The Lonely Guy (1984)

Very sweet, very funny Steve Martin comedy that’s fairly similar in tone to The Jerk. He plays Larry Hubbard, a New Yorker ditched by his girlfriend only to find that single life in the city is no fun. He uncovers what’s almost a secret society of “lonely guys” – single men jumping off bridges, talking to houseplants and desperately hoping their lost loves will return.

It’s a mark of Steve Martin’s skill that such a potentially taboo subject makes for such a hilarious film. There are many laugh-out-loud moments and it’s genuinely heartwarming. The silliness does not stop it from achieving genuine profundity. And Charles Grodin and Judith Ivey are endearing as his friend and new sweetheart.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Third in the series. As always with J.J. Abrams films (he produced rather than directed this one), the focus is on breathlessly speeding from one thrilling scene to the next with little room for light and shade or character development. The general absence of quieter moments means that the film rarely touches you. It just looks spectacular and feels exciting.

On the plus side, this has a stronger plot than Star Trek Into Darkness, even if it still steals from existing Star Trek mythology rather than inventing its own. I was curious why the pointless Spock/Uhura relationship was suddenly ended when it never rang true in the first place.

I wondered why there were relatively few ideas, too. The 1960s series was packed with thought-provoking concepts and complex ethical issues. These films are just hasty action romps. One of the key scenes has Captain Kirk riding around on a motorbike, presumably because it worked visually. The film also manages to include records by Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys as part of the storyline.

It was good to see the Enterprise being destroyed, even if they did rebuild it at the end. Maybe Rise of Skywalker would have been improved by the Millennium Falcon being trashed or some other equally audacious move.

Simon Pegg has a more prominent role (as Scotty), perhaps because he wrote the script. Idris Elba is underused and underdeveloped as the villain Krall.

And as with the previous film, the title makes no sense.

Mystic Pizza (1988)

Two sisters (Julia Roberts and Annabeth Gish) plus their best friend (Lili Taylor) work in a pizza restaurant in a small Connecticut fishing town named Mystic. Each of them experiences a relationship that challenges and changes them in some way.

It’s a funny and emotional coming-of-age drama. The script is absolutely spot-on. The characters are extremely well drawn and so entirely believable that you laugh when they laugh and weep when they weep.

The three stories are so expertly woven together that it feels like one plot. And in fact there’s a fourth story, which is about the way of life in the town, and this too is handled brilliantly. There’s a strong sense of place, and you really feel drawn into this small community.

There’s nothing you could cut or add to make Mystic Pizza work any better. It’s a mini-masterpiece.

Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Harrison Ford stars in this adaptation of a Tom Clancy thriller about a CIA man who gets involved in both a Colombian drug war and the murky secrets of the White House. Maybe it worked as a novel, but as a film it’s too long and too slow. Buried in there somewhere are two interesting stories – a guns ’n’ copters action plot and a political saga built around protocols that sadly seem almost quaint in the debased Trump era. Instead, you get a rather drab and convoluted mess that cannot satisfy. That said, Harrison Ford is as riveting as ever, Willem Dafoe isn’t bad as field agent John Clark and James Earl Jones is convincing as the dying Vice Admiral James Greer.

Before Midnight (2013)

The third in Richard Linklater’s masterful trilogy, following Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Celine and Jesse are nine years older and wiser: now a couple with twins, they are on holiday at a Greek villa. Jesse has just reluctantly sent the child from his previous marriage back to his mother in the USA and this – plus the looming end of the holiday – brings on contemplation of life, family, love and mortality.

Unlike in the first two films, we get to see the couple in a group setting: for one extended scene – an evening meal with friends at the villa – we witness their “public” behaviour. It’s a clever way to reveal a different side to the couple.

But the real emotional centre of the film comes when the couple share one night alone at a local hotel. The anticipated night of passion and freedom soon takes a less romantic turn as they are forced to face up to the fact that the passing years have allowed resentments to build up while life decisions were being made. It’s to the great credit of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke that they make it as real as possible and it’s remarkable how convincing their chemistry has become, whether it’s during their moments of intimacy or the argument that follows.

It’s fascinating being able to revisit this couple every nine years, but I am left hoping that there won't be further instalments. This trilogy is so perfectly judged and it now feels complete.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) is shot dead in a beach house. His wife, Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford), is the prime suspect. But as she tells her story – shown in flashback – we learn what really happened.

This is both a noirish thriller and a family melodrama, examining Mildred’s intense relationship with her daughters – in particular the selfish social-climbing Veda (Ann Blyth).

Although the drama is expertly unwound and beautifully filmed, Mildred’s relationship with Veda didn’t quite ring true for this viewer. Yes, she was a doting mother, but she also seemed far too rational and well-adjusted to be so obsessive about her daughter.

Perhaps more compelling is the sad saga of a woman who is only ever manipulated or used by men, and who falls victim to a class prejudice that we are often told doesn’t exist in the USA.

Baby Driver (2017)

A highly stylised, unusual blend of violence and music.

“Baby” is a decent young man (Ansel Elgort), who has got mixed up with criminals, working as a getaway driver for a criminal boss (Kevin Spacey). When he meets a waitress named Debora (Lily James), he vows to go straight and plans his escape with her. Of course it’s not that simple and his last job goes horribly wrong...

There’s so much more to this than a typical car-chase thriller. Baby is obsessed by music, which he plays on an iPod constantly to drown out both his tinnitus and memories of his mother’s death in a car crash. There’s also the fact that he records snippets of conversation and builds remixes out of them. And he has a deaf, disabled foster father to care for.

The film starts out like a pop video – fast, flashy and loud – but develops unexpected depths. The other criminals initially seem like two-dimensional caricatures, but thankfully they are developed too.

There’s a brilliantly executed scene near the beginning in which Baby brings a song to life, lip-syncing to it, and illustrating its lyrics with visual elements as he walks through the streets of Atlanta to the coffee shop.

I loved the soundtrack (The Damned, Bob & Earl, Sam & Dave, T.Rex, Jonathan Richman, Martha and The Vandellas, etc), and the choice of music is vital to the action. In places, the gunshots are synchronised to the rhythms of the tracks Baby listens to.

It escalates into a fast, thrilling and surprisingly intense climax.

Air Force One (1997)

Edge-of-the-seat thriller in which Harrison Ford plays the US president. His plane is hijacked by a Russian baddie (Gary Oldman). Ford appears to make a break for safety in an escape pod. But of course he chooses to stay on board to save his family, his crew and democracy itself.

Meanwhile the vice president (a reasonably convincing Glenn Close) leads the operation from the White House and there are some interesting discussions of protocol, i.e., are the president’s instructions legally binding if he is incapacitated? What if you don’t know whether he’s incapacitated?

The film maintains the tension expertly and Ford is as watchable as ever. There are only two corny lines (“Get off my plane” being one of them) and it’s to the film’s credit that the villain is well developed as a character.

There’s lots of shooting, and the violence seems real and painful rather than cartoonish. You know the good guys will win, of course, but it’s exciting to find out how they go about it.

Before Sunset (2004)

Every bit as charming as Before Sunrise, if not more so, this sequel picks up the story of Jesse and Céline nine years later. They meet in Paris and discuss their personal situations and what’s happened to them since that life-changing encounter in Vienna. And they slowly reveal how they feel about each other as they grapple with how their past may inform their future.

I loved the long, single-take scenes as they wander in Paris, and also the fact that the film appears to take place in real time.

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke both seem to give richer performances than in the first film. They are so natural in the roles that you wonder if they are even acting.

The romantic and touching ending, with Céline singing one of her songs and offering an extended Nina Simone impression, is an absolute delight.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The last of the sequel trilogy had a lot to deliver, resolving not only the new sequence of films but also the entire saga. Did it achieve that? Well, sort of. Mostly.

It offers such a rich visual feast and a fairly full-on narrative. So much happens so quickly and there's a lot to take in. Unlike with Episode VIII, there’s no filler. The characters are stronger – there’s a warm feeling of “the old gang back together” – and the weaker ones from the last film (such as Rose) had been minimised.

Although the overall story worked, the plot was flawed in many ways:
• It's ludicrous to think of Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) having a wife and children, not to mention how he cheated death and came back to life (an increasingly common trick in Star Wars).
• General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) being the spy was too convenient and unlikely. Couldn’t Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) sense who was betraying him? He had pretty much every other power imaginable.
• Fin (John Boyega) suddenly developing Force sensitivity somewhat cheapens that power. Can anyone have it now? Perhaps it was just to give him more of a reason to exist, but I still think his character could have been combined with that of Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac).
• There’s a conspicuous lesbian kiss (seen among the celebrating Resistance fighters) for no apparent reason. This seems like a right-on gesture with no grounding in the plot logic.
• Even given the ending, in which Rey decides to consider Luke and Leia her true parents, the title made little sense.

Those points aside, there was a vast amount to enjoy. Daisy Ridley was compelling as Rey and the complicated love story between her and Kylo Ren makes for a strong central theme.

I was surprised how much Carrie Fisher was in it, given that she died before filming – presumably a “deep fake” scenario rather than a repurposing of unused footage. Wasn’t expecting to see Harrison Ford, either.

It was lovely to see a couple of Ewoks and a relief that there were no Gungans.

There were a few laughs – mainly banter from Poe.

The big “surprise” (unless you’d seen the trailer) return of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian was superfluous, but presumably they felt they needed everyone they could get from the old films.

It goes without saying that the effects were incredible. I loved it when Palp sent force lightning up into space.

All in all, a hugely entertaining romp.

Before Sunrise (1995)

Young American man (Ethan Hawke) meets young French woman (Julie Delpy) on a train while they are both travelling in Europe. Mutually attracted, they spontaneously agree to leave the train at Vienna and spend a day together. The film details what happens next, mainly via their touchingly earnest conversations as they wander around the city, getting to know each other, encountering various walk-on characters and beginning to fall in love.

I really like Richard Linklater’s long takes, which feel semi-improvised – particularly the one in which the couple take turns playing pinball while talking, switching places each time they lose a game. This scene would have been different every time the actors ran through it, so you get a feeling that it’s special.

There’s something refreshingly different about the pacing and the convincingly “real” dialogue. And it’s very romantic. It’s enchanting to see how young and idealistic they are.

Two sequels would follow: Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013).

Up in the Air (2009)

Drama (with just a hint of romantic comedy) about a man (George Clooney) who travels the USA to fire people. Despite the upsetting nature of his work, he loves his life of transience and deliberately avoids attachments. That all changes when he meets Alex (Vera Farmiga) and, despite everything, falls in love with her. Will he get in touch with his sensitive side and finally settle down?

There are two parallel plots: he begins to re-engage with his estranged family owing to an unexpected role at his sister’s wedding. And he is accompanied on his travels by his colleague Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who aims to implement a video-conferencing facility that will remove the need for him to sack people face to face, therefore threatening his untethered travelling existence.

Without wishing to spoil the ending, it doesn’t pan out the way you might expect.

It’s a witty and intelligent script and the bland, faceless, corporate aspects are so well observed that you begin to understand their seductive appeal.

Clooney is perfect in the part of the endlessly charming but rootless HR “terminator” getting to know his emotions.

Goldfinger (1964)

Third James Bond film. Lots to enjoy this time around, not least a strong storyline with a clear narrative arc. The Aston Martin DB5 is iconic and looks stunning on those winding mountain roads. Shirley Eaton’s death by gold paint remains memorable. There are convincing villains in the form of the hat-throwing OddJob (Harold Sakata) and the blandly evil Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). There’s an amusingly extended golfing scene that seems more about macho one-upmanship than anything else. There’s the absurdly named Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) leading a daft flying circus of glamorous girls who drop poison gas from tiny planes above Fort Knox.

This line from Sean Connery stood out as jarring and extraordinary: “My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs!” Clearly Bond was pitched at the parents, and not at the kids. He was still part of the old order.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Roger Moore’s third Bond film is probably his best.

Pros:
• A different kind of story arc. It seems to turn into a war film about two thirds of the way through.
• The Bond girl has a better-written role than usual. Unfortunately, Barbara Bach (later to marry Ringo Starr) doesn’t act that role very convincingly.
• Jaws is the most compelling henchman of them all and I like the fact that he survives, even if they ruined the character by turning this brutal killer into a soppy fool when he returned in Moonraker.
• In places, it’s like a horror film and there are a couple of genuinely frightening surprises.
• Iconic scene in which Bond skis off a cliff and opens a Union Jack parachute.
• Bond’s underwater car.
• Theme song “Nobody Does It Better” sung by Carly Simon.

Cons:
• Roger Moore is still ridiculous.
• The villain (Curd Jürgens playing Karl Stromberg) is killed rather too easily by Bond shooting him. I was expecting him to be sent down the shaft in his sci-fi sub-aquatic base to the shark tank so that he would suffer the same fate as his victims. Instead, Jaws gets that treatment so that they can have a Jaws vs. Jaws battle, which – brilliantly – henchman Jaws wins.
• The usual racism and sexism.
• Bond’s evident knowledge of marine creatures is never explained. Is he just an expert at everything?

Live and Let Die (1973)

The first Roger Moore film in the James Bond series is a slick effort. Roger tends to act with his eyebrows, and there’s a strange awkwardness about his manner. It’s as if he’s never quite right for whatever each scene demands.

The plot is easier to follow than usual and the baddie, drug lord Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto), is one of the better villains. Jane Seymour is pretty but fairly weak as the Tarot-reading Solitaire. Oddly enough, it’s suggested that she actually can read Tarot cards – a hint of the supernatural (presumably a first in the Bond universe) that is backed up by the inclusion of a witch doctor and magical rituals elsewhere.

The speedboat chase is fun and the crocodiles-as-stepping-stones moment is a classic. The presence of Sheriff J.W. Pepper is an unfortunate blemish. He’s a “comedy character” who just isn’t funny. But he was apparently so popular that they brought him back again for The Man with the Golden Gun.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Sequel to the first reboot, again directed by Jar Jar Abrams. The characters are just as strong as before (even if the Spock/Uhura romance fails to convince and Spock can be both emotional and emotionless as the story requires), but the plot is somewhat tortured. It’s not entirely clear what the motivations of the villain are and parts of the story just don’t make sense. Even the title is bafflingly random. 

Some of the dialogue is a little clichéd, which is a shame because a better script could have lifted this out of “adequate sci-fi thriller” mode and let these interesting characters develop further. 

Leonard Nimoy appears one last time (he died in 2015) although seemingly just to appeal to the fans. There are many other reference points apparently thrown in as crowd-pleasers (Khan, Tribbles, etc). As with the Star Wars sequels, you wonder why they have to endlessly rehash old ideas rather than creating new mythology and iconography of their own. 

Despite amazing visuals, some thrills and some welcome humour (mainly from Simon Pegg’s Scotty), it doesn’t work quite as well as the first film. And once again it frustratingly ends where the TV series begins, with the crew about to “explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before” (although “no man” has now become “no one”). Odd that it has taken two films to get to this point.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Ninth Bond film and the second with Roger Moore, who, throughout the film, wears suits that are too big for him. Bond pursues the “Solex Agitator” device (tied into an interesting plot about the 1973 oil crisis) and arch-villain Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). It’s as racist and sexist as you’d expect from the vintage. That aside, what are the pros and cons of the film?

Pluses:
• M and Q’s base hidden in a wrecked ship in Hong Kong has brilliantly skewed angles with their own dream logic – superb set design.
• Christopher Lee is charming and convincing compared to most Bond villains. He could be the best of all. He certainly out-acts Roger Moore.
• The horror-funhouse in which Scaramanga traps his victims is imaginative and thrilling.
• This dialogue...
Bond: “But where is it collected from? You need the sun.”
Scaramanga: “Watch that mushroom-shaped rock. lngenious, isn't it?”

Minuses: 
• Britt Ekland is terribly weak as “Goodnight”, but the character is so underwritten that she isn’t given much to work with.
• The name “Goodnight” seems to exist only to enable a feeble pun at the very end of the film that isn’t worth the wait.
• Bond hits a woman again (see also From Russia with Love).
• Awful theme tune by Lulu: a breathless dash of a song.
• In one scene, Nick Nack throws countless wine bottles at Bond but no wine spills anywhere. Then Britt Ekland manages to clean up hundreds of shards of glass within minutes.
• The comedy character Sheriff J.W. Pepper returns from Live and Let Die and hasn’t got any funnier.
• A brilliant stunt in which a car corkscrews across a river is ruined by the pointless addition of a “whoopsie” sound effect. What were they playing at?!

Spectre (2015)

The opening sequence in Mexico City is one of the most exciting and visually striking you will ever see, with a glorious long, uninterrupted take without edits that shows James Bond prowling among the masked people in the Day of the Dead parade, entering a hotel lobby with his girlfriend, taking the lift to another floor, entering his room, leaving the room (and the girl) and walking along the top edge of the building to assassinate a terrorist. This flows into a scene with collapsing buildings and a dizzying helicopter fight. And all this before the titles sequence.

As in Skyfall, which this is nearly the equal of, there’s dry humour and the character has been refined to a perfect crystalisation of what Bond is about. Daniel Craig – in his fourth appearance in the role – absolutely nails it.

It’s visually stunning and the pacing is expertly handled. The villain (Christoph Waltz as Blofeld) is convincingly creepy and the Bond girl (Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann) is refreshingly unimpressed by 007 – for a while, anyway, until she inevitably falls for him.

Aside from Bond’s invincibility, the only thing that doesn’t ring true is the big meeting of SPECTRE agents. Would such a top-secret organisation really put all of its members in one room?

Really looking forward to the follow-up.

From Russia with Love (1963)

In the second James Bond film, Sean Connery is reasonably credible if you can accept his character’s psychopathic tendency to make wisecracks when his victims die.

The plot is typically incoherent. For example, the role of the Russian girl (played by Daniela Bianchi) turns out to be completely pointless as she never does any of the work SPECTRE hired her for. It’s rather shocking to see Bond hitting her, but then he was never supposed to be a nice guy.

There’s an utterly ludicrous scene set in a gypsy encampment: Bond gets to see two scantily clad women grappling with each other in a “fight to the death” before saving them and earning them both as his “reward”.

There are engaging moments: for example, the parts on the Orient Express have a certain tension. And Blofeld – face unseen, hands stroking his white cat – has an undeniably iconic quality.

But is it a good film? Not really.

Footloose (1984)

Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon) is a Chicago teenager who comes to the town of Bomont, Utah, where rock music and dancing have been banned and the oppressive rule of the troubled local minister (John Lithgow) imposes rigid, puritanical social control. Ren falls for the minister’s daughter, Ariel (Lori Singer, who I had a major crush on when she was the cellist in the Fame TV series), and gets the town dancing again.

Music is given prominence throughout, and in some ways it’s merely a glorified pop video, but actually there’s much more going on. If you can see past the product placement (Coca Cola appears in countless scenes), there’s a very interesting drama unfolding. The theme of small-town repression is explored in depth. There’s also a thread about violence against women, with Lori Singer being hit by two different men.

For once, there’s no obsession with social climbing. Instead, the film proposes that self-expression is the path to liberation. Dancing to music really can set you free.

Carnage (2011)

Set in one evening in a New York apartment, Carnage features two couples rowing over an incident between their children. Directed by Roman Polanski, the real-time scenario works (it’s adapted from a play by Yasmina Reza) and the disintegration of relationships and social niceties is handled with ruthless precision. Not one of the four characters is likeable, so you move beyond feelings of “taking sides” to a realisation that the whole lot of them are self-centred and childish. It’s filmed in such a way that the slightly queasy angles cleverly emphasise their grotesque qualities as the tension escalates. It’s brilliantly twitchy and uncomfortable.

There’s an especially memorable scene in which a hair-dryer is used to dry Jodie Foster’s precious art catalogue after it becomes splattered with Kate Winslet’s vomit. You might think that would be the low point for the characters, but things continue to get worse.

Frankie & Johnny (1991)

Intelligent, highly engaging romantic comedy-drama starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino. It’s adapted from a play (by Terrence McNally) and you can tell. The dialogue is strong and even the way the set has been designed has a simple theatrical logic that just works.

The two leads are hugely charismatic, but the supporting parts also seem integral – even though they weren’t in the original play.

The scenes in the New York cafe where F. and J. work are wonderful. You want to go there and sit drinking coffee all day while observing all the little details around you.

Subtle and nuanced, it’s sophisticated and moving without ever being obvious or choosing an easy, sentimental option.

Interstellar (2014)

Sci-fi mind-bender directed by Christopher Nolan. Earth is in peril as dust storms threaten to wipe out crops and humanity. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a pilot persuaded by the remnants of NASA to leave his children on the doomed planet to travel through a wormhole and locate a new world for people to colonise. Inevitably, things don’t go to plan...

It’s a very moving story. Owing to time dilation, we see Cooper’s children growing older while he ages mere months. In one heartbreaking sequence, a "brief", botched visit to a watery planet with terrifying tidal waves equates to 23 years passing in Earth time and for the crew member left in orbit.

Michael Caine plays the NASA scientist intent on saving humanity. Anne Hathaway is his daughter, who is part of the mission. Jessica Chastain plays Cooper’s daughter, who helps resolve the riddles of the fifth dimension with some unexpected assistance. And Matt Damon is the lonely colonist who goes wildly off-piste when company arrives.

It’s a long and complex film, with several strands, but the lucid storytelling means that it works, even if you don’t have a degree in astrophysics. It’s ultimately an emotional story that asks big questions about time and love.

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Modernisation of the Shakespeare play starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the main roles. They are both excellent and their love scenes zing with energy and sensual yearning. But the film is directed in such a self-conscious manner as to be almost unwatchable. I really disliked the speeded-up sequences, and the awfully clunky opening moments in a gas station had me about to turn off the film and hurl the DVD across the room. It may have been deliberate to make the other characters grotesque and cartoonish, but it just doesn’t work. Are we meant to find them comical or endearing? In fact, the effect is oddly repulsive.

A less tricksy approach might have developed (rather than risked sabotaging) the romance narrative and allowed the DiCaprio/Danes chemistry to dominate. It’s one of the all-time great stories – source material this strong really shouldn’t be difficult to film – but Baz Luhrmann somehow manages to mess it up.

The highlight is the Radiohead song over the closing credits.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

John Hughes teen drama. The plot is simple: poor girl dates rich boy while social prejudice threatens to tear them apart. Molly Ringwald acts with her lower lip and is a curious mixture of mature and immature. She has three interesting relationships – with her depressed father (Harry Dean Stanton), with her supportive colleague at the Tracks record shop (Annie Potts) and with her nerdy friend “Duckie” who’s in love with her (Jon Cryer). The big flaw is that her central relationship – with preppy, well-off Blane (Andrew McCarthy) – just doesn’t convince. It’s not clear what, if anything, they have in common and this forms a vacuum at the centre of the film. And when they do finally end up together, the film seems to betray its own instincts. Weren’t we supposed to be rooting for Duckie, with his goofy underdog charm? In fact, the ending we see was reshot because the “truer” ending – in which she did wind up with the far more appealing Duckie – wasn’t popular with audiences. That commercial decision was the wrong choice aesthetically and means that the plot and motivations fail to ring true.

The soundtrack is omnipresent and brilliantly of its time (The Smiths, New Order, Psychedelic Furs), but that’s not enough to save the film. Having heard this raved about as a cult classic, I was very disappointed to finally see it.

City of Angels (1998)

A remarkable romantic drama. Nicolas Cage is an angel, who guides the dying to heaven. In a Los Angeles hospital, he meets a human doctor (Meg Ryan) and they fall in love. He then has to decide whether to give up eternal life and become human in order to be with her.

It’s loosely based on Wings of Desire (1987), but the theme of interspecies love reminds me a little of the mermaid saga Splash.

It’s subtle and nuanced. There’s something very pure and focused about the way it primarily deals with two characters and excludes sub-plots and other distractions.

Cage is perfect as an angel discovering what it is to love, possessing all the calm intensity you would expect of a supernatural being. Ryan is well-cast, too, so you can really believe in their romance.

The film excels in exploring the sensual qualities of pleasure and pain that angels are denied. The ending is satisfyingly not what you expect, and it’s moving without turning into sentimental slosh.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Meryl Streep is the editor of the highly influential New York fashion magazine Runway. Anne Hathaway plays the young assistant who risks becomes corrupted by the glitz and superficiality of that world.

It’s a sort of morality story (with a slight flavour of Working Girl) – will she remain true to herself or will she be seduced by the dark side?

The direction by David Frankel is fresh and fast, and the film zings along at a decent pace.

Streep is excellent as the intimidating, hard-nosed boss, and Hathaway is believable as the wide-eyed youngling. Emily Blunt is also pretty good as the bratty other assistant.

District 9 (2009)

Astonishing alien film that brings huge intelligence and empathy to its subject.

A vast alien spaceship arrives and hovers over Johannesburg. The aliens on board (given the derogatory name “prawns” by humans) are herded up and forced to live in a fortified slum.

When, years later, Multinational United (MNU) begin aggressively relocating the aliens outside the city, the foolish Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) becomes infected by a fluid that begins to turn him into one of them. But rather than care for him, the authorities realise his huge value because his altered DNA means that he can now activate the aliens’ superior weapons. He therefore has the potential to unlock a huge leap forwards in military technology...

The film is presented in fake-documentary style that makes it seem incredibly real.

It’s pretty clear that the treatment of aliens as inferior beings is an allegory of South Africa’s Apartheid.

A lesser treatment could have quickly dissolved into a tacky aliens vs. humans shoot-’em-up, but while this is indeed violent it never takes the obvious or gratuitous path. And it’s a clever twist that the only kindness on display is interspecies as the fugitive human and persecuted aliens start to help each other.

Dumb and Dumber (1994)

The title says it all. An absolutely stupid film that ends up being very funny. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels play two of the most infantile people imaginable. But they are well-meaning, too, and care about each other. They become accidentally involved in a crime involving the kidnap of the husband of an heiress (Lauren Holly) and leave a trail of destruction in their wake while attempting to travel to Aspen (it’s a sort of road movie) in order to return a suitcase full of money.

It works because the humour is kind. You laugh at their absurdity and vulnerability. I’ve never been a fan of crass jokes about toilets, but these characters are so well drawn that even the “laxative overdose” scene is compelling.

Stupid as they are, you root for them because you recognise a little of yourself in their daftness and because it’s difficult to resist the warmth of their friendship.

American Sniper (2014)

Powerful and disturbing Iraq War drama that tells the story of “the most lethal sniper in US military history”. Bradley Cooper plays Chris Kyle, who becomes more and more damaged by each of his four tours of duty. Sienna Miller plays his wife (and mother of his children), seeing the man she loves ruined by post-traumatic stress disorder.

It’s violent and bloody as you’d expect from a film with this title and subject matter. I was surprised it was only a “15” given that you see children being shot and some other very harrowing images.

Director/producer Clint Eastwood has it both ways in the sense that he shows the evils of war and senseless brutality of violence but simultaneously documents a culture that fails to learn from its mistakes and continues to celebrate the use and ownership of guns. In Trump’s America it seems more relevant than ever.

Star Trek (2009)

J.J. Abrams’ reboot of the iconic franchise injects new vitality into the tired space saga. It deals briefly with the early life of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), introduces the other key characters and effectively ends where Gene Roddenberry’s 1960s TV series begins.

Kirk is established as a super-confident, highly talented liability who ends up captaining the Enterprise. In parallel the film explores his relationship with – and the character of – the young Spock (Zachary Quinto). In particular, it probes the psychological complexity of his half-Vulcan, half-human origins. Does he have emotions or doesn’t he? Leonard Nimoy also appears as the older Spock, explained via a complicated time-travel narrative.

The character of Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is better developed than it was in the TV show, and Simon Pegg adds extra quirkiness to Scotty.

The effects are remarkable and the large-scale space scenes look impressive.

The only real flaw is that the villains – the tattooed Romulans – aren’t especially convincing. For baddies to be scary they need to seem real.

That aside, it’s a highly entertaining romp.

Joy (2015)

Highly intelligent drama – with welcome flashes of subtle comedy – directed by David O. Russell, who also made the excellent Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle with the same actors.

Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) invents a “miracle mop” that seems destined to transform her fortunes, but she has to deal with complex family matters and business sharks out to rip her off. Lawrence is as compelling as ever, while Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper and Isabella Rossellini are all impressive in supporting roles.

It’s a testament to how well the film was made that a demonstration of mop functionality can work as the dramatic and emotional high point. It’s also to be applauded that the obvious Lawrence/Cooper romance option was not pursued, and a more nuanced relationship between the pair was explored instead.

Like Russell’s other films, music is hugely important and the late 1960s/early 1970s soundtrack selections (Stones, Buffalo Springfield, etc) were expertly chosen.

I also like the way the film offered a very unexpected twist to its narration about two thirds of the way through...

Speed (1994)

Terrific action thriller. The concept is simple: a Los Angeles city bus is armed with a bomb that will detonate if the vehicle’s speed dips below 50 mph. Cute, funny Sandra Bullock is the passenger who becomes the heroic driver. Keanu Reeves is the cop jumping aboard the bus to save her and the other passengers while trying to defeat the crazed villain (Dennis Hopper). He’s helped by fellow cop Jeff Daniels, who is as reliably watchable as ever.

With exceptional pacing, the film ramps up the tension from the start and somehow sustains it for 111 minutes.

Some of the dialogue is weak, with a silly Bond-like quip about death that could have been skipped, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s so full-on in terms of excitement that you are swept away by the rush of energy. And the blossoming romance story is developed just enough to make you engage with the characters. It’s telling, though, that only Reeves is shown on the DVD cover, despite Bullock being every bit as integral to the film.

Spartacus (1960)

I had never seen this Stanley Kubrick classic, so was curious. It deserves all the hype, pretty much. Kirk Douglas is shiny and reasonably charismatic in the lead role. Jean Simmons is appealing as his delicate love interest, often shown in soft focus. The smouldering scenes in which the pair fall in love at the gladiator training centre are remarkable because almost no words are exchanged between them. Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov make up what is the very definition of an all-star cast. They are all on excellent form, but Curtis seems weirdly underused despite being built up as important because he’s different to the others.

At over three hours – and with amazing crowd scenes with hundreds of extras amassing for battle on huge landscapes – it’s epic in every sense.

Like many classics, it’s odder than you might expect. The lighting is all over the place, with some strangely illuminated interior scenes jarringly placed amid the exterior locations. There are also some peculiar scenes showing “ordinary life” within the slave camp. The senate is surprisingly small and low-key for a film that specialises in grand gestures. But it works because it keeps the themes of idealism (the idea of Rome) and political corruption (greed for power) on a scale you can relate to.

There’s a fascinating scene in which bisexuality is alluded to. Crassus says to Antoninus: “It is all a matter of taste, isn't it? And taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals. My taste includes both snails and oysters.” Strong stuff for a “PG”, as are the gory moments and the points at which Jean Simmons tastefully de-robes.

Tackling big issues of freedom, democracy and class, it’s a rich film. There’s a moving finale that manages to offer both a happy and a sad ending.

I, Tonya (2017)

Terribly sad biopic of Tonya Harding, the Olympic ice skater whose career was ruined by her ex-husband’s alleged involvement in the 1994 assault on her rival Nancy Kerrigan.

It’s a tragic tale of abuse, from childhood onwards, via a brutal, unloving mother (played by Allison Janney) and a violent husband (played by Sebastian Stan). The film is also a damning critique of the media, which turned her into a “punchline”, while being part of that media.

Margot Robbie is terrific in the lead role as the talented skater who just wanted to be loved.

The feel is a lot like American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street: fast edits, a loud rock soundtrack and fourth-wall talking to camera.

It's disturbing and gripping – a powerful drama that's excellently made – but, as always with these kinds of biopics, I’m left wondering if it might have been better to make a documentary film instead.

Citizen Kane (1941)

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and now I can. This film tackles big themes of power, celebrity, love, truth, integrity, loneliness, success, failure, ambition and folly. It’s radical in its patchwork flashback structure, and it pieces together the narrative like the jigsaws attempted by Kane’s second wife. It’s a mystery story – what did Kane’s dying words (“Rosebud”) mean? Plus, there’s huge technical innovation: it’s so imaginatively shot in terms of the use of light and shadow. It’s also a great story that’s no less relevant now.

Producer, co-screenwriter, director and star Orson Welles is riveting in the lead role. You realise that Leonardo diCaprio has learned a lot from his manner in this film.

The Robe (1953)

Watched on TV while on holiday, this is a sword-and-sandals biblical epic. Richard Burton is super-magnetic as the Roman Marcellus, who crucifies Jesus, only to have his mind and soul converted to Christianity. It’s fascinating to see how the topic is handled. You see Jesus’s feet, but not his face. The swelling orchestral music and choirs of angels make for a stirring soundtrack. The sets are elaborate and lavish. Jean Simmons is appealing as Diana, who is in love with Marcellus and, later, with Jesus. Victor Mature is Demetrius, the rogue slave who manages to convert his master. You can see how it’s going to end and it’s quite satisfying to watch that conclusion play out.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)

Based on the classic novel by Erich Maria Remarque, this is a powerful WWI drama that sets out to show war as a pointless, futile, cruel waste of life. Richard Thomas (“John Boy” in The Waltons) is excellent as the innocent young man who enlists in the German army and quickly has any illusions about the glory of battle dashed by the brutal reality of the experience. This message is underscored again and again as his friends meet horrible deaths and then when he returns home on leave – only to find that not one person sees through the myths of heroism and nationalism that are killing hundreds of boys each day for mere inches of land.

There’s an especially affecting scene in which our hero has to spend the night lying in a trench with the Frenchman he has just stabbed. Realising how much they have in common he tries to help the man, but it’s too late. The scene is brilliantly drawn out in a way that I don’t think would happen if this was made now. 

The film evokes the constant noise of battle, but – despite a lot of maimed bodies – doesn’t quite go far enough to depict the soul-destroying filth, disease and degradation that these men would surely have suffered in their daily lives. That said, it’s one of the most profound anti-war films I’ve seen.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Brilliant adaptation of the Harper Lee novel. A seductively appealing small-town atmosphere turns nasty when a lawyer (Gregory Peck) defends a black man framed for a crime he didn’t commit. The film cleverly tells several stories: the court drama, the wider race-relations issues of the American South, and also the mystery of “Boo” Radley, the unseen neighbour who ends up playing a significant role in their lives.

Gregory Peck is fantastic as Atticus Finch, the kind, calm and intelligent lawyer and father of Scout (the narrator) and Jim. Their friend “Dill” is also excellent. These three kids (Mary Badham, Phillip Alford and John Megna respectively) deliver some of the best child acting I've ever seen. You watch their youthful innocence being lost as they learn about the dangers and prejudices of the world around them. Sadder than this is that the story seems more relevant than ever in Donald Trump’s America.

9 to 5 (1980)

Office-based comedy about sexism in the workplace. Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton are fairly entertaining in the main roles, playing against their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss (Dabney Coleman).

It’s badly let down by a terrible series of fantasy sequences in which each of the women plots their oppressor’s demise. These scenarios aren’t funny and are actually a little creepy. They spoil the momentum and take you out of the story. The film recovers when the real plot begins, but only just: it still fails to ring true. If these were three ordinary, decent people (as the plot tries to suggest), they would never kidnap someone and keep them chained up as a prisoner for weeks.

9 to 5 makes some good points about gender inequality, but Working Girl (1988), which owes something of a debt to this film, did it so much better.

I was fairly disappointed, having expected a classic. Dolly Parton’s theme song is, by some distance, the best thing about the film.

Down by Law (1986)

Hypnotic black and white comedy drama directed by Jim Jarmusch. Three men – Jack, Zach and Bob – find themselves unjustly held in a New Orleans jail and make their escape. It’s not really about “what happens”. Indeed, the escape takes seconds and isn’t detailed at all. It’s about their characters and the way their personalities interact.

The three stars, Tom Waits, John Lurie and Roberto Benigni, are all highly watchable and charismatic. Waits, in particular, has a twitchy, edgy magnetism.

When the film takes an unexpectedly romantic turn, it becomes something that lifts your spirits as well as makes you laugh. Nicoletta Braschi has been Benigni’s real-world wife since 1991 (they also starred together in Life Is Beautiful) and the scenes with them together are a joy.

It’s shot beautifully, too. You can freeze the DVD at any point and it looks like a striking photograph.

One of my favourite films.

The Great Escape (1963)

A classic, of course, but it’s a stranger film than you might think. I don’t like the relentlessly chirpy, intrusive music, which often trivialises the drama and turns it into farce. The tone just feels wrong. There’s often gentle wit in the script, so the music didn’t need to “jolly it up”.

Steve McQueen is highly watchable and charismatic. It’s impossible to rate his acting because he doesn’t really act at all. He has very few lines. Mostly, he just looks good and gets the most glamorous part (motorcycle chase, escape expertise, nice clothes).

Far more engaging were the characters played by Donald Pleasance (who is losing his sight) and James Garner (who cares for him).

The cast is the very definition of “all-star”: an amazing list of A-list names including James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson and David McCallum.

Most of the time the Nazis seem too kindly. And it was unrealistic that there was never a hint of dissent between the officers in the camp.

All that aside, the escape is genuinely exciting. And the ending – not what you might expect – is fairly satisfying.

Prizzi's Honor (1985)

The blackest black comedy about the Mafia isn’t really funny enough. It’s very slow, too. Although Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston are all charismatic, they don’t have the material to work with. I found it tiresome to watch and it lacked the thrills of a good gangster drama as well as the laughs of a wittier film. Some of the motivations were unclear, too: what was in it for Kathleen Turner’s character? She didn’t marry Jack Nicholson for the money (she was already rich) and she didn’t love him either (she tried to kill him).

It was densely plotted and confusingly signposted, so I lost the thread a few times.

The pale and frail Mafia don played by William Hickey was a ludicrous character, neither funny nor scary. You never knew how you were meant to feel about him, which may have been the point.

This film gained strong reviews and is generally regarded as a classic. I couldn’t see what the fuss was about.

Licence to Kill (1989)

The second and final Timothy Dalton Bond film is surprisingly good – almost a proper thriller. Unusually, the plot has an arc that you can actually follow: Bond chases a drug baron, Sanchez, who injured his CIA pal Felix Leiter (David Hedison) and murdered Felix's wife. Bond has his licence revoked, but – seeking revenge – goes rogue with the sexy CIA agent Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). In fact, Bouvier could be the strongest female lead in a Bond film since Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) – a three-dimensional character for a change. Only the extended presence of the ancient Desmond Llewelyn as Q in “field operative” mode tips this over into ludicrous territory, although Llewelyn is always enjoyable to watch.

Timothy Dalton seemed unloved as Bond, but he has a certain charm that makes him watchable. And unlike Pierce Brosnan, who acts with his hair, he actually gets his lines out in a convincing manner.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

On Valentine’s Day, 1900, a bunch of girls from an Australian boarding school go on a day out to the ominous Hanging Rock. It soon becomes clear that there’s an essential wrongness about the place. Clocks stop at midday and, amid the heat, the girls enter a kind of disorientated enchantment. Seemingly bewitched and in a trance, three of them disappear (plus one of their teachers, played by Vivean Gray – Mrs. Mangel from Neighbours). I last saw this film at least 30 years ago but the utterly haunting image of the girls in their white dresses – walking, somehow mesmerised, towards a fate that is brilliantly never explained – has stayed with me ever since.

Like all of the world’s most terrifying stories, this adaptation of the Joan Lindsay novel understands that the less you explain the more scary it becomes. The film works on multiple levels. It’s a supernatural thriller but also a historical drama that takes on issues of class division, female repression and sexuality, and social control inside and outside of institutions.

The music by Gheorghe Zamfir (panpipe) and Marcel Cellier (organ) is especially effective and goes a long way towards building the atmosphere. Sophia Coppola's film The Virgin Suicides, which covers similar themes, had an oddly similar kind of soundtrack (by Air), so was presumably influenced by this film.

Peter Weir’s direction is stunning: it’s shot in a way that really enhances the sense of dazed, ethereal bewitchment.

A masterpiece.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I overcame my Steven Spielberg prejudice (haven’t liked one of his films since Duel or Jaws) to watch this World War II epic. The battle scenes are extremely dramatic – bloody and terribly tense – and he deserves credit for these. What I didn’t like was the “present day” segments that top and tail the film. I don’t think these were needed at all. (Titanic suffered from the same slightly naff device.) Also unnecessary was the soupy music that is laden onto so many scenes. This is intrusive and emotionally obvious, undercutting the realism.

The other fundamental flaw is that the film can never explain why the life of Ryan (Matt Damon) is important enough to be worth rescuing at such a high price in terms of human sacrifice, just as Miller (Tom Hanks) can never explain it to his men. (General George Marshall decides that Ryan should be saved because all three of his brothers were killed.) What about all the other men who were not favoured? Or is the point precisely that life and death decisions are always made arbitrarily by those in the upper ranks?

It’s a shame because there is so much that is remarkable about this as a war film. In particular, the recreation of the Omaha Beach battle (part of the Normandy landings) is astonishing in the way it depicts the merciless brutality that both sides faced. Knowing that this slaughter actually happened makes it genuinely painful to sit through.

WarGames (1983)

Genuinely exciting thriller about a teenager (Matthew Broderick) who accidentally triggers the countdown to nuclear armageddon by hacking into US military computers. It’s fascinating to watch now, given how things have changed in terms of technology.

There are some unbelievable moments – hacker left alone in a room in a high-security military installation with access to a computer – but overall the story is surprisingly timely and plausible. In 2019 we are at the mercy of automated systems. And with Donald Trump as president, this sort of crisis seems all too possible.

It’s highly entertaining, with more of a nail-biting escalation than most James Bond films. The pacing is excellent too: it never lets up.

Apart from Matthew Broderick’s distinctly odd parents, the film is well cast. Ally Sheedy is appealing as Jennifer Mack, the hero’s school-chum-turned-girlfriend, and John Wood is effective as the eccentric, damaged Dr. Stephen Falken, who invented the WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) supercomputer.

There’s a happy ending, of course, but not before the moral – the futility of mutually assured destruction – has been firmly established.

The Big Short (2015)

This highly stylised account of the investment schemes devised in the weeks leading up to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 follows three parallel narratives featuring individuals who stood to gain by the collapse of the US mortgage market.

Complex financial concepts are often hard to grasp, so the film – being somewhat self-conscious and postmodern – has this terminology explained by walk-on celebs (Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain, Selena Gomez, etc) talking direct to camera.

It’s not as compelling as The Wolf of Wall Street, which was personality-driven and had the huge advantage of starring Leonardo diCaprio. This film is more about a situation, with the characters seeming secondary to the way it unfolds. That said, the semi-crazed actions of Christian Bale (as Michael Burry) are the most watchable element. Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt are difficult to empathise with. That’s surely intentional, but it does make for a less engaging narrative.

Ultimately, I think I would have preferred to watch a well-made documentary about the same events or a fully fictional account that could structure the story in a more satisfying way.

Touching the Void (2003)

Documentary film version of Joe Simpson’s 1988 memoir detailing Simpson and Simon Yates's 1985 climb of the 6,344-m (20,813-ft) Siula Grande in the Andes.

After reaching the summit, disaster strikes when Simpson breaks his leg on the way down. Yates heroically winches him down but when Simpson falls and is left dangling, Yates fears him dead and – about to plummet himself – considers he has no choice but to cut the rope...

The film tells the improbable story of how both men survived. It’s even more remarkable in the case of Simpson, whose leg was badly mangled and who was dangerously dehydrated as well as suffering hypothermia. He lost a third of his body weight during the ordeal.

It’s riveting to see the two climbers being interviewed about what happened, interspersed with convincing actor reconstructions of the climb. The psychology of their relationship is fascinating. They start out as casual friends. Then become colleagues who depend on one another for survival. When events take a darker turn, their relationship has to take on bigger ethical/existential aspects and seems to become simultaneously both intimate and remote.

The highlight, for me, was the section in which Simpson recalls being tormented by snatches of “Brown Girl in the Ring” going round and round in his head and remarking “I remember thinking, bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M.”

The DVD extras, unusually, are just as fascinating as the film – if not more so. One mini-film examines what happened next: the complex process by which they got down from base camp to eventual medical assistance. The other takes Simpson and Yates back to the Siula Grande as consultants on the making of the film and observes their reactions to returning to the site of the drama. Yates is very matter-of-fact about it all, or claims to be – you suspect he’s more affected than he lets on after all these years of notoriety as “the man who cut the rope”. Simpson, meanwhile, is profoundly disturbed by being forced to relive the moments in which he was absolutely certain he would soon die. It’s both moving and upsetting to watch him in this extraordinary situation.