I started to get frustrated with myself; What was the rest of the known universe seeing with this film that I wasn't? ... THEN, in the dying ten minutes of the film, I found myself sat with tears streaming down my face and I came to realise that I never noticed how deep it had burrowed. I'll hand it a place on this here list purely for that beach scene alone!

17. Phantom Thread

I came to this having read very little about it in way of plot but only having heard extremely superlative things about it in terms of performance and, as expected, direction from Paul Thomas Anderson. Because of my isolation from it from a plot point of view, I took to this as a really dark and twisted comedy in the style of a Julia Davis effort (who appears in this movie as Lady Baltimore). No one has ever really corrected me on this, so to me Daniel Day Lewis’ apparently final project as an actor has turned out to be one that shows him to be a deftly talented actor of very dry, perfectly observed comedy. And speaking of performances, Vicky Krieps is truly phenomenal!

16. Calibre

This is a terrific low-key thriller that takes your breath away and has you totally gripped as to where it's going to go next. It takes you down usual "fish out of water" paths then twists your route, wrongfooting your expectations along the way. The easy comparison is to put it in line with EDEN LAKE or DELIVERANCE but really it's more in line with WAKE IN FRIGHT and AFTER HOURS in terms of the relentless sense of escalating and inescapable tension.... And that final, haunting image? Wow! That will stay with you!

15. You Were Never Really Here

This is really something else! .... This is what TAXI DRIVER would look like if written by the devil and directed by a PTSD sufferer off their meds! It's phenomenal stuff. End of.

14. Annihilation

I will offset my fury that I was denied the opportunity to experience this on the biggest cinema screen possible against the fact that I was lucky enough to just experience it at all. What an absolutely astoundingly gorgeous, mesmerising, challenging, unsettling and thoroughly brilliant pieces of science-fiction to come along in quite some time. "It's a men-on-a-mission movie but with women!" "It's sort of an ode to Kubrick and 2001 and sort of Apocalypse Now!" "It's a creature feature AND a possession movie!" "It's an alien invasion flick!" ... Second time around it felt lesser because the shine had dimmed a little but first time out, it worked exceptionally in so many expertly layered ways.

13. BlacKKKlansman

I really liked this and boy did we NEED this movie in 2018. You only have to close your eyes for 10 seconds watching it to realise the lead is very much the son of Denzel - in the best possible way. Like much of Lee's output nowadays, it carries some bloat and doesn't always seem that focused on what it's trying to be. But, like ALL of Lee's output, when it does land a hit it's a helluva knockout... and that's no more apparent than in the denouement and how it's used. Brilliant film!

12. The Battleship Island

This is the true story of the 400 people who attempted a prison break from a forced labour camp on Hashima Island during the Japanese Colonial era. It is affecting, thrilling and full of jaw-dropping moments of ‘as real’ stunt work amidst a deeply moving story of salvation and tenacity. It was incredibly under-promoted here in the UK and too few have seen it but it is well worth seeking out.

11. The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling

This was such a beautiful and moving ode to a wonderful, talented and inspiring man. A man who seemed to JUST finally come to understand himself, his complexities and his flaws at the moment life unfairly took him. Shandling was the first stand-up comedian I ever remember really seeing on TV as a kid. I spent most of my time laughing at Shandling's voice than I did in understanding the jokes he was saying. As I went into my teens I used to tape IT'S GARRY SHANDLING'S SHOW intermittently and it would blow me away as there was absolutely nothing like it on TV. The man would go on to reconfigure the television comedy once more and deliver one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sitcom in TV history with THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW. And on top of that he had his arm around the shoulders of pretty much every single major comedic and film talent of our generation, mentoring and guiding them - passing the ladder back down as he felt it had been done by George Carlin to him! Best of all though, towards the end, one of many Shandling journal entries is shown and it is quite possibly the greatest teachable moment to anyone who grieves, anyone who struggles with life and anyone who just doesn't feel good enough... and for that reason and that reason alone, this is quite possibly essential viewing for anyone who wants to learn how to be a better human:

10. A Quiet Place

This is not just impressive on a technical level but also as a structured piece of writing that shows an impressive skill-set in the economy of storytelling. The latter of which works, rather astoundingly, not through any exposition or character-arc dumping but purely through wordless performance. And whilst all the justifiable rave reviews touch on the technical excellence, too few highlight just how fantastic it is on a performance-level: Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe are *astoundingly* good and Krasinski and Emily Blunt are amazing. It has to be said that as great as it is, this film would be NOTHING without these particular four performances. The labour sequence is the one everyone seems to be going crazy for and it is truly terrific as tension-drenched scares go... but get this; it isn't even the best sequence in the movie! It's just one of about four in a lean-as-hell 90-odd minute run time that stand as some of the best set-pieces the modern horror/thriller genre has seen in some time.

9. Night Comes For Us

I was left rocked by this; a film that deals with its plot - a gangland enforcer instigates a treacherous and violent insurrection within his Triad crime family when he refuses to murder a child - within the first 5 minutes then opens up the remaining 115 minutes to a non-stop, relentless cavalcade of fights. As an action movie it's quite possibly one of the best of 2018. However, it's also possibly the most sickeningly violent and grotesquely graphic film I’ve EVER seen. Shitteth ye not. It should be admired for its absolutely unforgiving pace and an all-you-can-feast-on series of fight set-pieces (that very nearly equal THE RAID) that, no exaggeration, never EVER stop for the whole stretch of its running time... but it's just so, so, sooo violent. SO violent that it essentially becomes a living cartoon before the end is anywhere in sight. To say it's a fantastic action extravaganza is no hyperbole but to say it's not for the faint of heart either is definitely not overstating it - I knew three people since it debuted on Netflix that haven't been able to endure more than thirty to forty minutes of it.

8. Small Town Crime

This is a pitch perfect film noir and a tremendous homage to old school PI movies whilst standing as its own worthy entry to the subgenre too. The plotting is tight and the acting is across-the-board excellent. It's written and directed in a way that serves to just escalate and build until the big valve-releasing burst of gunfire come the end. It's a great, great little movie!

7. Upgrade

This is the ‘little movie that could’ – a low-budget loving ode to the straight-to-video B-movie and bargain basement genre flicks of the 80s as much as it is to THE TERMINATOR and MAD MAX and the like. This is a film made with love by someone who loves those sorts of films and in the process delivers a stupendously entertaining, lean sci-fi action fight-fest, shoot-em-up that never falters!

6. Psychokinesis

if you're going to be having a conversation about the best superhero movies of the year and what not then PSYCHOKINESIS needs to be held up there alongside BLACK PANTHER and INFINITY WAR. Seriously. It's brilliant - providing a final act "dust-up" that's up there with the best Marvel has put out and, as a result, delivers the same genre rejig for superheroes that the same filmmaker did for zombies with TRAIN TO BUSAN.

5. Avengers: Infinity War

I really liked Infinity War. Really liked it a lot. It's not without its flaws but it carries them gloriously in a sort of shrugged "What do you expect us to do?" manner. For example, it plays more like a series of sketches across a two and a half hour running time rather than a wholly cohesive film - but then you have to consider its a two and a half hour film with six+ active storylines and 75+ characters and cut it some slack... Captain America is completely underserved. You knew this was going to be a problem with someone within a cast of 75+ but the MCU's greatest character? Really? … But... But... BUT... what exists on screen is both a delight and a triumph in terms of long-form, multi-verse storytelling. It's pretty impenetrable to anyone who's not been in on the MCU from the beginning but absolutely glorious to all those that've stayed committed. Surprisingly, for what the plot is, the film is very, very funny with some great laugh-out-loud zingers and in terms of set-pieces it is understandably one of Marvel's most ram-packed - with action and FX sequences every fifteen minutes or so that would be the whole finale of other blockbusters!

4. Mission Impossible Fallout

This represents an absolute game-changing moment in blockbuster franchise filmmaking equal to / possibly superior to AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. It is an utterly astounding endeavour that loses not a jot of its awe-inducing propulsion and scope on the small screen - The bathroom fight would be the high watermark if it weren't drowned out completely by the Paris sequence... which in itself we'd be holding up as an all-timer in action cinema if the climax didn't surpass it and then some! It’s a film of continuous escalation, always in competition with itself to one-up itself, that serves to promote Christopher McQuarrie as possibly the greatest action director working in the genre today.

3. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

This was a film that delighted in its love of storytelling to just infectiously show you all that is great about great old fashioned storytelling in the modern age – all the while delivering sumptuous visuals and wall-to-wall terrific performances (Zoe Kazan will break your heart in two!). It was lovely and funny and moving and thrilling and really just an outright delight of a film that not even James Franco could ruin.

2. Game Night

Not only did this turn out to be one of my favourite films of the year but it's also one of the best comedies I’ve seen in a LONG time. It's a tight and impressively constructed comedy full of brilliantly staged and well-earned comedy set-pieces stacked precariously on top of one another; each time one lands you think it’s going to be the one that 'misses' and topples the movie and it never does. The cast are absolutely tremendous (Rachel McAdams remains an international treasure of the highest order and Sharon Horgan steals pretty much every scene she's in that Jesse Plemons isn't with just her glances!), the action sequences are really well done and it has one of the best end credits in comedy movie history with more visual jokes layered through it then most studio comedies have in their whole running time these days.Loved, loved, LOVED it! ... The alleyway / gunshot scene nearly broke me.

1.  First Man

This is a straight-out-the-gate modern American masterpiece who's box office reception shows, like with WARRIOR, THE THING and SHAWSHANK, Americans just don't know shit. It's an engulfing, fascinating and at times incredibly moving epic that procedurally does for deep-dives on space exploration what ZODIAC did for investigation, ZERO DARK THIRTY did for terrorism and PRINCE OF THE CITY did for corruption. It truly is an astounding piece of work that deserves to be held in the highest possible esteem. I still break into a smile thinking about the sheer cinematic exquisiteness of it all, how it used sound to shred away at your senses and how, with the simplest of close-ups of a child's bracelet, it took a hammer to my emotional resolve and has me welling up even now thinking about it. It really is an absolute work of art that I am champing at the bit to revisit.

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And that’s it for another year, folks. Thanks for reading and what not. If you liked this, share it. If you didn’t, sorry. Years 2008 through to 2017 are in the archive should you wish to check them out.

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2017.

Yes, it is indeed that time of year again where I blow the annual cobwebs off my Tumblr account to post my Top 25 movies of the year. And yes, I am indeed late by a few weeks in getting this up online... but I was celebrating this being the TENTH anniversary of this makeshift column thing. It started out as a regular on one website, moved to another and now it’s its own Tumblr ‘thing’. So... yay! Happy tenth anniversary. Or something.

Anyway, you frequent visitors know the score by now. I throw down a big long mournful special mention to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit but think they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date. Without further ado...

In relation to the year’s dramas, I thoroughly enjoyed T2 Trainspotting and in a lot of ways the ‘long wait’ for a sequel we never really needed didn’t seem to hurt it at all. However, unlike the original, this felt like confection in the sense that once it was finished it didn’t really leave any lasting impression. I really liked Bleed For This and whilst familiar with the true story that it was dramatising I felt that for a lot of people they’d STILL find it completely incredulous. It was a well-directed, solidly acted little film that deserved more love. In an age when Jackie Chan films are so wildly all over the shop in terms of quality it was quite the delight to get two legitimately brilliant efforts from the legend. The first was Railroad Tigers which somehow managed to be part history lesson, part caper and part atypical Jackie Chan action extravanza without ever being annoying. Russia’s Panfilov's 28 (turigidly retitled Battle For Moscow here) was a great ‘stacked-odds’ war movie that rewarded the long wait to get itself into gear with some terrific tank-on-solider action set-pieces and high-stakes tension. 

Keeping with dramas, Anne Hathaway successfully rebirthed from having her cinematic abilities ruined by her obnoxious celebrity personality with Colossal, a terrific study of addiction and responsibility – somehow presented through the purview of a Kaiju movie! The Wall, Doug Liman’s second of two movies this year (after the likeable but disposable American Made), was the better one – playing out as one of those high concept ‘one location’ thrillers that keeps you suitably gripped… before sadly fizzling out in the final stretch. James Gray’s The Lost City of Z was a gorgeous-looking, wonderfully directed movie of a fascinating story sadly undone by last minute “that’ll do” casting that saw Charlie Hunnam completely derail a film that had every chance of being an instant classic. Jeff Nichol continued his pathway to becoming my generation’s Spielberg with Loving, the true life story of an American interracial marriage that challenged the law. Scorsese finally made his passion project, Silence, and it was a heavily flawed film that still some how felt like a sumptuous work of art at the same time. Finally, there was The Age of Shadows which was Korea’s attempt at gung-ho action-heavy, cat-and-mouse, double-agent espionage thriller that narrowly missed out on a place in the final Top 25.

In terms of blockbusters, Kong: Skull Island was tremendous fun with some of the best FX designs and action set-pieces you’d find in a Summer blockbuster in 2017. Only third act issues and a terrible Tom Hiddleston performance stopped it from being one of the year’s best. Fast & Furious 8 was a crushing disappointment that absolutely confirmed my worst fears after the death of Paul Walker – namely that this franchise would become utterly unmoored by Vin Diesel’s ego and his belief that HE himself is what the audience for these movies care about most. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was as much of a delight as you were probably hoping it would be and I loved it a great deal, but it completely lost my interest by its climax with its cavalcade of CGI smashing into CGI incoherently. 

Alien Covenant was a vast improvement on Prometheus (soon to be retitled Alien: Prometheus if rumours are to be believed!) but it still leaves you questioning why Ridley Scott is obviously trying to sandwich other sci-fi intentions he has into a pre-existing franchise that doesn’t quite accommodate them. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (I’m not calling it by that bizarre inexplicable UK title!) was… pleasantly surprising in the fact that it was not awful! Wonder Woman was legitimately jaw-dropping in terms of just how great it was (who’d have thunk it?) but, just like with Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the minute it leaned back on clattering CGI and nonsensical reveals it lost me entirely. The two biggest surprises of all though in terms of blockbusters was Life – which was a better Alien movie than Alien: Covenant with a humdinger of an ending that due to poor box office we’ll never see developed as intended – and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle which somehow managed to be the best teen movie of the year and the best video game movie (for a video game that doesn’t exist!) AND one of the best sequels of the year too!

Not a huge amount of horror movies greatly impressed this year but M. Night Shymalan’s Split worked effectively for me and The Autopsy of Jane Doe stood out as one of the year’s best horror movies with some fantastic jump-scares and lead performances that fully commit to selling the concept. However, one that did really impress was Gerald’s Game. Mike Flanagan continued his own pathway to becoming my generation’s maestro of horror with an adaption of Stephen King’s novel that proved to be an engrossing, sickening, improbably excellent adaptation. Carla Cugino’s performance in it is one of the best of the year.

Whilst we’re talking great performances of the year special mention most definitely has to go to Theresa Palmer for her work in the uncompromising, upsetting indie thriller, Berlin Syndrome. 

For comedies, Don't Think Twice was a lovely watch and seemed to work past just how incredibly niche and “inside-y” it was through the hardwork of its thoroughly likeable cast. Goon: Last of the Enforcers was every bit this year’s underrated gem as its predecessor was when it was released years back. Then there was The Big Sick which managed the commendable balancing act of being incredibly lovely, moving, dramatic, hilarious and really rather wonderful all at the same time.

For action B-movies, it was a surprisingly great year in 2017. The team behind The Raid gave us Headshot which kick-for-punch gave us some of the best fight sequences of the year. Sleepless, a totally unrequired remake of the French classic Sleepless Night, ended up being a really fun, gritty ride full of entertaining shoot-outs and improbable fight sequences with Michelle Monaghan committing to the material with more gusto than it probably deserved and the film being all the better for it. The second best of the three cinematic attempts by Mel Gibson to be redeemed by his industry was Blood Father, a down-and-dirty gun-and-run action shoot ‘em up that would have been nothing without Gibson’s throwing-it-all-down performance. John Wick Chapter 2 was extravagant excellence that at times I felt unworthy of being exposed to. Jeremy Rush’s debut, Wheelman, took all the clichés of “the good criminal on a bad job gone wrong” subgenre and - thanks to Frank Grillo’s performance – made a better movie than the similar but one-note and overly acclaimed Baby Driver. 

Shockwave Tunnel was a dependably solid Andy Lau actioner that played like Die Hard meets Daylight – all the overblown, enthralling action you’d expect from a Hong Kong mid-level blockbuster with all the overwrought emotionally manipulative dramatics too! Finally there was Martin Campbell’s The Foreigner, the second of those brilliant Jackie Chan movies in 2017, which was part political revenge movie, part First Blood homage, part commercial for Chan being considered for actual serious acting awards and part ‘Is Pierce Brosnan doing Gerry Adams?’ think-piece.

It was another stellar year for documentaries too with Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press being the biggest jaw-dropper of the lot as Hulk Hogan, backed by a billionaire with nefarious intent, destroyed a website for reporting on his sex tape – and set a dangerous precedent in the process! Bright Lights, the candid documentary on Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, landed on UK shores early in 2017 and proved to be every bit as heartbreaking as you’d expect in light of Fisher’s death. Probably one of the biggest, bizarre curios this year was Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, a candid and unfiltered look behind Jim Carrey’s “process” in making Man on the Moon many years back and which gave way to finally turning many a long-held rumour to fact. Spielberg was an out-and-out delight for any fan of cinema, delivering an enormous amount of access to the master of cinema himself as he and his colleagues took us through his career and his life. Finally there was the magnificent and majestic epic OJ: Made In America which makes these ‘mentions’ as an eight hour documentary in the same way Twin Peaks Season 3 is allowed to be considered as one of “the films of the year” too. It is an accomplished, thorough and engrossing study not just of a miscarriage of justice but of race in America, celebrity and human toxicity.

I did not catch a lot of animation in 2017 but the two standouts worthy of mention were The Lego Batman Movie, which managed to keep the delightful ball bouncing that The Lego Movie itself threw up in the air by way of pacey and inventive plotting/design and a very, very clever and knowing script. Then there was Seoul Station, the animated prequel to last year’s sublime Train to Busan. It deserves a shout-out not because it is particularly stunning as an animated film (it isn’t!) or that it works particularly brilliantly as a prequel (it doesn’t!) but as an animated zombie contagion movie in its own right it is very much entertaining and proves to be quite the thrill-ride with a gut-punch denouement.

And now to the Top 25 movies of the year themselves:

 25. It Comes At Night

Badly mismarketed - according to some - as some sort of zombie/creature feature that saw an immense audience backlash, this is actually a brilliant study in dread and human frailty told on an intimate scale with yet another dependably excellent performance from Joel Edgerton.

24. Spider-Man: Homecoming

I’m as big an MCU ‘junkie’ as most but I went into this cynical and with my arms dismissively folded across my chest. I was burnt out on Spider-Man and the Civil War cameo, whilst ‘fun’, didn’t give me any feeling it would work as another feature. I thought the Sam Raimi trilogy was badly cast and over-rated fare and I actually went against the populous on the Andrew Garfield movies by finding them entertaining clusterfucks that worked in spite of the committee filmmaking approach. I just didn’t want another round – but Homecoming gets Spider-Man entirely right for the first time, for me. It moves like a bullet without an inch of fat on it (a rarity for a lot of MCU movies!), it’s wonderfully cast and, best of all, it manages to be exciting and funny in equal measures like the best MCU movies and no other Spider-Man movie has before!

23. Manchester By The Sea

This is not your recommended Friday or Saturday night ‘easy entertainment’ and for many its quality has been blighted by the revelations about Casey Affleck but this is an uncomfortably honest and heartbreaking mediative study on grief, loss and loneliness. Affleck is superb and Michelle Williams once again shows that she is the greatest actress of my generation by an easy mile.

22. Super Dark Times

I was lauded like the hero I rightfully should be considered as for labelling this movie on Twitter as “Stand by Me meets American Psycho” and the description really works. Go in knowing as little as possible and just let it play out. It’s dark, grimy and captivating and it works as tremendously as it does because it never once feels anything less than completely real. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

21. Patriots Day

Mark Wahlberg is one of the worst mainstream actors (and, lest we forget, human beings!) in the movie business today. And here he’s playing (badly) an unnecessarily and inexplicably invented “composite” character in an otherwise authentic dramatic recreation of the Boston Bombing and the hunt for the culprits. When Peter Berg sticks to the facts and procedurally works through the events and the investigation, you’re gifted an exemplary thriller that delivers – with the Watertown shoot-out – one of the year’s best sequences. When you’re put in the hands of Wahlberg, it’s painful. I was able to forcibly separate the former from the latter. Many couldn’t. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

20. Hacksaw Ridge

I’m keeping my opinion on Mel Gibson absent for once (everyone knows I’m big on cutting the guy some slack, frankly!) but I was delighted to see this received the way it was. Not everything in it works (Andrew Garfield does his typical “swing for the back” unsubtle performance, its first hour works more as an outright homage to 1950s dramas than it does in its own right!) but, man alive, does it serve to remind us all what an absoloutely outstanding filmmaker Gibson is. He’s delivered one of the greatest war movies of the modern age, telling an outstanding true story in the process and refusing to skimp when it comes to brutality, octane or high drama in the process. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

19. La La Land

I really don’t understand the backlash to this movie at all. Not one bit. A talented director has taken two of the best working actors in the industry right now and made an ode to movie musicals of yesteryear with all the aplomb and appeal you’d expect – and it’s delightful. It really is. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

18. Atomic Blonde

Someone somewhere thought a tribute to Roger Donaldson’s No Way Out but starring Charlize Theron and made in the style of John Wick should be made and that person should be applauded and carried through the streets on a throne! This is not a perfect movie. Hell, it’s not even a movie that is anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is. But as a piece of action entertainment, it really is terrific fun – stupendously well directed with energy to spare, a cool as hell soundtrack and Theron is excellent! That “one take” hallway/apartment/car fight is absolutely audacious - and brilliant just for watching Eddie Marsan, the modern day Yoda of character actors, try to just... “not get in the way”.

17. Thor: Ragnorak

Everyone had a right to be cautious about this one – on the one hand anyone familiar with Taika Waititi knew that he’d never made a bad movie and was becoming one of the strongest voices in cinematic comedy. But on the other hand Thor was proving to be one of the weakest characters in the MCU and his previous movies had been less than great. So you can chalk this one up as one of the biggest and best surprise blockbusters of 2017. It delivered on the action and spectacle in all the ways you’d expect from a Marvel movie but it was also one of the best comedies of the year too.

16. Blade Runner 2049

Who would have thought for one second that this was going to work let alone work as well as it did? A direct sequel, decades after the fact, to a box office failure that has aged into an inarguable masterpiece? It is almost too bittersweet then that its sequel would be critically adored but also fail at the box office as well. Blade Runner 2049 is not a film for the casual cinema-goer. It’s certainly not for someone who hasn’t seen or truly appreciated Ridley Scott’s original classic. It’s a reward dressed up as a film for people who like beautiful cinema, technical audaciousness, strong performances and intricate, mature plotting all wrapped up into one.

15. The Handmaiden

Park Chan-Wook’s adaptation of the novel ‘Fingersmith’ is a sumptuous cavalcade of deception, erotica, dark obsession, greed and romance. You watch it waiting for one of the cogs to break and for the whole thing to come undone because it’s hard to get your head around how all of these elements are kept in motion so seamlessly and so enthrallingly. The cogs never break. It really is just that excellent.

14. Okja

I went into this as one of the rare few who find Tilda Swinton abrasive, who’d heard terrible things about what Jake Gyllenhaal was doing in this movie and was getting caught up in mixed word-of-mouth about what the film itself was actually about. But when you’ve made Memories of Murder, The Host, Snowpiercer, and Mother you get to buy a lot of good faith from a viewer, frankly. So in Bong Joon-Ho we trust and boy did that trust pay off! This is the only funny, harrowing, thrilling, moving, thought-provoking caper / thriller / drama / “message” movie you’re going to see this year. It is, of course, on Netflix now to view.

13. Detroit

It sort of annoyed me that I was so ignorant to the facts prior to watching Kathryn Bigelow’s searing drama set during the 1967 Detroit riots, in which a group of rogue police officers respond to a complaint with retribution rather than justice on their minds. I felt I should have been better educated on the grave injustice and inhumane horrors of this incident. It’s testament to Bigelow that she manages to educate the unknowledgeable on the context needed, the geography and the peole without ever making you feel like you’re being lectured. The film struggles to stay afloat as we decompress from the horrors of the extended second act set-piece into what is ostensibly the cover-up but it’s testament to all involved that it manages to nonetheless.

12. Brawl in Cell Block 99

Craig Zahler’s follow-up to Bone Tomahawk is an astounding homage to the 70s/early 80s exploitation movies that cluttered up the bottom two shelves of many a local video shop. It’s got that C-grade exploitation movie type plot but what Zahler does is expand it in a way to give it time to breathe in ways an ‘original’ exploitation movie couldn’t. We get to spend time with the characters and get a feel for predicaments and locations so when the “hell” does break loose we are in it alongside them. Vince Vaughn uses this movie as a farewell to every safe, easy, shitty studio romcom his reputation stalled on and reinvents himself as a lanky Charles Bronson type for a modern age. It gets horrifying and grim and then keeps going and does so with a sense of zeal and pride that is really rather admirable.

11. Logan

We know that James Mangold is one of the great American filmmakers very rarely put to use by studios the way he should be (i.e. give him money and get out of his way) but he still manages to insert moments of brilliance in otherwise throwaway films (Identity, Knight & Day and The Wolverine all have moments in them that make them better than you’ve probably heard!). Somehow he managed to convince Fox to let him take one of the most iconic but problematic runs in comic book history and make a third solo Wolverine after two previous fatally bad/uneven attempts – but make it as a futuristic western farewell to the character itself and, oh, he won’t be pandering to any of the inter-universe stuff either... And in the process Mangold essentially made the UNFORGIVEN of the comic book movie genre. Like with that movie, it now feels like the door's been closed on this particular genre of movies (the MCU movies feel like their own unstoppable beast at this point) rather definitively. Everything needing said or done within the genre is right there in LOGAN. This works because it has something to say and an actor with a point to prove - It's not out to stake its claim as the best 'comic book movie' (it is one of them though!) but it is very interested in making sure it is a great movie. Not only does it achieve that, but it sort of lands as its own instant masterpiece of sorts too. Hugh Jackman's doing work here that is utterly terrific and if you'd said last year that some of the best performances you'll find in cinema in 2017 would be in "the third WOLVERINE movie" you'd have been drowned in laughter. Yet here we are. If you were to recalibrate the 'limitations' of the past, present and future of the western genre, then with COPLAND, 3:10 TO YUMA and this James Mangold has made three of the best in modern cinema.

10. The Villainess

This is a movie that is so absolutely chockfull of full on "HOLY SHIT!" moments and action sequences that you’re still sat muttering "How the hell did they do that?!?" days after you’ve experienced it. Its story is muddled in its delivery and it does take a little bit to bed down with what is going on, where they're going and what story they're trying to tell but... maaaan... when it lights up it fires off like a nuclear friggin missile. Controversial as it's going to sound, it's a rarity in that as a homage to a source material (NIKITA in this instance) it surpassed the source in my opinion! You will invariably see stories get better told this year - but you're not going to see a film with better action sequences! Fact!

9. War For The Planet of the Apes 

Enter into this movie with a broad mind and in return you'll be rewarded with an astoundingly good time full of great direction, terrific visual effects, wonderful performances and fantastic set-pieces! I just REALLY hope that this is the closing chapter of a particular trilogy but not necessarily the franchise as a whole - To develop this textured a 'history', pay it off in this manner and NOT take it now into themore pointed direction of the original Charlton Heston movie seems like an awful waste! Any failings WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES has is not in the film itself but in the marketing - There's going to be a boatload of folk expecting to see helicopters and tanks, commanded by Woody Harrelson, panning out over snowy terrain to blast away at an army of apes in what is all pay off to the build-up of the last two movies. This isn't THAT movie! The movie it IS though is a tremendous achievement both on a technical level and as a piece of storytelling. It's a beautifully realised, rich revenge Western dressed up as a prison escape movie - but with apes! And in marketing it the studio really didn't seem to want you to know that Matt Reeves has essentially remade APOCALYPSE NOW and THE GREAT ESCAPE at the same time, in the same movie - but with apes!

8. IT: Chapter One

I was one hundred percent blown away by Andy Muschietti's adaption of IT. I was hoping it would be good but... Jesus... this was actually astounding! Seriously! It's not just a great horror movie. It's a great movie, full stop. And possibly one of the best adaptations of a Stephen King novel ever made. Shit thee not. It absolutely works on every conceivable level. It is legitimately scary (downright terrifying in parts!), completely enthralling and so incredibly well crafted. The key to adapting King has always been in accepting that the man is a wildly uneven and incredibly ill-disciplined author and a great adaption needs to fight against his worst excesses. Which often means being willing to cull away at the source material with brutal confidence. That's why STAND BY ME, THE SHANKSHANK REDEMPTION, MISERY, THE MIST, CARRIE, THE GREEN MILE and especially THE SHINING are tremendous... and why the likes of UNDER THE DOME and every movie Mick Garris touches is flat out awful and barely watchable! The casting is utterly sublime - Finn Wolfhard from STRANGER THINGS is a delight, Jeremy Ray Taylor was so moving he broke my heart and Sophia Lillis is just jaw-droppingly brilliant. She gives such an assured performance for someone so young and, in the process, delivers one of my favourite performances of the year. And Bill Skarsgård? HOLY SHIT!! I can't rave about this movie enough, frankly. By moving it to the 80s it hit my 'nostalgia button' just perfectly and the scares were so expertly executed.

7. Dunkirk

Nolan has proven time and again that he is a master craftsman in the field of modern cinema, whether through populist fare like THE DARK KNIGHT trilogy, playing opulently in the sci-fi sandbox with INTERSTELLAR, gunning for hire on police procedurals with INSOMNIA or delivering his trifecta of inarguable cinematic masterpieces with THE PRESTIGE, MEMENTO and INCEPTION. This moves like a fuckin rocket-ship, just non-stop propulsion from the first frame to the last drawing exhilaration and exhaustion from you at every step. The non-linear format is a masterstroke in that it rather exquisitely uses the agonising wait that comes with time pushed right up against the race against the very same thing. It's so intricately developed. Harry Styles doesn't do enough to make an impression but nor is he given enough to offend. He's just there. Hans Zimmer reinvents himself musically once again. And Nolan clarifies once more that there is still a place for old-school movie majesty in the modern age - the push wherever possible to avoid CGI aerial battles and painted-in boats shows a determination and dedication that deserves kudos. With the stripped back dialogue, the never-ending series of jaw-dropping and nerve-shredding set-pieces and a gorgeous, old-fashioned execution, this is a ready-made masterpiece!

6. Get Out

What's getting lost in all of the critical plaudits for this film is that it is possibly one of the most assured and successful directorial debuts in cinema history! This is an absolute humdinger of a movie, reconfiguring what you think of cinema as social commentary, what makes a horror movie scary and what you think of Allison Williams (no joke!). So much fun and more importantly thought-provoking! KEY & PEELE was some majestic shit – but, between this and KEANU, Jordan Peele has proven worthy of being followed wherever he wants to go with his film ideas!

5. Free Fire

I urge you to believe the hype - FREE FIRE is *that* good! Kinetic, original, hilarious and exhilarating. It's a legitimately great time, doing for the shoot-out in 2017 what MAD MAX: FURY ROAD did for the car chase in 2015. It is quite literally everything that everyone is overstating BABY DRIVER to be - an inventive recalibration of a frequented cinematic form! Everything said and overhyped about Edgar Wright (a director far more interested in his own celebrity than making gimmick-free films) is wholly true of Ben Wheatley who, film by film, seems to repeatedly reinvent himself and has never delivered something less than excellent. FREE FIRE is what would happen if Florent Emilio Siri's NID DE GUEPES made a baby with BOOGIE NIGHTS! It's ridiculous how well Ben Wheatley manages to choreograph this thing... a ninety-odd minute, one location, non-stop shoot-out... with such clean geography where you're always aware of what's going on and where every character is. And, honestly, let's reiterate it again now - In terms of great Oscar injustices, Sharlto Copley not winning in 2018 for his work in this will be one of the all-time travesties!

4. I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore

This is a quirky, grim, funny, gripping gem of a movie that I saw early on in 2017 and it stayed with me right the way throughout the year. Macon Blair has went from being the driving force (BLUE RUIN) and supporting foundation (GREEN ROOM) in straight-out-the-gate modern masterpieces to delivering a directorial debut that immediately lands as one of the films of 2017! If only there was some way we could go live in a world where Trump wasn't president and Blair, Elijah Wood, the never less than excellent Jane Levy and the utterly outstanding Melanie Lynskey were taking home ALL the awards for this! Who'd have thunk Lynskey would go from bit-player in an awful sitcom to the best actress of our generation? Maybe The Duplass Brothers’ Togetherness that y’all didn’t watch was the goddamn clue, huh? For me, Melanie Lynskey delivers THE best actress performance of the year. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

3. Jawbone

I was absolutely blown away by what is easily one of the best British films made in a long time! And on top of all THAT, in time it'll come to stand as one of the best boxing movies of all time too. It absolutely captures the level of boxing I know of - that whole subculture of what rises up from when Golden Gloves contendership ends but no pro-journey materialises. On top of THAT, it's a tremendously well executed study of the pain that manifests from addiction, grief and loneliness. Seek this out. I urge you. It’s the anti-Rocky and there's not a single false-note in the whole film. It’s now on Netflix here in the UK.

2. Wind River

I jested from the minute the trailer dropped that all involved had inexplicably and unnecessarily remade my beloved Deadly Pursuit. How wrong could I be? For me, in his directorial debut, Taylor Sheridan has absolutely nailed it as a director what he did twice over the previous years as a writer with Sicario and Hell or High Water - delivering a mature, harrowing, enthralling thriller that has something to say. Awards season seems to have forgotten it already but Sheridan's debut direction and Jeremy Renner's performance are more than worthy of consideration.

1. Good Time

Robert Pattinson, an actor I have never been able to stand in anything (and that includes his Cronenberg rebirth period stuff too!), captivates completely in what is the most kinetic, captivating and energetic film of the year. Pattinson plays Connie Nikas, a scumbag low-level criminal who, after a heist goes awry, has to spend one long night trying to free his brother with learning disabilities from custody in the notorious Riker's Island prison. What follows is a relentless foot-chase through the streets, tenements and shitholes of New York City that plays out as a non-stop living nightmare. I heard of Good Time’s directors, Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie, as being announced for the remake of 48hrs before I’d seen this, their debut feature. And I spent a great deal of time whining about how 48hrs doesn’t need touched and who did these Safdie brothers think they were, etc. Now? Having seen this movie and adored it as much as I have, I’m legitimately excited to see what their version of a modern day 48hrs could be! Good Time is now on Netflix here in the UK.

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2016.

Yes, indeed. It’s that time of year again - This year is going to be a lot like last year unfortunately. I’m going to do another blast through a few films that deserve ‘special mention’, then just lay my Top 25 of 2016 out.

No long introduction. No 50 – 26 countdown like previous years. Let’s just bang straight on. Every film mentioned in the preceding paragraphs is well worth seeking out and experiencing whether it be a comedy, documentary, horror, drama, animation or blockbuster. The Top 25 that follows them though is obviously the one’s I regard as absolute must-see’s!

In terms of comedy I seemed to get a great deal more out of Hail, Caesar than most and was genuinely surprised by how hard a ‘cash-in’ sequel like Bad Neighbours 2 actually tried instead of going down the usual route of phoning it beat-by-beat. I liked Sleeping With Other People a great deal and thought Alison Brie gave easily one of the Top Ten best performances of the year. I thought both Goosebumps and Lazer Team were a great deal more fun than they had any right to be, and I thoroughly enjoyed the mixed-tone of The Mermaid though it was a long way off from the majesty of Kung Fu Hustle.

Unlike a lot of people, I seemed to think it was a strong year for documentaries. Two hit my Top 25 in joint position and then there was the horrifying depiction of college rape cover-up in The Hunting Ground which demands to be watched as part of a double-bill with Netflix’s jaw-dropping Audrie & Daisy. Netflix also had a great year in getting Amanda Knox out there which was an engrossing watch but couldn’t help but feel slight. Both The Barkley Marathon: The Race That Eats Its Young and Man VS. Snake (a sort-of sequel to The King of Kong) both finally landed on UK shores and were more than worth the wait. As did Welcome to Leith which was a staggeringly uncomfortable watch that plays out like a found footage horror film – until you remind yourself that it is 100% real. Finally there was Marathon: The Patriot’s Day Bombing which is every bit as moving and upsetting as you would imagine it to be.

Drama-wise, I was very impressed with Lamb and the performances in it. It skirted a line so deftly you don’t know quite whether to slap the label “paedophile drama” on it or whether that is missing the film’s point altogether. Disorder was an extremely solid if unexceptional home invasion type thriller but excels by proving to be one of the most accurate depictions of PTSD captured on film. I liked Room a great deal and was delighted to see the talents of Brie Larson were finally knocked into the stratosphere. As much as it lost its way towards the end, I had a lot of time for John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 which is filled to the brim with talented actors (and Kate Winslet!) doing strong work amidst some truly tense and well-executed set pieces. Ben Wheatley may make uneven movies here and there but he never makes a boring one and High Rise holds true to that. As chase thrillers go, the indie thriller River is well worth a watch just for its unrelenting sense of pace. The heavily maligned and (production) troubled Jane’s Got A Gun turned out not to be the turkey many envisaged and was in fact enormously watchable thanks to strong work from its cast. Norway took on the disaster movie to great B-movie effect with The Wave, Money Monster was a watchable and fun siege-style movie that shouldn’t be taken as importantly as it wants you to. And finally Goat is well worth seeking out. It’s horribly uncomfortable stuff but needs to be seen just for the double-whammy of an excellent Jonas Brothers’ performance AND a tolerable appearance from James Franco.

On the horror front, I was genuinely impressed with both Under the Shadows and The Witch, the final third of both films are ones that still linger and leave me feeling uncomfortable even now, months on. In a year quite barren for old-fashioned ‘creature features’, I sought comfort in and had a great time with the Aussie killer-dog exploitation-er, The Pack. Mike Flanagan absolutely knocked it out of the park with the Netflix exclusive, Hush, and I look forward to seeing it again. I’m normally no fan of the ‘anthology’ movie and there’s certainly a lot of awful ones out there but I was really taken with Southbound and, unlike a lot of those movies, didn’t find a weak link within it. On that note, I’m no fan of the ‘found footage’ movies nowadays but The Good Neighbour proved to be an effective gem that kept me guessing in terms of where it was going and has a typically strong, stoic performance from James Caan. For its first two thirds I was a genuine fan of Lights Out and thought it was on point to secure its place as my favourite horror of the year. Then it floundered into crassness in its final denouement and the film sadly come undone for me.

Animation wise, I liked both Kung Fu Panda 3 and Finding Dory way more than I thought I would given their purpose as ‘cash-grab lazy sequels’. Both found new ways or ideas to light up what should be tired concepts (the former taking a Seven Samurai style ‘train a village to defend a village’ approach and the latter utilising Ed O’Neill’s octopus character to break up the monotony of a beat by beat re-tread). Finally there was Kubo and the Two Strings whose structural issues in its final third were the only things keeping it from an appearance on my final Top 25. It’s a stunningly beautiful piece of work with some tremendously inventive moments (the face-off with the giant skeleton is one of the year’s best sequences!) and I’ll probably become more forgiving of its flaws with further re-watches.

Finally, on the ‘big’ blockbuster-esque front, I enjoyed Jon Faverau’s The Jungle Book a great deal on a technical level but felt flattened by the young lead actor’s VERY ‘stage school-y’ performance. I also thoroughly enjoyed the return of Jason Bourne and feel churlish for grumbling that it is only ‘very good’ instead of an ‘instant classic’ like the first three. It’s all very same-old, same-old in places but it brings out the big pay-off with its Vegas-set car-meggedon finale. I thought Doctor Strange was a tremendous accomplishment in bringing that particular character to the screen and for the most part I got a lot of entertainment from it, but for me Benedict Cumberbatch and that god-awful accent just didn’t work for me. One of the blockbuster surprises of the year was Star Trek Beyond which – bad writing aside (Simon Pegg tends to write very cloth-eared dialogue) – turned out to be relentlessly entertaining and full of gusto in all the ways the inert second movie was not. Possibly the biggest surprise even over that movie though was The Shallows, which was considerably better than it had any right to be. A big, high concept, one location, survival movie with a transfixing performance from Blake Lively, this plummets into the realms of stupidity in its final confrontation but all that goes before it is an absolute B-movie joy! Deadpool was a delight that hopefully blasted the cobwebs off of the comic book movie subgenre with a lead performance from Ryan Reynolds that finally cements his years of being underrated. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story most definitely came good midway into its second act and slowly evolved into one of the best blockbusters of the year, but what went before it was so unnecessarily choppy and uneven that it took a bit too long to settle in for the ride. Netflix’s Siege of Jadotville was a terrifically enthralling Zulu-type true life war movie that far too few seem to have taken the time to check out and far too little are bestowing praise upon. It’s well worth a look. Finally there’s Kill Zone 2, an – in name only – sequel to the Donnie Yen / Sammo Hung martial arts classic. This time Tony Jaa heads up the cast for a head-spinning action extravaganza involving prison kick-offs, organ trafficking, shoot-outs and so much more. It’s a genuinely brilliant blast of action cinema. You don’t have to have seen the first Kill Zone either by the way. They just slapped that sequel title on this unrelated movie.

And now, without further ado, here’s my Top 25 movies of 2016 that - thanks to some blatant cheating on my part - is clearly a Top 27 as I just could not be drawn to pick between the best documentary and the best horror...

25) The Invitation

I went into this sniffily, half paying attention, just so I could rip the terrible guy from Prometheus a new bum-hole and... boy did it start to slowly grip me. Anyone who says they saw the final act coming is a liar. And that final image? One of they year’s most haunting!

24) Victoria

An entire film made up of one take - no cuts - ends up being one of the most enthralling and technically captivating films of the year. It’s lazy to just call it a ‘heist movie’ when it is offering so much more.

23) Keanu

Utterly disrespected on its UK release, this is a must not just for Key & Peele fans but for fans of legitimately funny, laugh-out-loud comedies. This is the sort of film that you see and start passing around amongst your friends as a sort of “You’ve GOT to see this!” secret gift. It’s all the more a must-see in light of George Michael’s death. You’ll see.

22) Tickled / Weiner

I genuinely could not call it between these two documentaries. Both are astounding pieces of work. Tickled takes you from a place of “I ain’t watching no documentary about competitive tickling!” to “Ok, whah! Hold up! What’s going on?” to actual “What. The. Fuck.” And Weiner? Well Weiner is all the more a must-watch in light of revelations that Anthony Weiner could well have inadvertently taken down Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. It is a total jaw-dropper of a documentary in the sense that you continually question not just how the makers got this level of access but how they were allowed to carry on filming during some of the scenes presented. The McDonald’s scene could well be both the most degrading scene of the year and one of the year’s best action sequences.

21) The Wailing

One part ‘possession’ movie. One part Korean police procedural. Two parts horror movie. And finally one part ‘mystical battle of good and evil’ epic. This is an absolute blast of a film that grabs you extremely early on and holds you tight for its lengthy running time. You never know what’s coming next and that makes the scares - when they drop - all the more strong. Go in knowing as little as possible, and give yourself over to it completely.

20) Zootopia

There was absolutely nothing about this movie (entitled Zootropolis everywhere but the UK, bizarrely) in its marketing that made me think it was something I a) needed to see and b) had not seen done a hundred times before: Cute Disney animals riffing on some well-worn subgenre of cinema to uneven effect. But this was REALLY something different; playing with the police procedural and the beats of the standard buddy movie, this ends up being an excellent lesson in tolerance, racism and persecution. It’s a joy from start to finish.

19) Everybody Wants Some!!

I went into this under a swell of hype because everything Richard Linklater puts his name to seems to get an immediate seal of high quality nowadays. I was really reluctant towards it because I just thought “M’eh. He’s done Dazed & Confused. How good can this actually be?” And you know what? Believe what you hear. It’s a real delight.

18) Arrival

Ignore the trailers that try to sell you this as some sort of Independence Day type movie. Read up on as little about it as you can. Go in completely cold. Give yourself over to it and pay close attention. This movie will get deep into your headspace, warm your heart and change your perception of how the human mind sees and comprehends structure and storytelling for a long time to come.

17) The Revenant

We seem to have thrown the Oscar at Leonardo DiCaprio and pushed this film to the side but in doing so we forget what an absolute tremendous piece of work it is on a visual and technical level. You cannot conceivably discuss the best cinema had to offer this year and not involve this epic revenge ‘poem’ in the conversation.

16) Sausage Party

I really wanted to dislike this. I did. I saw all the reviews and high word-of-mouth and I absolutely thought half the western world was off their fucking rockers, so to speak. But this really is THAT much fun and it absolutely is that hilarious. Not every joke works and when they clunk they thud. Yet there’s more hits than misses - and you’ll not see a better talking food movie about religion and existentialism this year!

15) Hell or High Water

They’ll sell you on this being an ‘all guns blazing’ heist thriller just to get you through the door. But, in reality, this is a thoughtful spin on the ‘greedy banking crisis’ told as a surprisingly elegant modern western. Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges are all universally excellent. And the final scene is a slow burning, mature reward for your investment. 

14) 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Written off as political propaganda upon its release, this is actually one of Michael Bay’s best movies with a remarkable performance from John Krasinski. It’s a bombastic, relentless, gory, engaging and exhilarating piece of work and I think time is going to be kind to this movie, more than people realise. It’s the best war movie of the year but I think it could go on to be considered one of the best modern war movies of the decade.

13) Bone Tomahawk

Quite possibly the best ever bait-and-switch since Robert Rodriguez took his crime thriller to the ‘Titty Twister’, this is a fabulous assured old-school western with superb turns from Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson and (yes) Matthew Fox. If you know nothing about this already, go in that way and... well... try to survive! Good luck! 

12) Spotlight

A good old fashioned procedural movie that plays out like the true life dramas of the 1970s - Pull together a great cast, have them go off a great script based on an enthralling real incident, keep the direction clean and unshowy and just sit back and let the results come together as they should. One of the best dramas of the year. Totally deserved of its Oscar, in my opinion.

11) Eddie The Eagle

Absolutely NOTHING about this movie should work in the least. It’s a true life sporting underdog tale where pretty much 95% of the ‘facts’ are unashamedly fictionalised. It’s got a lead performance that you have to warm to because it takes a while to get past the gurning. It’s apparent Hugh Jackman is only there to help the budget... and yet, within the first few beats of the film’s epically retro soundtrack, you are hooked into one of the loveliest and warmest films of the years. It’s very much an explosion of feel-good cinematic hugs.

10) Midnight Special

A father kidnaps his son from the religious cult he’s been held at the centre of and takes him on an obsessive quest to get to a very specific place at a very specific time. That’s all you need to know right there. Seek out nothing else. Head on into a viewing of this with just that information and lie back in the warm embrace of masterful storytelling.

9) The Hateful Eight

Tarantino’s playful homage to both John Carpenter’s The Thing and Agatha Christie’s storytelling of old is a thoroughly impressive piece of work, lauding over its love of its own dialogue, brazen performances and showy directorial flourishes. It’s a ‘guess who’ that - whilst not as clever as it thinks it is - will certainly have you absolutely captivated. The thankfully short appearance from the painful Zoe Bell is the only flaw this otherwise exceptional chamber-piece offers.

8) The Big Short

The true story of the 2008 banking crisis as told by an all-star cast - in the style of a comedic heist movie? With celebrity cameos used as a glossary index? As told by the guy who directed Anchorman? Come on. This should never have worked. This should never have even been considered seriously. And yet, here it is and here it is as one of the best movies of the year. Don’t worry if you leave your first experience of it angry. You’re meant to.

7) Captain America: Civil War

Quite simply, the best blockbuster of the year by a large margin. In amongst the fast-becoming-impenetrable size of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Captain America movies have emerged (especially because of the double whammy of this and The Winter Soldier) as the franchise’s lynch-pin and high bastion of quality. This all-star beatdown should have, by rights, been the clusterfuck that snapped the wheels of the MCU. Instead it is one of the most insanely enjoyable blockbusters of the year and - with that airport sequence - the owner of the best action set-piece of the year! 

6) Hunt For The Wilderpeople

I was desperate to see this because of my adoration for What We Do In The Shadows and it genuinely did not disappoint. It’s funny, moving and really rather lovely with a very subtle but warm performance from Sam Neill that, by rights, should see him nominated for some awards come that particular season.

5) Don’t Breathe / Train to Busan

I couldn’t call it between these two as the best horrors of the year no more than I could between the documentaries. Train to Busan takes the (frankly exhausted) zombie genre, puts it on the tracks and sends it speeding off through a cavalcade of carnage, scares and truly brilliant action sequences. You’ll rip the arms of your chair and scream out loud watching this one. And Don’t Breathe is a truly exceptional reinvention of the home invasion movie in all the ways Busan reinvigorates the zombie movie. Jane Levy and Stephen Lang do work here that should, by rights, get them nominated for a boatload of awards - but sadly won’t because awards councils very rarely respect horror. Yes, it gets a little daft the higher up the dial they turn the tension but that doesn’t undo the fantastic work done here in setting up one of the geographically cleanest and leanest horror films of the year. 

4) Green Room

I love a good siege movie and Jeremy Saulnier most definitely delivers a great one. I was ‘in’ from the outset as I was a huge, huge, huge fan of Saulnier’s Blue Ruin but this more than lives up to expectations. It’s bigger than the ‘punks versus neo-nazis’ longline it hides behind. It is gruelling and gory and exceptionally tense. It is also driven steadfastly by another effortlessly brilliant performance from Anton Yelchin, who died far too young in 2016.

3) Creed

A SEVENTH Rocky movie after the stretch - a lovely stretch, but a stretch none the less - that was Rocky Balboa (aka Rocky VI)? A spin-off about Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son being coached by an aged Rocky? Oh come on! This sounds utterly awful! No better than that dire Rocky VI ‘spec’ script that appeared online in the late 90s with Rocky Jr taking on the son of Ivan Drago. But... But.. BUT, hold up! This film is the real deal. A movie made by die hard Rocky fans for die hard Rocky fans with the actual Rocky up, front and centre giving it his blessing every step of the way. It’s not just a thematic modernisation of the franchise but it is also a pitch perfect spiritual return to the raw, indie-style, rough-and-ready feel of the first classic. Stallone’s Best Supporting Actor nomination was truly deserved. His campaign might have been a little classless but the nomination was earned - if for nothing else that heart-breaking scene in the doctor’s office! 

2) Sing Street

NINE separate people recommended this film to me and I ignored every single one of them. I am not a fan of musicals. I’ve not seen Once. I lasted exactly 10 minutes into Begin Again. I watched the trailer for this, saw the lad from Transformers 4 in a bad wig and just thought “Eurgh! No!” Then a lad who’s opinion I legitimately respect pushed hard for me to give it a go and I threw it on as a 99p iTunes rental one rainy Sunday afternoon and... I was left in tears! It resonated hard with me in a lot of ways from my own childhood, growing up in the 80s. It’s really lovely and special and you can clearly tell that the people behind it are coming from a place of honesty and passion about that era and the music. It’s a fabulous little film and I have no qualms in admitting that I was wrong to pre-judge it.

1) The Nice Guys

I am an obsessive fan of all things Shane Black anyway but this truly was the absolute gift of the year for me. Not only was it a truly fabulous return to the well Black has played around in as director with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and writer with The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight, it’s a film that will transform your opinion of what Russell Crowe is capable of. Featuring some of the strongest gags of the year, this is a deliberately convoluted shaggy-dog PI tale that slowly mutates from a comedy caper into a genuinely strong shoot ‘em up thriller. I loved it from its opening car crash gag right the way through to its sequel baiting final scene. A sequel that... just like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, etc... we will NEVER GET TO SEE because APPARENTLY NONE OF YOU FUCK TRUMPETS TOOK THE TIME TO SEE THIS!

Rectify that now. “And stuff!”

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Films Of 2015.

It’s that time of year again - This year is going to be a little different though. There will be no epic write-up like the previous years. There’ll be no 50 to 26 countdown etc. I’m a new dad now with commitments all over the place nowadays so I’m posting this so my list gets to stand alongside and be compared against the other lists from previous years - but time is not on my side for me to go into that level of detail.

So what I’m going to do is blast through a few films that deserve ‘special mention’, then cover the films that fell just outside the list and then just lay my Top 25 of 2015 out in list form and let it speak for itself. If people want to have a conversation about the choices, I’m all up for discussion on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

So, ‘Special Mentions’? Well, it goes without saying that we have to give a shout out to the really rather brilliant Bone Tomahawk which is still unreleased here in the UK but which I saw via a friends’ review-screener. It really is as excellent as you’ve heard - but also as brutal and as hard-going in its final stretch. Borgman, which also hasn’t been released outside of the festival circuit but which I imported on DVD, is a creepy and uncomfortable but fascinating watch which I’ve returned to twice more in the last year. Virunga set the stage early for a banner year for documentaries and is available now on Netflix. Back Country - stupidly renamed Blackfoot Trail here in the UK - was a gripping little indie that is better than its silly ‘creature feature’ DVD cover art suggests. A Teacher was dumped to iTunes here in the UK but has a tremendously well realised lead performance and plays its salacious subject matter to quite a tender effect. I adored Welcome To Me, doubly so Kristen Wiig’s performance in it, and don’t understand why it has still not been released here outside of the Edinburgh Film festival. Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau is a fascinating watch for film fans. It’s now available on Netflix. And finally, Faults landed unceremoniously on iTunes (and later DVD) here without much fanfare and yet, based off the lead performances alone, it deserved better as it is a darkly funny and engrossing character play.

Onto the films that didn’t make the cut but were strong enough to have been given serious consideration:

In terms of horror movies, the werewolf movies Late Phases and Howl were both highly enjoyable watches. The former for doing a ‘creature feature’ by way of a laconic 70s movie. The latter for evoking the go-for-broke British Dog Soldiers esque thrills and chills B-movie mentality. Cub was an excellent spin on the slasher movie. Cooties, driven by terrific casting, was delightfully demented zombie mayhem. And Krampus ended the year very, very nearly taking a slot on my eventual Top 25 as a straight-out-the-gate Christmas mini-classic.

There was some genuinely great indie movies too. The Overnight was engaging and sexy and uncomfortable and fun in just about equal measures. Turbo Kid was a really nice love letter to anyone who grew up in the 80s obsessing over worn-down VHS copies of post-apocalyptic Mad Max rip-offs. And White God was an enthralling allegory with some animal choreography I’m in awe that they pulled off seeing as I can’t even get my dog to not eat the post.

Comedy wise, both Top Five and Spy get honourable mentions for both being considerably better than I ever thought either would be. I thought Spy was going to be the final nail in the coffin of Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig doing the ‘fatty fall down’ schtick and it was actually a really solid action-comedy that plays deliberately in the face of people who were expecting that sort of thing. And, lets be frank, the majority of Chris Rock’s cinematic output has been uniformly mediocre and downright awful so a ‘vanity project’ like Top Five did not hold much appeal. And yet it ended up as one of the warmest, industry-poking, well-cast comedies of the year… that unfortunately lets itself down by adhering to stale third act rom-com conventions.

Across the board elsewhere, Everest was stunning and gripping but let down by a typically shoddy Keira Knightley performance that thankfully wasn’t big enough to derail the film but still stood out like a sore-thumb in a sea of brilliant performances from the rest of the cast. The little British movie, Still Life, deserves highlighting because it was lovely AND heartbreaking AND it lays down in concrete what we have all secretly suspected for a while - Eddie Marsan is incapable of giving a bad performance. Marshland was a terrific police procedural that more people needed to see but was hindered by the True Detective comparisons at a time when the True Detective: Season 2 backlash was starting to gather heat. I genuinely loved Southpaw in all its cliche-soaked glory and thought very highly of Jake Gyllenhaal’s lead performance in it. I certainly didn’t and don’t understand the criticisms against it playing too safely to sports-movie beats when we’re not so judgemental of comic book movies for doing the same thing. I adore Paul Thomas Anderson movies and wanted to love Inherent Vice more than I did. I really liked it a lot. But I fell short of loving it. Which is the first Anderson movie I can say that about - though I grow colder towards The Master with each revisit. Then there was Foxcatcher which I liked a great deal and thought Steve Carell was revelatory in but, having read the true facts of this real life case, I was turned off towards the longer the movie played and the more it veered into salacious subjectiveness and away from its original ‘true crime’ angle.

In terms of action movies, I thought Run All Night was an underrated cat-and-mouse actioner and, alongside the previous year’s A Walk Among The Tombstones, the first Liam Neeson movie in a while that you don’t feel embarrassed to admit liking. Whilst we’re talking about underrated, under-seen and under-appreciated action movies from this last year we have to give a shout out to both Guy Richie’s The Man From UNCLE (which was the superior spy movie to Spectre) and Joe Lynch’s Everly, a “Die Hard in an apartment with a sex slave as John McClane” slice of bonkers B-movie excess. The Hunger Games: Mockingly - Part 2 was dependably enjoyable and a suitably solid conclusion to a surprisingly gripping franchise, hurt by the greed of unnecessarily carving the final film into two parts. Jurassic World was a surprising joy with blockbuster excess on show for all to see and delivered so assuredly that not even an awful Blyth Dallas-Howard could ruin it. Avengers: Age of Ultron was a mess but a goddamn glorious one with the Seoul chase sequence proving to be one of the year’s most enjoyable action set-pieces.

Finally, in terms of ‘also-rans’, we have got to give specific mention to this smorgasbord of documentaries. This has been one of the best years for documentary features in quite some time. Call Me Lucky, now available on Netflix, is a deeply, deeply moving documentation of abuse, recovery and effecting change. Misery Loves Comedy was funny, fascinating and full of great comedians… and Jimmy Fallon. Amy was a monumental surprise considering I never liked the woman, her music or her father and yet I found myself broken-hearted and mourning her by the film’s end. Listen To Me Marlon was a gift to movie lovers. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King was equal parts quirky and sad. The Nightmare was an uncomfortable and unsettling watch that didn’t fully commit to its own subject unfortunately. Tyke - Elephant Outlaw was this year’s Blackfish (both now available on Netflix) and served as a further rallying cry to why using animals as live entertainment needs to be banned once and for all. 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets was an extremely pertinent, enthralling watch that landed at the very time that this worrying spike in the murder of unarmed black men in America is occurring. It builds and builds to a hell of a conclusion. And finally there was Palio which ended up being one of the biggest delights of the year in terms of documentaries that I would never have normally had any interest in seeing at face value - a sporting underdog story about a centuries-old foreign horse race!

And onto my Top 25 movies of 2015 which, for anyone who follows me on social media, will offer zero surprises in terms of the Top 5 itself:

25) THE MARTIAN 24) COP CAR 23) THE FINAL GIRLS 22) THE GIFT 21) TRAINWRECK 20) FAST & FURIOUS 7 19) INSIDE OUT 18) ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS 17) MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION 16) CRIMSON PEAK 15) BIRDMAN 14) STAR WARS - EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS 13) THE WOLFPACK 12) HOUSEBOUND 11) ANT-MAN 10) WHIPLASH 9) KUNG FU ELLIOT 8) JOHN WICK 7) THE SEVEN FIVE (aka PRECINCT SEVEN FIVE) 6) WILD TALES 5) IT FOLLOWS 4) GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY & THE PRISON OF BELIEF 3) A MOST VIOLENT YEAR 2) SICARIO 1) MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Films Of 2014.

I start the same way every year (when writing what is now the only new content that gets added to this tumblr blog / review archive): The now standard disclaimer for having an end of year “Top 25” when the common ‘standard’ seems to be a “Top 10”.

My argument remains the same this year as it has done for the last five plus years I’ve been doing this… When the national average here in the UK is roughly 4 new releases per week, resulting in potentially 1408 new films a year (not counting straight-to-dvd fare, VOD releases, etc. etc.), it’s not the most unfair thing in the world to pull 25 from 1408 and give them their moment in the sun. 10 feels too harsh.

The criteria for my Top 25 is that all of the films need to have had releases in the UK between January 1st 2014 and December 31st 2014. Of my list of films that I was highly anticipating, THE WIND RISES, THE DIRTIES, SUPERMENSCH: THE LEGEND OF SHEP GORDON, JOE, GOD’S POCKET, THE ROVER, OBVIOUS CHILD, A MOST WANTED MAN, A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU, ’71, THE HOMESMAN, FURY, THE SKELETON TWINS, THE DROP, DUMB & DUMBER TO and EXODUS: GODS & KINGS were all ones that I sadly never got round to seeing so they’re not going to be putting in appearances on the list – if they were at all good enough to do so in the first place.

This has been one of my favourite years in cinema for a long time. It certainly puts that heady and joyous 2005 triple of KISS KISS BANG BANG, THE INCREDIBLES and BATMAN BEGINS in the shade. Whether it was the year starting with the award-season catch-up titles, a genuinely fantastic summer season or some great end of year independent films, it’s just been a really terrific year in my opinion. My Top 25 is based on films that I’ve had a great experience with, that in some way offer an example of the best that their cinematic genre has to offer and that I’ve revisited (where possible) in the compiling of this list and loved just as equally the first time.

In honour of 2014 being such a fantastic year in cinema, here’s 25 films that make up a Top 50 for me and all battled it out for a place in my end of year list at some point:

50. THE EQUALIZER (Denzel takes mediocrity and makes it immensely watchable. It gets its place here on his star turn alone!)

49. WOLF COP (I grinned from ear to ear watching this. We seem to have moved the B-movie into some terrible SyFy ‘monster movie of the week’ shitty CGI nonsense. This was an old school return to form!)

48. LAST PASSENGER (They shot the living shit out of this on little to no budget and made a genuine thrilling British genre film to boot!)

47. LET’S BE COPS (We seem embarrassed to admit it for some reason but this was a disposable but laugh-out-loud funny comedy that folk want to sneer at instead of acknowledging it succeeded in achieving what it set out to do!)

46. WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (It’s not QUITE up there with THE FLY and THE THING in terms of horror remakes that surpass their original source. But it’s close!) 45. LUCY (This should’ve been laughed out of the cinemas. Instead, Luc Besson delivered a balls-to-the-wall, batshit crazy action romp with all involved wedging their tongue firmly in their cheek! … And it was a female-led action movie that made a whole heap of $$$!)

44. UNBROKEN Jack O’Connell’s performance is overrated and the movie overall is a fairly ordinary celebration of an extraordinary life, but I still ended up coming away incredibly impressed with the scale and confidence on show in what is only Angelina Jolie’s second feature as a director!)

43. DELIVER US FROM EVIL (A genuinely solid, thoroughly effective piece of genre hokum with committed performances from Eric Bana and Sean Harris, and assured direction from Scott Derrickson!)

42. THE EXPENDABLES 3 (60% of it is cringe-inducing and they’ve still botched the landing third time out on delivering a film equal to its concept – but that entire final act sure does come close and offers some of the most thrilling, blistering action cinema’s seen this year!)

41. THE DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (Every bit as brilliantly performed as you’ve heard it is in a story you probably thought you had no interest in!)

40. THE SACRAMENT (As someone admittedly jaded to high heaven with the concept of “found footage horror”, it speaks volumes of this film’s effectiveness that I not only watched it but thoroughly enjoyed it as much as I did. Ti West is 3 for 3 now with me!)

39. YURUSAREZARU MONO (We’ve been pulling from Eastern cinema and remaking it within the Western genre of old for long enough now that it was about time the process was reversed – and done just as well as when they remade CELLULAR as CONNECTED. Here Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN is turned into a Samurai movie, with fantastic results!)

38. OUT OF THE FURNACE (There was a period in 2013 when this was being talked up as a big ‘Oscar Contender’… and then it just disappeared. Unjustly. It’s a brilliantly cast, dark and gritty, revenge flick that deserves way more love.)

37. THE ARMSTRONG LIE (Alex Gibney’s pro-Lance Armstrong documentary gets rocked midway through production with Armstrong’s admission of doping… and Gibney doesn’t miss a beat in changing streams to deliver one of the most underrated documentaries of the year!) 36. HER (I came to this too late and found myself annoyed by how overrated and over-hyped it was. A rewatch a few weeks back led me to really appreciate it for its delicacy and the work Scarlett Johansson does!)

35. THEY CAME TOGETHER (You’ll never look at a rom-com the same way ever again! Hell, I don’t think they could even make a standard rom-com the same way ever again after this! In terms of sheer gag-rate alone, not many other comedies in 2014 came close.)

34. SPECIAL ID (A great little gritty martial arts cop-and-gangster actioner with yet another phenomenal turn from Donnie Yen!)

33. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (Just as beautiful, touching and thrilling as the first! That it doesn’t feel like an ‘enormous’ progression after the first film seems to have many critics turning up their noses!)

32. THE PURGE: ANARCHY (In a year filled with sequels, this quietly came along and pulled a ‘Godfather Part II’ on the first movie. Frank Grillo promised us a homage to “The Warriors and Escape From New York” and boy did he deliver!)

31. LONE SURVIVOR (Peter Berg’s “love letter” to his Navy SEAL friends is a brutal and intense war movie. Not all of his casting choices work for me but he directs the movie with an effective sense of escalation and exhilaration!)

30. LOCKE (One guy. Alone in a car. Making phonecalls as he drives along a motorway. Try selling that to someone as being worth a watch. That it ends up being one of the very best films of the year is testament to the talents of Tom Hardy!)

29. FRUITVILLE STATION (Knowing how this ends – and the official ‘blurb’ doesn’t go out of its way to hide it – makes the film all the more devastating to watch. A beautifully performed ode to a life unfairly and prematurely taken!)

28. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIES (It speaks volumes about just how great a year 2014 has been that when I first saw this I thought it’d EASILY make my end of year Top 5!)

27. 12 YEARS A SLAVE (The big Oscar winner at the 2014 awards leads the way for SELMA as the big Oscar winner at the 2015 awards… and in between unarmed black men are shot dead walking down the street in America by police officers that… I’ll pull back from the political commentary. The weight of “prestige” levied upon this film should have got it to fold in on itself, COLD MOUNTAIN style. It doesn’t. Because it is genuinely great!)

26. THE DOUBLE (Richard Ayoade blew me away with his directorial debut so I was up for giving anything he did next a try. He delivered this – One of the year’s most quirky, original, comedy-dramas that’s got a visual style and confidence to it that completely goes against this only being Ayoade’s second film!)

Special Mention must also go to a few films that I saw this year that, for a whole multitude of reasons, can’t be included in my end of year list but absolutely unreservedly deserve to do so – and in 3 out of the 5 cases would’ve sat in my Top 10 for 2014 (one would’ve been my #1 film of the year!):

METRO MANILA was a 2013 release that only got a limited two-day appointment up in my neck of the woods ahead of its DVD/Blu-Ray release in the Spring of 2014. I thought it was an engrossing, tension-soaked masterpiece straight out of the gate with a brilliant, natural, moving lead performance from Jake Macapagal.

WAKE IN FRIGHT was finally given a limited cinema release and DVD/Blu-Ray release after 44 years of being semi-lost, abandoned and/or forgotten about on these shores. It is every bit the unarguable classic that it has been made out to be – An uncomfortably effective ‘fish-out-of-water’ screw-turner!

SNOWPIERCER is the best film I saw this year that has not seen the inside of a cinema or a DVD/Blu-Ray release in the UK. Inexplicably so. Currently lost in transit through some arbitrary ‘producer/director argument over cuts that isn’t even relevant anymore’, this is a thrilling and thrillingly original piece of science-fiction with Chris Evans delivering one of the best performances of the year. BIG HERO 6 is, on face value, a nakedly commercial endeavour from Disney as they amalgamate the best components from THE AVENGERS and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. But on top of that it is a gorgeously-realised, funny, moving, exciting adventure film. I saw it on my honeymoon in America in November. Continuing the absurd trend of huge release windows between the UK and the US, it will have a UK release at the end of January 2015.

STRETCH still sits without any sort of UK cinema, DVD or VOD release but those who know ways to access US Netflix will have experienced Joe Carnahan’s return to low-budget filmmaking. Its reputation as an abandoned underdog taking on the mighty villainous studio gives cause to worry that its background might supersede its actual quality but thankfully that proves not to be the case. Carnahan’s made a gonzo, quirky, relentless AFTER HOURS homage for the attention-deficit generation. It most definitely deserves to be seen.

And, enough’s enough! I’ve thrown out 1,818 words so far in adoration of films that – for me – don’t even make up the absolute best of the best that 2014 had to offer. Enough digression and jibber-jabber. Without further ado, here’s my Top 25 of 2014:

25. CHEAP THRILLS

E.L. Katz’ darkly comic indie is the story of a scheming couple who put a struggling family man and his old friend through a series of increasingly twisted dares over the course of one long evening. The always excellent Pat Healy and the underrated Ethan Embry lead proceedings with aplomb but it’s the terrific David Koechner, playing absolutely against type, who steals this grim, twisted but blackly amusing indie gem!

24. X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Taken as a sequel to X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, this probably excited no true fan of the franchise thus far. A mediocre and a fair pair of standalone Wolverine movies weakened enthusiasm also. But there was no one who came away from X-MEN: FIRST CLASS who wasn’t champing at the bit to see more of that part of this franchise’s world. And it’s by arching the narrative back round that way and holding the course steady via a terrific screenplay and assured direction that this ended up as one of the biggest surprises in terms of quality from the whole of this year’s ‘Summer Silly Season’.

23. GODZILLA

Everyone and their mother seems to have gone to town on this film since its release, tearing away at its plot holes with glee. To do that is to do an injustice to one of this years’ best blockbusters – A film whereby the tremendous special effects fall second to some of the most well-executed and exciting set-pieces (The monorail! The bridge! THAT ‘halo’ jump!) that 2014 had to offer.

22. CALVARY

This films plot synopsis – “After he is threatened during a confession, a good-natured priest must battle the dark forces closing in around him.” – doesn’t come close to selling what an absolutely great drama this is. Calling it *just* a “drama” feels like a disservice also as there’s a dark strain of humour that courses through its veins too. Brendan Gleeson (who continues to be one of the greatest working actors out there at the moment!) is every bit as excellent (and more!) as you’ll have come to expect, and it’s becoming more and more obvious as we head through the awards season that his performance here has been all but forgotten. However, the film’s true stand-out is Chris O’Dowd. If you only know him from his work in THE IT CROWD or BRIDESMAIDS then this is going to drop your jaw! It doesn’t matter who wins ‘Best Supporting Actor’ this year. Because the title will always have been O’Dowd’s anyway!

21. KON-TIKI

The Academy Award’s Best Foreign Language nominee from 2012 finally got a cursory and long-overdue UK release at the tail end of 2014. I imported the Region 1 DVD late in 2013 and paid mention to it in my Top 25 of last year. Here, I finally get to rightfully sing its virtues properly. This is the true story of Thor Heyerdahl and his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands using only the materials and technologies available to the South Americans in pre-Columbian times. As dry as that description might sound, the film is actually a stirring boys-own adventure film full of storms, sharks, hardships, bonding and seemingly insurmountable odds that is absolutely worth seeking out.

20. UNDER THE SKIN

I came to Jonathan Glazer’s acclaimed science-fiction art-house effort very late in the day (I saw it for the first time only two weeks ago!) but from the minute it concluded I knew I had seen something really rather special. This film moved me, made me think, startled me, made me feel very uncomfortable and pushed me to talk about it a lot afterwards in ways I did not think it would. 2014 was most definitely Scarlett Johansson’s year and UNDER THE SKIN was the cherry on top of a cake’s whose ingredients were diverse enough to also include HER, LUCY, and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. It would appear that unless you release your film very specifically in the lead up to nomination time then you have little chance of being remembered and, like Brendan Gleeson’s work in CALVARY, it seems Johansson’s sublime work here has all but been forgotten.

19. EDGE OF TOMORROW

You can blame whatever the hell you like – bad marketing, bad-sentiment towards Tom Cruise, ill-timed release, terrible title changes, etc. – but the truth is this simple: Sometimes people just don’t make an effort to see great films. Sometimes it’s on us. Just like with BLADE RUNNER, THE THING, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and WARRIOR, this was a genuinely great piece of cinema (with a truly brilliant piece of comedic work from Tom Cruise!) that deserves all the love that it’s now starting to get but should have had from the get-go. Yes, the third act is a little ‘rote’ but it’s forgivable in the face of all the tremendous entertainment that’s gone before it.

18. 22 JUMP STREET

The first movie made my Top 25 back in 2012 based on the very thing that this film didn’t have going for it – The surprise factor! I had such low-expectations going in, first time around, and the absolute reverse was true this time out. And you know what? This film absolutely surpassed all expectations that I had for it. It was consistently laugh-out-loud funny with some extremely clever and well-thought out gags. It had THE best end credits sequence of the year and, in Jillian Bell, it had the scene-stealing role of the year! Bell’s work here is akin to what Jack Black pulled off in HIGH FIDELITY. I can only hope that the same barrage of studio-backed big comedies come her way like they did for Black.

17. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

I had low expectations for this, if I’m honest. I adore Martin Scorsese and will watch any film he makes but the marketing didn’t do anything for me – the Jonah Hill ‘caricature’ schtick grated on me in the trailer (a little less so in the actual movie admittedly, but his subsequent run of nominations for his work in this surprised the shit out of me as I thought he played the character like a cartoon throughout!) and I didn’t have much enthusiasm to spend three hours celebrating and glorifying the real life past conduct of a sociopathic scumbag who ruined so many people’s lives. Conflicted emotions about what is done with the protagonist aside, Scorsese has unarguably delivered an utterly riveting and very funny film full of stand-out moments and a star-making turn from Margot Robbie. If you’d ever wondered what it’d have been like if Marty had made CASINO or GOODFELLAS as comedies then this is your strongest indicator.

16. THE GUEST

The first of two really rather brilliant ‘John Carpenter tribute films of sorts’ that will appear on the list, this is a cracking little genre-jumping ode to the VHS era with a fantastic soundtrack and a plethora of top-drawer performances from a roster of “Hey It’s That Guy” style character actors… and DOWNTOWN ABBEY’s Dan Stevens! It starts as a drama, becomes a thriller, starts to evolve into a horror and is never less than very dryly funny throughout. It’s a real treat.

15. THE LEGO MOVIE

There is absolutely nothing about this film that should have worked at all. If ever there was a case of empty “It’s based on a toy!” studio desperation it would have to be this… And yet somehow one of the funniest, sweetest, most inventive and just thoroughly delightful films of 2014 emerged from such dubious foundations.

14. GONE GIRL

David Fincher is one of the greatest working directors and most definitely the greatest director of my generation. His remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was his attempt at “playing around with the airport potboiler novel as source material”. This is him apparently “having fun” and “making a romantic comedy”. Dear God. GONE GIRL is Fincher at his most cold and acerbic, and that is saying something. Ben Affleck is superb and Rosemund Pike delivers a career-changer of a performance. It’s engrossing and disgusting and funny and… and… and it’ll make you want to fear ever crossing any woman ever again.

13. INTERSTELLAR

Hype did this film a disservice and when hype was done unnecessary comparisons to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 took over thereafter. It’s not perfect and it’s not the pinnacle of the science-fiction genre and it seems to inexplicably have its detractors for those reasons. But it needs to be judged on what it is and not what it failed to be in the eyes of some critics and audience members – and that’s big, bold, inventive, epic, interesting, emotional filmmaking that falls outside of being a sequel, prequel, comic book, adaptation or spin-off. Lost within the cool-down from INTERSTELLAR’s pre-release hype is the recognition Jessica Chastain deserves for what is one of my favourite female supporting performances of the year.

12. BLUE RUIN

I’m a ‘revenge movie’ junkie of the highest order and it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to this particular sub-genre as, quite frankly, there’s just not a lot left with the revenge movie you can do that’s not been done time and time again. BLUE RUIN impressed the hell out of me because it simply found that all important new angle – What if the revenge-seeking protagonist wasn’t some ex-CIA agent or some rogue special forces type? What if he was just a troubled everyman who had no discernible skill or stomach for revenge but felt compelled to push himself through with the act? Macon Blair stands out as one of the most riveting, soft-spoken and natural leads of this year!

11. COLD IN JULY

One of the most ingeniously well-marketed films of 2014, this revenge thriller audaciously managed to put out a plot synopsis and trailer that expertly hides what it is actually about. You go in expecting a cat-and-mouse thriller between a befuddled family-man who kills a burglar in his own home and the burglar’s ex-con father who wants revenge. Instead you get… … a whole heap of action-packed surprises spear-headed by a trio of fantastic performances from Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and (the star of the show!) Don Johnson!

10. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

This is the story within a story of the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous hotel from the fictional Republic of Zubrowka, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. And if ever there was a point to be tired of the Wes Anderson “style” now would be it. Instead he circumnavigates audience-weariness to his whimsy and delivers a ‘man on the run’ chase movie like you’ve never seen before. In the process he invigorates affection for the normally staid Ralph Fiennes and gets from him one of the most deftly comic displays of the year!

9. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Apes. On horses. Holding TWO machine guns. Charging at human camps. What more do you want? Come on! Seriously? … Ok, come for the apes on horseback firing machine guns at humans and stay for the genuinely outstanding FX work, jaw-dropping motion capture performances from Andy Serkis and his “players” and totally breathtaking blockbuster filmmaking. DAWN could have easily been drowned out by much bigger movies this summer, especially the audacious two-hander Marvel expertly played. Instead it held its own and, like those two aforementioned Marvel movies, left me exiting the cinema absolutely desperate to see where this franchise could and would go next.

8. THE BABADOOK

Forget whichever actresses name is called out at the 2015 Academy Awards as the “best”. Because I can almost guarantee it won’t be Essie Davis for her work in this movie and to me that will be one hell of a travesty. Davis’ delivers the years’ best performance by an actress in what is easily the years’ best horror film by a mile. It is a consistently jump-inducing, efficient chiller that works on multiple levels and expertly crawls underneath your skin. That the likes of Stephen King and William Friedkin consider it to be of the modern greats of the genre should tell you everything you need to know.

7. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLIDER

A sequel to a super-hero movie that too few seem to have any real affection for (I love it!)? A homage to 70s style conspiracy thrillers? A balls-to-the-wall action blockbuster? Part NINE of an ongoing cinematic series? Did ANYONE actually think this was going to be as outstanding as it was? I prayed it would be good. But BOY did they really go out of their way to deliver on this one. They surpass each and every action sequence they lay up to the point of giddiness and end up delivering the best mainstream action movie of the year!

6. THE RAID 2

Gareth Evans made the best action movie in over 10 years back in 2011 so as a follow-up he decided to set himself a whole new batch of challenges by escalating absolutely everything about this sequel – size, scope, tone, set-pieces, choreography – and he systemically surpassed himself on each and every one. This is THE action movie of the year and the best action movie since… Gareth Evans’ THE RAID three years ago. It’s relentless, gory, astonishing, complex stuff that demands to be seen. There is some truly astounding sequences on show here that have definitively raised the bar in action cinema.

5. BOYHOOD

Believe absolutely everything you’ve heard about this. Nothing I can say about it will add anything to all that’s already been written. There’s a reason this stands within the Top 5 of EVERY critic’s review of 2014 and that’s because it really is the wondrous, majestic piece of cinema that you’ve heard it to be. Patricia Arquette has always been one of the most underappreciated actresses in the industry. This is going to change that. 

4. LIFE ITSELF

Roger Ebert was ‘dad’ to anyone who ever wanted to write seriously about cinema. He also transcended the form in which he was made famous and became justifiably recognised as not just one of the best writers on film in the history of its form but also one of the most endearing and captivating writers on any subject he decided to sit down and throw out some words on. So what better tribute to this man then the most endearing, captivating, lovely, life-affirming and inspiring documentary you’ll see out of all of 2014’s documentary releases. This isn’t just about the life of a film critic. This is about the importance of cinema, the power of love, the tenacity of the human spirit and the boundless enthusiasm and courage of a beautifully flawed man!

3. NIGHTCRAWLER

In Dan Gilroy’s ‘TAXI DRIVER for the social media generation’, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom is an ambitious man desperate for work who muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism and in the process blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. NIGHTCRAWLER is a fascinating and grim piece of work that shines a spotlight on the maggot-infested carcass of modern media and ends up as one of the very best films of 2014 thanks to a committed performance from Gyllenhaal that is as fascinating and grim as the film as he’s starring in. It’s a wholly unique performance that stands as the best I saw from an actor in 2014 and gives a driven movie a nitrous oxide boost!

2. WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS The flat-out funniest film I’ve seen in 2014. I’m STILL quoting lines from it day-to-day (“I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.” “I think of it like this. If you are going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had fucked it.”) It’s a funny concept that’s done an even greater service by an immensely talented cast improvising great interactions. It works as an out-and-out comedy in the first instance but also respects the genre and the horror-foundations it’s playing with to make something that’s occasionally scary and always nothing short of entertaining. It was a deserved word-of-mouth sensation in my town’s local art-house cinema and I hope it continues to be for a long-time to come. It really is a genuinely hysterical piece of cinema.

1. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Remember that first ever time you saw STAR WARS? What about JURASSIC PARK? Or RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? That’s what it felt like to see GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY for the first time. It never felt like it was in service to the greater ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ and instead concentrated on being a funny, exciting, blockbuster thrill-ride full to the brim with imagery and design that hadn’t been seen before and a level of wit and inventiveness that had been sadly lacking in mainstream studio filmmaking for a long time. There’s not a single bum-note in the film from start to finish. Everything about this had the underdog stamp on it with a lot of critics sneering that it was to be Marvel’s first flop and that it was too big a project for the director of films like SUPER and SLITHER. It says a lot about the character of director James Gunn that he’s thus far resisted the urge to go around blowing raspberries in the face of everyone who ever doubted him. I absolutely adored this film. And in Chris Pratt we’ve been hand-delivered a brand new ‘everyman’ movie star genetically forged from the DNA of Harrison Ford, Tom Selleck and Bruce Willis (but grandmaster late 80s/early 90s Willis… not slumming, new crown-prince of the dodgy VOD cheapy action movie Willis!)

- - - 

… And that’s it. No one will have read through to the very end. You’ll have skimped through to see what was #1 and then clicked back straight away. So, well, safe in the knowledge that there’s little to no chance of anyone actually getting this far, let me tell you about that time I killed a man. It was 1998 and…..

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Films Of 2013.

I do this every year – it’s now essentially the only new content that gets added to this tumblr blog / review archive - and I STILL get hassled for having a “Top 25”, when the common ‘standard’ seems to be a “Top 10”.

My argument remains the same – When the national average here in the UK is roughly 4 new releases per week, resulting in potentially 1408 new films a year (not counting straight-to-dvd fare), it’s not the most unfair thing in the world to pull 25 from 1408 that are worth highlighting instead of 10.

The criteria this year was choosing films that have had UK releases between January 1st 2013 and December 31st 2013. Last year, my stand-alone Top 10 of the films that I desperately wanted to see but never got the chance to was SHAMEFULLY made up of titles that featured on most critics actual end-of year lists. So, special mention must go to The Hunt, Killing Them Softly, Amour, Silver Linings Playbook, The Master, Beasts of the Southern Wild, End of Watch and Argo – all of which I FINALLY got round to seeing in the opening months of the year!

To undo the shame of last year, I made a concerted effort to see as much as I could and get in a varied diet of the great and the highly recommended. On my list of films I was highly anticipating, only Philomena, Big Bad Wolves, the much-derided remake of Oldboy, Disney’s Frozen, Nebraska and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty have slipped through the net.

Before heading into the list itself I have to give special mention to those that fell just outside of the final twenty-five. I’ve LOVED a lot this year. Which is unusual because most of the fellow geeks and critics I respect consider it to be one of the most disappointing years in cinema overall. My Top 25 is based on films that I’ve had a great experience with, that in some way offer an example of the best that their cinematic genre has to offer and that I’ve revisited in the compiling of this list and loved just as equally the first time. Here’s a quick Top 10 list of films that just didn’t make the cut but all could’ve/should’ve/would’ve with the easiest of mood changes:

10) The Bay

9) This Is The End

8) Wreck It Ralph

7) This Is 40

6) Behind The Candelabra

5) Trance

4) A Hijacking

3) Stories We Tell

2) Stoker

1) Klown

Special Mention must also go to two films I saw this year via import that have not been given UK releases yet in any form but would’ve both landed in my Top 10 for this year if they had – the bullet-fast actioner, Sleepless Night, which was a French mix of Die Hard and Taken set in a nightclub and told in real time AND Kon-Tiki, the true story of Thor Heyerdahl and his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands using only the materials and technologies available to the South Americans in pre-Columbian times.

… Anyway, I’ve raved on about TWENTY films already before even touching on the actual list. My apologies. Without further ado, here’s my Top 25 Films of 2013:

25) Olympus Has Fallen

Seeing this as the opening film on this list probably has a lot of you tuning out straight away, thinking “Christ! If THIS is on there, then how bad is this rundown?” but stick with me… As B-movie action films go, I had a great time with this. Mainly because I could never get my head around how a film so poe-faced and jingoistic could also find a way to not take itself so seriously. In a year where it is was going up against an ACTUAL Die Hard sequel AND a $200 million “terrorists in the White House” competitor, no one would have put their money on a scrappy medium-budgeted Gerard Butler movie that couldn’t even bring itself to spell “White House” properly – Yet its underdog spirit won out and proved to be the brutal, pacey, unrestrained Die Hard movie we were all wanting this year. The similar White House Down was a turgid, tonal mess in comparison. 

  24) Flight

To put it simply, come for one of the most astounding opening sequences in the whole of cinema this year and stay for one of the best performances Denzel Washington has ever given. This was a genuinely great piece of adult drama thanks to an assured ensemble and one of America’s most accomplished directors working together at the top of their games. Yes, the soundtrack choices and their placements might have been a little bit ‘unsubtle’ at times, but it’s a minor grumble against one of the best studies of the decaying nature of addiction ever put on screen.

  23) Drug War

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Johnnie To. When he’s good he’s bloody great. But when he’s not on point his films can sometimes feel like a bit of a mess to me. This is Johnnie To at his best – detailing the story of a police captain who partners with a drug lord after he is arrested. To avoid the death penalty, the drug lord agrees to reveal information about his partners who operate a methamphetamine ring. But suspicions of his honesty and reliability come to the forefront when cops begin raiding the drug rings. To’s film has the feel of 70s style police procedural, all slow-burning authenticity, right the way up to its climactic explosion of violence choreographed and shot as real as Michael Mann’s botched bank robbery “dust-up” in Heat.

  22) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

One of the best comedies of the year in my opinion. The history of the ‘television character taken to the big screen’ is bathed in neither a great deal of success or acclaim so I went into this with great trepidation. More so because Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge is a character I’ve adored from the outset and seen through one loose variation of a sketch show, one ‘chat show’, two series of sitcoms, various live appearances, a ‘biography’ and a collection of webisodes and specials. I honestly thought that if anything was going to ‘kill’ the character off it was going to be a big-screen adventure. However, what we were served was a surprisingly tight, brilliantly realised roll out for one of the UK’s best comic creations. The gag quota was amazingly high, the beats for long-standing fans were a joy and the whole thing came together as a great little comedy in its own right.

  21) Paradise: Love / Faith / Hope

I knew nothing of these films other than that Empire’s Simon Crook (one of the critics I tend to agree with more than most) repeatedly extolled their virtues on his twitter feed. His praise was infectious and I took to reading up on them and their director, Ulrich Seidl. Learning that the film was originally one interconnected piece looking at certain themes (“love”, “faith” and “hope”) through the respective journeys of three women in the same family (that was separated into three separate films) intrigued me but when I learnt more about Seidl’s methods (he writes outlines and targets locations then sends the cast out to ‘experience’ the moment and improvise the scene, the results of which dictate where the film goes next - a style that many could suggest falls in line with Christopher Guest, Larry David or Judd Apatow’s way of filmmaking) I became very interested in experiencing it. It was recommended to me as a ‘whole’ and that’s how I experienced it. Pulled apart, I’d say ‘Love’ (the story of old ladies heading out to Kenya for ‘sex holidays’ with young black men) is the comedic romp that lures you into the harrowing drama of ‘Faith’ (a woman trying to balance her strong belief in the word of God alongside the return of her estranged Muslim husband) before seeing you off with the disturbing and yet strangely heart-warming ‘Hope’ (a young girl experiences her first feelings of love whilst away at a fat camp). Together though, the three make a majestic piece of cinema so naturally executed it often feels like you’re watching a documentary.

  20) Compliance

I’d heard of the true story this is based on through a long-form article I’d read on the internet years before this film was made. I was also familiar with Dreema Walker through a (now cancelled) TV sitcom that my fiancée liked to watch. The story itself seemed just too grubby for me to have any desire to check it out but Walker proved to be such an enjoyable talent on that aforementioned sitcom I thought I’d check it out and see what her ‘dramatic chops’ were like. I went in with low expectations, thinking that the real events – whereby a prank caller who pretends to be a police officer convinces the manager of a fast-food restaurant that one of her employees committed a crime which in turn leads to an innocent woman being held captive, debased and sexually assaulted within her own place of work – would be heavily sensationalised. Instead I was transfixed, enthralled and left outraged by one of the best dramas I’ve seen this year. The film itself is all but forgotten already, it seems, but if there was any justice Dreema Walker would have had an Academy Award nomination for her performance here.

  19) Ea$y Money

Released in its native Sweden under the name Snabba Cash in 2010, it’s taken three years and Martin Scorsese’s backing to get this film onto UK screens but it was well worth the wait – with two sequels on their way too (the first was released in Sweden in 2012 [still unreleased here], while the third has apparently just been released there last month). Ea$y Money follows a poor student living a double life in the upper class areas of Stockholm. After meeting a wealthy girl, he is enticed into the world of organised crime to fund an affluent lifestyle that she would deem attractive. In doing so he becomes drawn into gang wars, murder and betrayal. Complex, expertly crafted and a must-see for anyone who was a fan of last year’s Headhunters,

  18) Iron Man 3

Marvel are on a roll at the moment that not even Thor 2’s mediocrity can stop. Of all the blockbusters released this year, this was the one with a level of swagger and confidence that almost matched its lead character’s own egotism. Part comic book blockbuster, part espionage thriller, part buddy movie, part Shane Black festive action flick, Iron Man 3 deftly ducks and dives out from underneath the weight of expectation thrust upon it by the might of The Avengers and expertly delivers all of the high octane set-pieces, thrills and laughter you could possibly hope for. If this *really* is the last stand-alone Tony Stark movie then it’s a hell of a farewell.

  17) The Lone Ranger

Heavily (and unjustly) maligned, this – for me – was an out-and-out joy and one of my favourite summer movies of the year. Hell, judiciously pruned in the right places, I’d go so far to call it a near-perfect blockbuster. Yes, the bookends are unnecessary and not well executed. Yes, its middle section is flabby as hell and sags the whole movie down. And yes, there is something almost insane about spending that amount of money on a niche genre (westerns will never again be what they once were) and then delivering a TWO AND A HALF HOUR movie, but it’s that bizarre over-confidence mixed alongside Gore Verbinkski’s inventive and involving direction that makes it something you shouldn’t be too quick to write off. The train sequences are dazzling and awe-inspiringly well executed. Hans Zimmer’s score is dependable as always. And, confoundingly unrelated ‘were-rabbits’ and cannibalism aside, it’s a fantastic romp… that’s considerably better than ANY of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels!

  16) Fast & Furious 6

I was ashamed in my love and affection for the fifth entry in this ramshackle but hugely enjoyable franchise. I won’t make the same mistake this time round – I’m totally unashamed to admit that I’ve grown to love this franchise and specifically this film: It’s utterly ridiculous. It makes no sense. It exists in a world where there’s enormous dramatic stakes applied to scenarios that cannot possibly have any dramatic weight. Its main actor treats the material like Shakespeare and… and… It’s just so unbelievably glorious. There’s military cargo planes driving along 30-odd mile runaways whilst being pinned down by cars. There’s car chases around the streets of London. There’s Dwayne Johnson doing his ‘franchise viagra’ thing and, best of all, there is a sequence involving a tank and cars and enormous collateral damage and one of the most insanely stupid and intelligence insulting pay-offs to said sequence – and you STILL come away grinning like an idiot! This is one of the best action movies of the year.

  15) Sleep Tight

No other film this year – The Conjuring included – has made me feel more uncomfortable and unnerved this year. It’s a drama that plays out as a real life horror movie that will genuinely have you checking your wardrobes and underneath your beds for a long time to come after watching it. Starring Luis Tosar, who was genuinely phenomenal in Cell 211, this follows an apartment concierge who has decided to make it his mission in life to subtly torture all of his tenants. One young lady won’t break easy so he goes to creepy extremes to destroy her life. But when he begins to develop an obsession with her at the same time that her boyfriend shows up on the scene, things begin to head towards a disturbing and cataclysmic conclusion. For extra fun – seeing as its filmed in the same apartment complex with a few recognisable faces and produced by the same team – treat it as a prequel to the [REC] movies!

  14) The Place Beyond The Pines

Providing the ‘Gosling Fix’ we’re all deserved of in the wake of Drive and which the horrific Only God Forgives failed to deliver, this is a riveting drama filled with great performances (Bradley Cooper, for one, continues an impressive run post-Silver Linings Playbook) and a surprising narrative flip used to great effect in order to present an absorbing parable about the sins of the father being cast upon the fate of the son. 

  13) Blue Jasmine

I’m a big Woody Allen fan (yes… I prefer his ‘earlier funny stuff’!) who never gave up hope that his mandate of one film annually would yield at least one film worthy of being deemed a classic. Melinda & Melinda came close for me, as controversial as that seems to be to admit. Midnight In Paris was nearly there too, though the love for it was a little overzealous in some critics circles. There was Match Point too which could have been something had it not been sunk by some of the worst performances ever committed to celluloid. I didn’t have the highest hopes for this film despite being an enormous Cate Blanchett fan. The description of it (coming off the back of the likes of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger and To Rome With Love AND in a year when the whole Mia Farrow / paedophilia ‘wound’ was ripped back open!) didn’t do much for me and the casting around Blanchett seemed bizarre. Yet in the face of all of that, I was met with one of Allen’s best pictures in a long, long time. It’s funny – for a drama about mental illness and Bernie Madoff types. And yet it’s very dramatic – for a comedy about airs, graces and social standings. In a film in which our own Sally Hawkins more than matches the might of Cate Blanchett, and both Alec Baldwin and Bobby Cannavale act up a storm, it’s a genuine surprise that the highlight and heart of the movie comes from an aged, apparently-misogynistic stand-up comic who’s ‘day’ was back in the early part of the 90s; Andrew Dice Clay could and should get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work here.

  12) The Kings of Summer

Blessed with one of my favourite comedic performances of the year from Moisés Arias, this is a delightful highlight in a sea of ‘coming of age’ movies. Its set-up and style of humour is endearingly off-centre and there’s a lot here to love thanks to great performances, some beautiful shots and a nice soundtrack. Yes, it’s a little ramshackle and thrown together but that’s part of its charm. The flaw of there not being quite enough story to see it through to the end is pleasingly disguised by the comedic beats that are sporadically put forth by Moisés Arias.

  11) Elysium

Most critics seemed to hastily dismiss this because it wasn’t District 9, which felt enormously unfair to me. One critic in particular seemed to review it in side by side comparison with Neill Blomkamp’s debut movie and write it off as just an empty-headed piece of sci-fi excess – which seems incredulous to me as there’s nothing “empty-headed” about it. Another complained that it was “overly preachy” because it had the audacity to explore things like immigration, overpopulation, health care, exploitation, and class issues within the confines of a stupendously entertaining blockbuster with some of the best visuals I’ve seen on a cinema screen all year. The ‘heist’ set-piece alone is one of the greatest sequences out of all of 2013’s cinematic output.

  10) Django Unchained

Gloriously excessive in just about every conceivable way, this is an enormously entertaining genre mash-up delivered in only the way Quentin Tarantino could. Controversially taking the history of slavery as its narrative backbone and set in the antebellum era of the Deep South and Old West, Tarantino’s exploitation-western-revenge-epic follows a freed slave who treks across the United States with a bounty hunter on a mission to rescue his wife from a plantation owner. Within a cast all pitching to the back seats, Samuel L Jackson is the stand-out. His work ethic and output has diluted his talent to a point where he’s phoning it in left, right and centre in a lot of movies that are quite frankly beneath him. It’s all too easy to forget just how GREAT he can actually be. Django Unchained forcibly reminds you. It’s violent, it’s profane, it’s grand and it’s really quite brilliant – and no terrible dodgy-accented Tarantino cameo can change that.

  9) Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

It’s overlong and self-indulgent by a good fifteen to twenty minutes and it’s enormously preachy in the message about the media that it’s trying to pointedly deliver in amidst an absurdist comedy about an old-fashioned, racist, misogynistic, blow-hard news-anchor but… truth be told… there’s no getting away from the fact that it is just unrelentingly laugh-out-loud hysterical with a gag quota we’ve not seen in modern comedies in some time. Steve Carrell’s Brick is the stand-out but judging from his enhanced screen-time that appears to be by the design of the filmmakers. Paul Rudd is underserved. And that ‘All-Star’ climax is fantastic. If you loved the first as much as I did then you’re not going to be disappointed. If you’ve ever questioned the point of its existence then this is not for you. The comedy of the year!

  8) The Act of Killing

Probably one of the most sickening yet innately fascinating pieces of documentary cinema that I’ve seen this year, if not at all. Filmmaker Josh Oppenheimer headed into Medan in North Sumatra to interview two of the most notorious leaders of the Indonesian Death Squads of 1965-1966, Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry. Now revered as founding fathers of the right-wing paramilitary organisation that rules the country, the duo along with some of the other Death Squad members, are invited to revisit and re-enact their murders using the cinematic form. But as Anwar’s own recollections are dramatised in the style of gangster movies and musicals using local villagers and family members of their victims, we’re slowly and terrifying drawn into a study of real evil, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental instability and the horrifying and despicable nature of power, corruption and genocide. This is by no means an easy watch – but it is one that NEEDS to be seen.

  7) Prisoners

I can’t be the only one that thought that the days of a mainstream, all-star, well-budgeted adult drama were all put gone? Most actors and filmmakers these days seem to use every interview opportunity to talk about the death of the “mid-budget studio potboiler”. The acclaim for Prisoners should hopefully see a return. Cast brilliantly (even Terence Howard, who’s been sleepwalking through everything recently, brings his A-game!) and given a strangely luxurious running time in order to breathe slowly, the film is a slow-burning, dark, edge-of-the-seat morality play dressed up in the clothes of a mainstream thriller. Hugh Jackman is excellent, as is Jake Gyllenhaal. There’s no awkwardly inserted ‘this is for the trailer’ action beats. It’s just an almost old-fashioned, twisting and turning ‘whodunnit’ that is definitely worth checking out.

  6) The Way Way Back

I went in expecting this to be dispensable at best – a nice, entertaining, but forgettable comedy with Steve Carrell playing against type and a slight Little Miss Sunshine vibe being evoked. Instead I found something that really hit me hard and connected with me and my own upbringing whilst being lovely and warm and funny and just everything that you could possibly hope for. Sam Rockwell shamelessly cribs from early Bill Murray to great effect and, by this point, there’s no one out there on the planet that doesn’t think Allison Janney is one of the best actresses working in the industry today, right? This was a film talked up through the festival circuit, then dropped into cinemas with little pomp or circumstance. It’s actually a real jewel of a film just waiting to be discovered.

  5) All Is Lost

I can’t remember the last great performance I’ve seen from Robert Redford – even though his entire output from the 1970s shows he’s more than capable of it. He’s lazily coasted for too long on the weight of his reputation and his good-looks, famously refusing to take roles that demeaned, challenged or diminished them in any way. Here, he puts himself into a physically demanding role (especially for his age) with barely any dialogue and at the hands of a director working on only his second film (his first being the financial crisis ensemble piece, Margin Call). What results is an actually awe-inspiring survival movie that throws us in moments after the point of impact that gets the narrative underway and pulls us in deep as Redford’s experienced sailor fights to first keep his yacht – and then himself – afloat in the vast loneliness of the ocean that surrounds and engulfs him. All Is Lost is a confident and brutally unrelenting masterpiece.

  4) Gravity

Thematically similar in a lot of regards to All Is Lost, Gravity is a film so technically audacious and oh so genuinely astounding on a visual level that it manages to see away flaws that would not only sink other films but stop them from getting on anyone’s end of year list (let alone as high up as it has on everyone’s!) From its sublime one-shot opening through to its moving conclusion, with a stop from a few pummelling sequences along the way, it’s every bit the nail-biting thrill-ride that you’ve heard it is. I don’t think the script is particularly strong. Nor do I think George Clooney is taking any of it as seriously as he needs to for his character’s sake or that Sandra Bullock delivers a consistently measured performance. But it feels trite to mention any of that because it’s all almost (strangely) immaterial. This is less a film about dramatic performances or strong screenwriting, and more about a dazzling array of show-stopping and jaw-dropping technical advancements in filmmaking. And in that regard it is not only beyond reproach but also the reason it sits as high as it does on this list.

  3) Blackfish

There’s no more an important documentary you see this year then this, in my opinion. Focusing on the captivity of Tilikum, a killer whale involved in the deaths of three individuals, Gabriela Cowperthwaite uses this as a narrative spine in which to look at the consequences of keeping killer whales in captivity. It’s all parts disturbing, upsetting and appalling in the information it uncovers and presents to its viewers. Courageously going up against the might of SeaWorld and the foundation of lies and misrepresentation they’ve built their organisation upon, Gabriela Cowperthwaite has delivered a gripping piece of investigatory documentary filmmaking that is already proving powerful enough to necessitate change and strong discussion on a wider platform.

  2) Captain Philips

Remove the whole host of articles swimming around the internet that strongly suggest the real life figure on which this film is based has been less than truthful about events and is in fact a particularly narcissistic blowhard within the maritime community, and just judge the film for what it is. Based solely on factors relating to the acting, directing, writing and general execution, this is unarguably one of the best dramatic thrillers of the year. The term ‘edge of the seat’ doesn’t do justice to just how captivating (pardon the pun) and enthralling the whole film turns out to be. Taking the time to represent both kidnappers and captive appropriately (over any desire to make the entire movie a militaristic, bombastic, rescue flick) is the film’s best move because it gives the heavily-realistic rescue sequences late in the second act more weight and power when they do arrive. Any shadow of doubt as to the worth of America’s Treasure, Tom Hanks, as one of the greatest living actors is erased instantly in the final five minutes of the film. His final scene alone stands as the best male performance of 2013.  

  1) Zero Dark Thirty

Sublimely perfecting the cinematic procedural last seen so well executed by David Fincher with Zodiac, Kathryn Bigelow has turned the Bin Laden man-hunt into an engrossing, exhilarating, fascinating, intelligent, thought-provoking piece of cinema. Spearheading a flawless cast of character actors, Jessica Chastain gives one of the best performances of the year and cements her reputation as the greatest actress of our generation. Stand where you like with regards to the issues surrounding the films stance on torture and its use / the part it played, it doesn’t dilute its power. There is a level of control on show here that marks Bigelow as one of the great directors of our time – She never lets the film get away from her and ascend to heady heights of overt-patriotism and overblown action set-pieces to pad out the sense of military might. The (well known) climax could’ve been presented as a slow-motion heavy, squib-soaked piece of action porn in the hands of a lesser director – Bigelow presents it as night-vision-drenched docu-drama instead. It came out of the gate as a ready made modern masterpiece but US political figures clouded a lot of its excellence with debate and accusations. Time will outrun such obstacles and Zero Dark Thirty will stand, not just as the best movie of 2013, but as one of the great modern American movies.

- - - - -

My 'Best Of' lists for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 are available in the archive section.

[gazzhowie]

[Movie Review] INSATIABLE

Potentially taking its seed from a story strand seen in the second series of BBC’s The League of Gentleman, Jessie Kirby’s Insatiable presents us with an Ireland of the near future where the economy has crashed and food is rapidly running out.

The official plot synopsis tells us that meat sources are gone due to BSE and a new strain of Chronic Wasting Disease. Bird flu has killed off most of the fowl. The fish in the sea are full of radiation. All over the world vegetable crops are failing. In one small village, Mr. Harvey (Jon Kenny), a supermarket owner, believes he alone can stave off the locals hunger. Ellie (Nora-Jane Noone) works for Harvey in order to keep food on the table for her dying mother, and comes to meet Rachel (Laura Donnelly), Harvey’s niece, as a result.

When Harvey suddenly starts selling meat again Ellie becomes suspicious that it is not the stored pig meat that he claims it to be. When Rachel and Ellie uncover that the recently deceased from the village are the main ingredients of the new meat, and that Harvey and his cohort Sergeant Kenny (Damian Kearney) are turning to murder to keep the supermarket fully stocked, they must fight to stop the local merchant from continuing his horrific plan.

As Insatiable’s poster and trailer reel indicate there’s a really interesting vibe about the film that evokes favourable comparison to Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man and the cult gem, Dead and Buried. So much so that I feel more than comfortable in saying that if you enjoyed either of those films, then you will have a great time with this.

The film isn’t perfect. From the outset it feels kind of unsettled within itself and chops from scene to scene like a serious of sketches as opposed to one coherent narrative. Fear not, this doesn’t last. Kirby rather bravely brings us in as the crisis is in full swing, so she has set herself the task of not just establishing a full roster of characters but also the very detail relating to the crisis that we, the audience, need to know. After about twenty minutes or so, the film settles down into a very tense, dread-filled ride. By the one hour mark it has you, very effectively, in the palm of its hand.

The music, for the most part, is very well done but is a little overwrought in some scenes, coming to distract you from the scene as opposed to adding effect to it. There are also a few clunky production effects – most notably in the scene where the character of Bobby (Michael Sheehan) accidentally kills a customer. That scene is forgiven any fault though on the grounds that it ends on a deliciously dark one-liner by Mr Harvey where, as Bobby awkwardly tries to attend to the lady’s wound that he has just caused, he bellows “Stop fondling the woman, lad!”

Here’s the thing about Insatiable though; what flaws it has don’t detract from the film, they really kind of add to its overall charm. The sparse, low-budget production design, for example, in which the cast and crew have had to work with what they could afford, is actually totally in keeping with the vibe that the film is creating – this is a village in crisis, with no food, no money, barely any stability, and people dropping like flies. The sparseness of the interior locations, and their rough-and-ready appearance, depicts this really rather well.

Insatiable excels though in an area where budget and funding cannot have an effect – its script and its performance. Donkey Punch (a film that exists as a sort of template to suggest that if that movie can find its way to the big screen, then Insatiable should have no problem!) might have been likeable despite its thoroughly grotty premise, but it lacked strong performances across the board. Insatiable, on the other hand, doesn’t have a weak performance in it.

Ciara O’Callaghan is worth highlighting as Jenna, Bobby’s doomed girlfriend. But carrying the film are the central performances by Jon Kenny, Nora-Jane Noone and Laura Donnelly.

Kenny is big, pantomime-esque fun in this film. He’s incredibly effective and continually bounces his character between being very darkly comic and just downright creepy. With Tobin Bell having sold his soul to the devil with those Saw sequels, Kenny could easily head on over to Hollywood and get himself a slew of creepy, character parts in big, mainstream horror thrillers no problem.

Like pretty much all the cast, bar Noone, I was utterly unfamiliar with Laura Donnelly prior to seeing Insatiable. She is absolutely fantastic in this. Matching her every step of the way is Nora-Jane Noone.

Saying there’s an unsavoury moment in a cannabilism-themed thriller, is a bit like saying that it’s a bit wet in the ocean, I know. But, for the most part, the film never takes on that grotty, seedy, attention-seeking vibe that most low-budget films of this type usually do. So, the scene in which one character is locked underneath the floorboards whilst a corrupt police officer urinates on her from above, stands out unfortunately. It seems completely out of line with the steady sense of suggested dread and terror that has been expertly built up until that point.

Insatiable has an ending that, initially, you feel as if it doesn’t so much end as it does just stop, which is a little frustrating at first as it builds brilliantly towards a confrontation that never comes. A slasher-movie style face-off of sorts between Mr Harvey and the two girls is teased but never comes. Let the ending sink in though and it becomes sort of ethereal and intelligent.

There’s a sense of integrity on show whereby no one overplays their hand, there’s no gore-for-the-sake-of-it, no gratuitous nudity (there’s nudity – just not gratuitous!) - just very much a sense that Kirby has a strong story to tell and she’s going to tell it her way!   And to give proper mention to the film’s director, Jessie Kirby, here is the guiding hand that takes a rough-around-the-edges, flawed little horror thriller and makes it come alive. This is no bullshit, there’s a level of confidence being exuded here that you wouldn’t think possible from someone who is making their directorial debut.

There’s a level of low-budget inventiveness on show here that you could compare, rather boldly, with Sam Raimi’s debut in The Evil Dead. He never let a micro-budget get in the way of his ideas. Kirby has the same tenacity. She was obviously aware from the outset that she couldn’t do blood-thirsty locals laying siege to our heroines in the supermarket or people being torn apart whilst their neighbours feast upon them. Instead she’s looked around at the tools she has available to her, a strong talented cast and a great economically written script, and she’s concentrated on using them to her advantage.

As a result she’s delivered an extremely watchable, well-made, low-budget gem that, for all its relative flaws, it has ‘cult favourite’ written all over it.

Kirby, her cast and her crew have done so much effectively and efficiently with so little and turned out a solid ‘three and a half stars out of five’ film that’s very much worthy of your time.

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies Of 2012

I do this every year and I always take shit every year that I do it for having a “Top 25”, when the common ‘standard’ seems to be a “Top 10”. My argument remains the same – When the national average here in the UK is roughly 4 new releases per week, resulting in potentially 1408 new films a year (not counting straight-to-dvd fare), it’s not the most unfair thing in the world to pull 25 from 1408 that are worth highlighting instead of 10.

Anyway, I apologise for starting on the defensive! … First things first, this has been the WORST year ever for me in terms of being able to have the time, money and general means to see the films that I’ve wanted to see. In fact, the major awards contenders at the time of writing this list remain sadly unseen by me. So much so that here’s a stand-alone Top 10 of the films that I desperately wanted to see in 2012 and never got the chance for one reason or another (… but I did get the chance to see Here Comes The Boom. Go figure!):

10. Premium Rush 9. Safety Not Guaranteed 8. The Hunt 7. Killing Them Softly 6. Amour 5. Silver Linings Playbook 4. The Master 3. Beasts of the Southern Wild 2. End of Watch 1. Argo

What’s left on my list is no piss-poor rundown of second-stringers, I hasten to add. They’re just a bit more mainstream across the board because that’s pretty much the type that I’ve been exposed to this year.

Before heading into the list itself I have to give special mention to those that fell just outside of the final twenty-five: The absolutely delightful return to form of The Muppets, the really rather lovely Jeff Who Lives At Home, the stupendously enjoyable romp that was Haywire and the beautiful, challenging, confounding and brilliant extended cut of Margaret (which was finished in 2007, released in 2011 and granted a run in its superior extended form in 2012 – and left off of the list due to arguments as to whether it could be considered in a Top 25 of this year!).

Anyway, without further ado, here’s my Top 25 Movies of 2012:

25. The Pirates! In Adventures With Scientists

As long as we pretend Flushed Away was made by someone else, it would be fair to say that Aardman have never put a foot wrong. Their Wallace & Gromit movie certainly bought them a lot of good favour with me and this film most definitely increased it. This is like the Airplane! of stop-motion animated movies with sight-gag after sight-gag lined up alongside some of the wittiest dialogue you’ll ever find in a “kids” movie. It’s very clever, incredibly zany, beautifully made and immense fun!

24. Safe House

As generic mainstream dispensable ‘studio fare’ goes, this was one of the best of the year for me. Its script is as unmemorable and predictable as the direction is fast and charged. This is a film that masks its shortcomings by casting well, keeping things tight and just aiming to shoot the shit out of what they’re faced with. The results are accomplished, bombastic and thoroughly entertaining offering up one of the best car chases of the year in the process. 

23. Ted

Who else went into this with the approach that a foul-mouthed talking teddy bear movie with Seth MacFarlane’s fingerprints all over it was going to be ninety-odd minutes of tedium with twenty minutes of solid jokes tucked away inside? Who else came away genuinely surprised at how accomplished, laugh-out-loud funny, inspired and surprisingly sweet the final product actually was? If you’ve not seen this because of a hatred for MacFarlane’s animated fare (I’m a Family Guy defender, it has to be said, but have little tolerance for his other programmes!) then you should put that aside and give this a go. They’re inevitably going to sequel-ise the shit out of this so get it experienced whilst it’s still fresh.     22. Grabbers

If you’re the sort of person, like me, who believes that an Irish version of Tremors would be no bad thing then this is the film to reconfirm your belief. This is a very funny, immensely self-assured little B-movie with great FX, abundance of immensely quotable dialogue and – in Ruth Bradley’s female lead – one of the warmest, loveliest, most natural performances I’ve seen this year.

21. The Descendents

Alexander Payne has made, with this film, four modern American masterpieces in a row now as The Descendents can sit comfortably alongside Election, About Schmidt and Sideways. George Clooney headlines a truly wonderful cast in a bittersweet, dryly amusing and heart-warming little drama that reinforces Payne’s cinematic mandate of making the mundane exceptional.  

20. God Bless America

Never allowing itself to be hobbled by the limitations of its budget and subsequent struggling reach, Bobcat Goldthwaite’s black comedy is a genuine guilt trip of hilarity that takes a shark sized satirical bite out of our current (and somewhat dangerous) obsession with reality TV. It’s a guilt trip in the sense that you laugh hard at the same time you’re gasping at just how dark it’s prepared to go to make a point. The cast of Jersey Shore and the like should probably invest in bulletproof vests.

19. 21 Jump Street

No one could have predicted not just how good this film would turn out, but just how flat out funny it would be too. It’s a big-screen ‘redo’ of an embarrassing “young cops go undercover in high-school” TV show. At best it should have hoped to have been as reasonable as the first Charlie’s Angels movie. Instead it aimed higher and achieved The Fugitive style levels of big-screen greatness. The comedy is hilarious. The action is sparse but well-done when it arrives. This is the sleeper hit of the year for me.

18. Martha Marcy May Marlene

I landed in front of this film with the weight of what felt like absurd critical acclaim almost working against it. By the time it finished I was left twisted out of shape and wracked by just how effective and tense it had been. The sense of dread and foreboding offered up is outstanding, as is the jaw-droppingly brilliant performances from John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen.

17. Young Adult

Jason Reitman hasn’t taken a single misstep yet in his directorial output and Young Adult reinforces this. Following on from Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up In The Air, this edges into far more darker and more cynical territory with a vastly more mature script from Diablo Cody at its core. Charlize Theron gives, for me, the best performance of her career so far whilst Patton Oswalt holds on alongside her and comes off all the better. This is a film that takes pride in being a joyously uncomfortable black comedy.

16. Berberian Sound Studio

I fought against seeing this for as long as I could despite the outstanding critical acclaim that it was receiving, mainly because I hate the films of Dario Argento and ‘gaillo’ horrors in general, both of which this movie is said to be a heavy homage to. However, the opinion of people I really respect started to sway me and I gave in – As a result I experienced a unique, weird little jewel of a film that’s driven by yet another fantastic performance from the always great Toby Jones. If there’s a film that put sound to better use in cinema in 2012 then I’ll be amazed. You’ll never be able to look at a watermelon again without feeling slightly queasy.

15. Chronicle

To find a film that confidently kicks the stale ‘found footage’ subgenre so hard it restarts its fading heartbeat is one thing, but to do so whilst completely reinvigorating the whole ‘superhero’ movie at the same time is astounding. However, finding out that said piece of cinematic work is from a first time director working with a first time writer and that the result is one of the best films of the year? That’s almost unbelievable!

14. Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters

Whilst many argue that the best dramatic television delivered over the last few years has came from the Danish and the Dutch, the best thriller at the movies this year was a Scandinavian effort, adapted from an extremely well-regarded potboiler of a novel. This is a nerve-shredding, streamlined, rollercoaster of a ride that moves like a bullet out of gun.

13. The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan’s trilogy-closer dazzles on first watch but falls apart under closer inspection. It is, sad as it is to say, the toy only capable of being played with once before it breaks. Yes, this film had an absurd and somewhat unfair level of expectation attached to it but that doesn’t excuse what is ultimately a surprisingly lazy, hackneyed screenplay. Therefore it has to be said that it’s testament to the sublime casting, fantastic and fantastical set-pieces and brilliant design that it still ends up being one of the best blockbusters of the year even in the face of its failings.

12. The Cabin In The Woods

This was probably one of the best surprises I’ve had at the cinema this year simply because, despite being a little bit of an occasional ‘spoiler-whore’, I went into this film completely “cold” and just sat back for the ride. And what a ride it was. This was a thrilling, funny and wholly original ‘geek treat’!

11. Skyfall

Coming into this as one of “those types” who actually thought Quantum of Solace wasn’t actually that bad, I was blown away by just how solid the latest James Bond effort was. I’m a big fan of Casino Royale simply because all involved seemed to want to make a genuinely great blockbuster and not just a great Bond movie. However, Skyfall was different. This was folk refusing to settle for just a great ‘blockbuster’ and pushing very hard to make a great film, full stop. It’s exciting in all the ways that a Bond movie should be and far too often isn’t. But it’s also surprisingly dramatic and somewhat moving in a lot of ways that a Bond movie has never really tried to be before.

10. The Impossible

I’m not ashamed to admit that I sobbed plentifully through this film in exactly the way the filmmakers intended an audience to the minute they cast those wonderful three child actors in central roles. Putting aside my initial confusion as to why we only seemed to be seeing how white people from around the world were affected in Thailand, most of my real issues were with the third act in terms of just how far the dramatic and emotional manipulation is taken. However, said issues aren’t strong enough to distract from this being recognised as a harrowing, moving, sublimely acted, masterfully directed, genuinely great piece of cinema.

9. War of the Arrows

In terms of pure edge-of-your-seat, hold-on-for-dear-life, rousing action cinema this is hard to beat. Set during the second Manchu invasion of Korea, we follow a young archer as he enters into a non-stop cat-and-mouse chase against the might of the entire Qing Dynasty when they kidnap his sister. If you like your cinema fast, unrelenting and stupendously entertaining then seek this out!

8. The Avengers

This should never have worked even half as well as it did, let alone ending up as the best blockbuster experience of the year. Paying off what has essentially been a five film build-up? Balancing six to seven characters each in need of their own arc / storyline / time to shine? Providing spectacle above and beyond what any audience member has already seen in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor or Captain America? The film succeeds on just above every conceivable level whilst stepping up where The Dark Knight Rises floundered; ensuring its own plot-ditches and logical blemishes don’t diminish its power on repeated viewing. This wasn’t the best possible result we could’ve hoped for from a “superhero team-up movie”. It was better.

7. Life of Pi

To put it simply this is everything that is great about cinema: It’s thought-provoking, touching, funny, thrilling and absolutely gorgeous to look at. I am by no means a fan of 3D at all but even I have to recognise that Ang Lee’s work in this form is the best I’ve ever seen, bar none. It’s a truly wonderful, inspiring film that – if there’s any justice – will garner Suraj Sharma a well deserved Oscar nomination.

6. The Imposter

I was well aware of the unbelievable true story – and all the twists and turns it permeates – that this much-lauded documentary covers well before its release. I’d read The Guardian piece a while back and I’d also seen The Chameleon, the depressingly inane indie movie based upon the events starring Famke Jannsen and Ellen Barkin. I didn’t think that it could offer up anything particularly different to what I was already familiar with and came to it incredibly late in the year as a result. I was enormously wrong: This is on par with Errol Morris’ The Thin Red Line. It’s a gripping and engulfing experience that uses talking-head interviews and dramatic reconstructions to pave the way for one of the most audacious and disturbing true stories of our time. 

5. Lobos De Arga

Stumbling across this Spanish Shaun of the Dead style werewolf movie in a supermarket bargain bin under its absurdly generic title of “Attack of the Werewolves”, I decided to give it a go when a casual glance at the small print on the bottom rear of the blu-ray cover revealed it was actually the very Lobos De Arga I had heard a great deal of ‘buzz’ about. Within minutes of the animated prologue coming to an end I was absolutely hooked and subsequently rewarded with a fast-paced, very funny, witty little horror comedy that works wonders in the face of its low budget and delivers above and beyond what films of this ilk are normally capable of. It is the jewel of 2012’s movie releases.

4. The Raid

This wasn’t JUST the best action movie of 2012. It was also unarguably one of the best action movies of the last twenty-odd years. Hell, if not ever made. It is that good. Insanely violent, audaciously choreographed, massively entertaining – it’s a bludgeon to the head of the action genre; laughing in the face of shitty CGI and silly stunt-doubles. It’s as close as you’ll ever get to “as real” in terms of action without watching the very set-pieces happen in front of your very eyes in real life. See this movie. Then once you’ve seen it, see it again. Then once you’ve seen it again, hunt out Merantu (stupidly named Merantu Warrior in the UK) too.

3. Looper

For those reading and re-reading your now stale copies of the unproduced Gemini Man screenplay (or watching and rewatching Joe Carnahan’s “proof of concept” ‘trailer’ starring Clint Eastwood!), this is the movie for you! It’s a time-travel movie that streamlines the usual paradoxes of the time-travel subgenre, wearing them on its sleeve like a badge of honour. It’s an action movie of great visual wit and assured ambition. It’s a thriller that dares to take its entire third act and apply the brakes in order to introduce not only a romance but to ask questions of the audience. It is, quite simply, a fantastic film and the year’s best low-fi sci-fi movie.

2. Moonrise Kingdom

For those tiring of Wes Anderson’s “schtick”, I demand you come and sit by the warm glow that Moonrise Kingdom offers and have your hearts thawed out. There is no more of a delightful film released in 2012 then this – a lovely, ever so slightly off-kilter, rambling ode to small-town life and young love. It is cast to absolute perfection (Bill Murray, by now, is as predictably awesome as you’d expect in an Anderson movie. But Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and Frances McDormand are exceptional!) and visually resplendent from its first frame to its last.

1. The Grey

Released in the first week of 2012, this is a film so brilliant that – as good and as great as every film on this list is – no other movie has surpassed it this year. Playing off of one of the best movie marketing confidence tricks ever carried out (This is not a “Liam Neeson fights wolves” film), all involved are so sure in the movie they’ve made that they don’t mind how you’ve been tricked into seeing it, just as long as you see it. Because they know they’re going to blow you away regardless.

And that they do – Liam Neeson has spent so long in his post-Taken generic action man role that it’s easy to forget what a truly fine actor he is when used well. And he is used extremely well here. The real scene-stealing tour de force though is character actor Frank Grillo who turns audiences’ assumptions and first impressions on their head and – in his final lines of dialogue – reveals not only that if he’s not nominated for Best Supporting Actor it’ll be a travesty, but also the real core of the film: This isn’t “Liam Neeson Fights Wolves: The Movie”. It’s only ever so slightly a “Man Versus Nature” adventure movie. This is a surprisingly deep, deftly handled character studio of broken men finding their worth, facing redemption or staring down fate.

The biggest revelation though stands Joe Carnahan at the helm. I’ve long been a fan of the guy and his full-throttle style (I think his interpretation of The A-Team is one of the most underappreciated blockbusters of the last ten years!) but this is not the Carnahan you might be expecting based off of Smokin’ Aces and Narc. That’s pretty much clear from the first act-ending plane crash that he plays not for broad entertainment but for pure guttural terror. Dialling the dazzling action set-pieces back, dulling his colour-palette right down and giving his fantastic all male cast room to work, Carnahan has made an astonishing piece of cinema that delivers on just about every conceivable level.

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My Top 25 lists for 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 are available in the 'Archives' section.

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[gazzhowie]

I'm a big conspiracy movie junkie so this was a great deal of fun to write and I've ended up quite proud of it, if I say so myself. Hope you like it too.

[gazzhowie]

Here’s my latest assigned feature for www.whatculture.com, looking at the stalest and most over-used elements of the romantic comedy genre.