The Man with Two Brains (1983)

Absolutely daft comedy with hints of cartoonish sci-fi and horror homage. 

Steve Martin plays a brilliant but naive brain surgeon with the unpronounceable name Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr. Kathleen Turner is Dolores Benedict, who marries him for his money. The doctor meets an eccentric scientist (David Warner), who is keeping human brains alive and may have found a way to transplant them into other bodies. He then falls in love with one of the brains (voiced by Sissy Spacek) and ends up running off with it. 

It sounds ridiculous and it is – deliberately. There are some funny moments and a few scenes that fall flat. It’s not quite as sharp as The Jerk (1979) or Lonely Guy (1984), but Martin and Turner are both hugely appealing and watchable throughout.

Cape Fear (1991)

Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 1962 film creates something bigger, louder and a lot more scary than the original. This time around the psychopath Max Cady is played by Robert De Niro, who is fuelled by his own version of religion as well as a desperate craving for revenge. The plot is very similar – ex-con terrorises lawyer and his family – except that Scorsese builds in more moral ambiguity. Sam Boden (Nick Nolte) is not a squeaky-clean lawyer. Instead, he has acted unprofessionally by concealing a report relating to Cady’s case and is unfaithful to his wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) with a legal clerk called Loti (Illeana Douglas). 

The biggest difference is that the Bodens’ daughter, Danielle (a particularly superb Juliette Lewis), is a 15-year-old who is drawn into an ambiguous understanding with Cady. He exploits her dawning sexuality as well as her feelings of being misunderstood by her parents. 

In many ways it’s a film about family and – like Cady himself – it cleverly explores the threads that tie them together as well as probing into the cracks that pull them apart. 

The music, based on Bernard Herrmann’s score for the original, has a high drama, helping to drive the dynamism and the tension on screen. 

There’s also the slight novelty of cameos from three of the original cast – Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck and Martin Balsam all appear in minor roles. 

If there’s a criticism it’s that it’s a little overwrought at times, but I like that quality: Scorsese turns up the drama and makes it almost unbearable. Then he turns it up some more.

A Star Is Born (1976)

The third of the four filmed versions of this story. Kris Kristofferson is the drinking, drug-taking rock star whose career is on the wane. Barbra Streisand is the bright young talent he helps rise up the ladder to fame and who will quickly eclipse his own success. 

The music is lively and the concert scenes seem convincingly “real”. The couple have chemistry and charisma. It was a wise move to cast two genuine singers to play these two performers, as they seem so natural on stage. 

I like the fact that John Norman Howard’s untimely demise in a high/speed car crash can be interpreted as a reckless accident or a suicide, depending on how you choose to read the character and the emotional/chemical state he’s in. Unlike the 2018 Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga film (in which there’s no doubt that he’s a tragic addict who kills himself), this more nuanced version has the confidence to allow some ambiguity – rather than spelling everything out for you – and I admire that quality. In the same way, the managers in this film (whose roles are handled well by Gary “Buddy Holly” Busey and Paul Mazursky) aren’t simplistically ruthless or exploitative. They seem much more like real people with real conflicts. 

Joan Didion had a hand in writing it, which may account for the refreshingly intelligent approach.

Cape Fear (1962)

Terrifying thriller. Robert Mitchum plays a bitter, crazed ex-con who tracks down the lawyer (Gregory Peck) who sent him to prison, then begins to stalk and terrorise him and his family. 

It’s highly suspenseful, pretty much from beginning to end, and the two leads are both ideal for the parts. Mitchum has just the right amount of wry, amused cool and psychopathic edginess. Peck is perfect as his stiff, somewhat uptight opposite. Polly Bergen and Lori Martin are both compelling as the wife and daughter who quickly get pulled into the escalating drama. And Telly Savalas (with hair) is likeable as the private detective. 

It’s edge-of-the-seat stuff and I like the way the somewhat downbeat closing seconds get you thinking.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Western set during the US Civil War, starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. In some ways he is playing exactly the same character he did in Sergio Leoni’s “Man with No Name” trilogy, but the difference is that he inhabits the role with warmth, humour and humanity. 

Josey Wales sees his family killed and sets out to get revenge. Along the way he meets some colourful characters, who join him despite his “wanted man” status. As bounty hunters track and trail him, you wonder if he can ever truly be free. 

It’s superbly cast all round. Every character is perfectly drawn – especially Chief Dan George as Lone Watie. There’s a quietly comic aspect and a tenderness to his manner that makes him hugely appealing. 

I like the way Wales uses his spitting as a form of punctuation during his various encounters and conversations. That tic forms a sort of running joke that gets funnier as the film progresses.

The landscapes look beautiful and even the music is strong, although you do wish they had booked Ennio Morricone to compose the soundtrack.

While it starts out as a simplistic tale of revenge, the film goes on to become something so much broader and richer. I'm looking forward to watching it again.

Secretary (2002)

Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) comes from a troubled family and struggles with self-harm problems. She begins a new job working as a secretary for lawyer E. Edward Grey (James Spader), and begins an extreme relationship with him that’s based on discipline and control. This becomes an unlikely love story. 

It’s not for the prudish or the easily startled, but there’s a touching drama contained within this deliberately disturbing and very black comedy. Gyllenhaal is so expressive that she perfectly evokes her transformation from suffering victim to the liberated master of her own destiny. A slightly surreal, absurd aspect enhances the film rather than making it less believable. 

Adapted from a short story by Mary Gaitskill, Secretary covers themes that most films won't go near. It does so with wit and charm, so it doesn’t feel exploitative – even when exploitation is part of the subject matter.

The Heroes of Telemark (1965)

During World War II, members of the resistance sabotage the Germans’ attempts to create an atomic bomb at the Vemork Norsk Hydro plant in Telemark, Norway. 

Probably the worst lighting I’ve ever seen in a film. It lurches from dim and grainy, with a “glow” around objects on the screen, to brighter but still somehow “wrong”-looking, and then back again.

It’s supposedly based on real-world events, but it’s very difficult to believe some of these episodes are true, especially when cartoonishly stupid Nazis are so easy to evade and outwit. None of the guards ever seem to look round. 

Kirk Douglas does his best with the material, and his charm just about survives, but there’s no character for him to explore. 

Too many scenes consist of our heroes running about in the snow – and for far too long, with minimal dialogue – as if the script was never actually completed. Likewise, there are lingering, ponderous scenes of them setting up a bomb, fiddling with wires, applying tape and generally pottering around. These go on and on, without dramatic tension, and end up being unintentionally funny. 

Richard Harris is appallingly wooden as resistance leader Knut Straud. Michael Redgrave is completely unnecessary as a seemingly random uncle: I knew his character would die because he had no dramatic function in the story whatsoever. Ulla Jacobsson is passable as Kirk Douglas’s ex-wife, but she’s still given minimal personality and even less function in the narrative. 

Despite this somehow appearing on lists of the greatest war films, it’s a long way from essential. But it might give you a good chuckle.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

Hugely enjoyable remake of the 1968 film, with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway roles. 

The plot is fairly similar, although Crown’s playful crimes take place with valuable paintings instead of him orchestrating a bank robbery.  

Brosnan is perfect for the role: a sort of clinical charm. He’s better here than he was as James Bond, perhaps simply because the script is superior. Russo also gets it spot-on as the insurance investigator who slowly begins to fall for the man she should be incriminating. She’s stylish, sharp and sexy, always just one step behind him in their perpetual cat-and-mouse game. 

As a neat little reference to the original, Faye Dunaway returns – but as Thomas Crown’s shrink. The only problem is that the film gives no inkling as to why a man so supremely confident and perfectly accomplished might need a shrink in the first place. Denis Leary is also impressive as the Detective Michael McCann, and the progression of his relationship with Russo’s character is developed nicely. 

Whereas the original has a slightly impressionistic element, this version is crisp and precise – tightly plotted and excellently done all round. Probably the best remake I have seen.

The Insider (1999)

A whistleblower thriller based on a true story. Russell Crowe plays Jeffrey Wigand, who – when fired from his job in the tobacco industry – shared secrets about the conduct of his firm, even though he and his family were threatened and intimidated for doing so. Al Pacino plays the TV producer responsible for the 60 Minutes documentary that will air Wigand’s revelations. Christopher Plummer is the presenter of the show, who has a conflict of interests in terms of honouring his ethics vs. protecting his TV career. 

It’s entertaining and fairly gripping, if a little too long at 158 minutes. Director Michael Mann turns in something more sophisticated and less trashy than Heat, which also featured Pacino and the actor playing Wigand’s wife, Diane Venora. 

Pacino is terrific, even if (or because) he plays the same character in all his films: a hardboiled-yet-sensitive tough guy with integrity. 

It’s a little thin on the topic of Wigand’s marriage and the strains placed upon it. That thread could have been explored better. Otherwise, it's difficult to fault.

The Hustler (1961)

Paul Newman is utterly terrific in this drama about a wildly talented pool player, “Fast” Eddie Felson, who lacks the wise judgement to capitalise on his gifts. Jackie Gleason plays his rival, Minnesota Fats. Piper Laurie is his troubled, heavy-drinking girlfriend Sarah. And George C. Scott is the manipulative, controlling Bert. 

Adapted from the novel by Walter Tevis, it feels closer to a play at times. There’s a gritty, low-key quality to the scenes, which are built around character and dialogue. Newman is wonderful, oozing an easy charm even when things start to go wrong for him.

Martin Scorsese filmed a sequel in 1986 called The Color of Money. Paul Newman reprised the role of Fast Eddie, but unfortunately his young protégé was played by Tom Cruise. 

Trivia: Bob Dylan borrowed these lines spoken by Piper Laurie for his 1985 song “Seeing the Real You at Last”

: “I've got troubles, and I think maybe you've got troubles. Maybe it'd be better if we just leave each other alone.”

 

Broken Flowers (2005)

Comic drama directed by Jim Jarmusch.

Don Johnston (played by Bill Murray and with a name that gets him deliberately confused with the Miami Vice actor) is a lonely, retired man who used to work in computers. On the day that his girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) leaves him, he receives an anonymous letter that tells him he has a 19-year-old son. With the help of his neighbour Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a fan of detective stories, he sets off on an investigative trip to meet four women who might have been the mother of the child he never knew he had. 

The bulk of the film deals with these four encounters, which meet with varying degrees of success. One of the former lovers (Sharon Stone) spends the night with him. Another (Tilda Swinton) gets him beaten up. All of these four women (​​Frances Conroy and Jessica Lange play the other two parts) are convincingly portrayed.

It could have been funnier. Some of the deliberately “low-key”, contemplative scenes just fall flat, even though that’s probably the point. The detective aspect is a bit silly, which undercuts some of the power of the serious relationship material. And while I appreciate that it was deliberately left ambiguous, the final “twist” at the very end is an in-joke that slightly spoils the open-ended conclusion.  

It’s ultimately a third-rate Lost in Translation, but without as much originality, dry wit or warmth.

The Girl on the Train (2016)

A hysterically overwrought thriller adapted from Paula Hawkins’ bestselling novel. 

Emily Blunt plays an alcoholic divorcee who stares out of a train window and obsesses over two couples she passes. This obsession ultimately implicates her in a murder mystery for which she ends up the prime suspect. 

It’s a good idea, but it just doesn’t work. It’s excessively melodramatic, veering on the horror genre at points. Blunt walks around like a zombie, pale, trembling and rather frightening. While that makes sense in the light of her drink problem and the emotional state that caused it, it doesn’t make for a very appealing film and it adds to the ugly aesthetic all round. 

The “patchwork” approach to times and events is effective and just about comes together. The related device of only certain parts of the story being recalled owing to booze-induced blackouts also gives it a Hitchcockian dimension, allowing us to piece together what really happened at the same time as Blunt. But these elements are weakened by characters that just don’t convince. The behaviour of the bearded shrink (Édgar Ramírez) seems unlikely, somehow, and other characters’ motivations, such as those of Megan (Haley Bennett) are not fleshed out satisfactorily. 

The biggest flaw is this: of the four people she observes, Blunt is more obsessed with a pair of strangers than she is with her own ex and his new partner, who live two doors away. How could that be? She’s oddly oblivious to the interaction between the two couples, which is at the heart of the plot. 

But if you are seeking something trashy, gripping and escapist (and often I am), it will certainly keep you entertained.

Jewel of the Nile (1985)

Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito reprise their roles from 1984's Romancing the Stone. Six months have passed and the couple now embark on a new adventure in Africa, seeking the "Jewel of the Nile" and tackling a demented dictator. 

It’s just as daft as the original and I enjoyed it a lot, despite the common consensus that it was a disappointing sequel.

It’s spectacular, silly and fun. There’s a particularly strong scene in which Douglas drives a fighter jet around crowded streets, causing havoc.

On the down side, DeVito doesn't really need to be there and the plot sometimes struggles to accommodate him. But Turner is endlessly appealing – charming and funny enough to rise above the good-natured but sometimes less than sparkling material.

Moonraker (1979)

The usual plot: a bad man wants to take over the world, and James Bond – aided by weapons, gadgets and beautiful women – has to stop him. The “twist” this time is that some of the action takes place in space. 

It’s difficult to believe Roger Moore can be running around on a space shuttle and in a space station, but that’s exactly what we see.

The pros:

• There are some genuinely funny moments.

• Roger Moore is as charming as he ever was.

• Lois Chiles is appealing as space scientist as Holly Goodhead.

• The special effects are fairly good – especially when you see the shuttles taking off.

• The Shirley Bassey theme is one of the better Bond songs.

• M (Bernard Lee) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) are reassuringly excellent.

• Jaws (Richard Kiel) is terrifying when he poses in costume at the Rio de Janeiro carnival.

The cons:

• It’s plain silly when Jaws gets a girlfriend (Blanche Ravalec as Dolly), falls in love at first sight and instantly changes personality.

• The moment when the film briefly becomes a western (Bond wearing a poncho and riding a horse to silly music) seems misjudged.

• It’s not clear why any of this needs to have taken place in space. Surely the billionaire villain Drax (Michael Lonsdale) could have just protected his “master race” specimens in some kind of bunker and poisoned Earth from ground level. It suggests that the success of Star Wars (1977) meant they just wanted to make a film with sci-fi elements, no matter how far-fetched.

Das Boot (1981)

This masterpiece, written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, details the experiences of the captain and crew of a German U-boat in 1941. 

Hugely atmospheric, it perfectly captures the claustrophobia of being on a submarine for weeks on end. It’s incredibly tense, too. Interludes of boredom for the crew alternative with highly charged action sequences. The seemingly endless moments in which the sub prowls the sea listening for movement and avoiding enemy depth charges are quite terrifying. 

The interior set is entirely convincing, and the scenes in which they run the length of the submarine are brilliantly shot. The external shots are noticeably less “real”-looking, but they still work.

Jürgen Prochnow is superb as the captain, bringing out a multi-dimensional aspect to his character. Herbert Grönemeyer as great as Werner, who has been sent to observe and document the mission. Klaus Wennemann is perfectly cast as the chief engineer – a sympathetic character, whose relationship with the captain is explored with sensitivity. Their understated performances make them easy to believe in and relate to. 

There are poignant moments, too. It’s heartbreaking when you see how many letters one of the crew has written to his sweetheart and not been able to send.

This director’s cut runs to over 200 minutes and is probably the best war film I have seen.

Sideways (2004)

Comedy drama that’s rather lacking on the comedy front. 

Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) are friends who go on a wine-tasting trip around California. Miles is divorced and Jack is about to marry. Then they meet Maya (Virginia Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh), and things become much more complicated.

It reminded me a little of a Woody Allen film, not least because of the light jazz soundtrack, but it’s not as well plotted or well-written and there’s definitely something missing. Plus, the music is annoyingly intrusive throughout. I found it difficult to believe that the two friends were actually friends, so little chemistry did they display. 

Things improve a little when they begin their new relationships, but it’s difficult to warm to characters who have been deliberately shown in such an unappealing light. And it just needed more laughs.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Mind-bending sci-fi masterpiece produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, with a screenplay written by Kubrick with Arthur C. Clarke. 

The “plot”, what there is of one, concerns the presence of an enigmatic monolith found on Earth in early human times, on the Moon and near Jupiter in the present day – presumably an artefact of extraterrestrial life. And a manned mission to Jupiter becomes increasingly precarious as the onboard computer, HAL (voiced by Douglas Rain), increasingly takes control of life-and-death decisions involving Bowman (Keir Dullea) and the rest of the crew. 

The film becomes increasingly abstract as it progresses. It’s impossible to say how it ends or “what happens”. It insists on you interpreting what you see.

Visually, it’s ridiculously ahead of its time. It still looks stunning now. Musically, it’s also awe-inspiring, with the classic “Also Sprach Zarathustra” being the perfect choice to express the epic, visionary quality of the film. The same goes for every piece of music chosen. It couldn’t be better matched to the visuals and the narrative. 

I also love the audacious slowness of 2001. Unlike so many films made now, it has the complete confidence and assurance to unfold at a glacial pace – often very quietly. And yet it’s never less than captivating. Let’s hope no one is ever silly enough to remake it.

Pixie (2020)

Plot: “Pixie Hardy sets out to avenge her mother's death and attempts a heist that will give her the means to leave her small-town life behind. When the plan goes horribly wrong, she's forced to team up with a pair of misfits who are clearly in over their heads. On the run from a criminal gang of priests and nuns, the trio tries to scheme and swindle anyone they come across.”

Superb comedy crime thriller set in Ireland. It’s funny, perfectly scripted and surprisingly violent. Olivia Cooke is fantastic in the role of the charming, intelligent and resourceful Pixie. Ben Hardy, so hopeless in Bohemian Rhapsody, is also excellent. Even Alec Baldwin, a disaster in It’s Complicated, is spot-on as the ruthless Father Hector McGrath. 

The road-trip and shoot-out elements owe something of a debt to Quentin Tarantino, especially his True Romance, but Pixie feels so fresh that it doesn’t matter at all. 

The scenery looks great, too.

Man of Steel (2013)

Found on a wall. 

This Superman reboot starring Henry Cavill is faster, noisier and slicker than the 1978 version with Christopher Reeve, but it has none of that film’s charm. Nothing seems remotely real, either. This is partly because of the excessive CGI (it looks like a slick computer game) and partly because of the fast edits. There are no “rules” in terms of the powers we see the heroes and villains use: anything can happen and anything does happen, but none of it carries any real “weight” or actually adds up to anything. The thrown-through-a-building effect is used again and again and ultimately becomes completely mind-numbing – partly because, despite all the endless scenes of destruction, no one ever seems to get hurt

Michael Shannon underwhelms as the evil General Zod. Certainly he’s no Terence Stamp. Amy Adams does her best as Lois Lane, although she’s not given much of a character to develop. Diane Lane is credible as Superman’s Earth mum, while Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner are both watchable as Superman’s Krypton dad and Earth dad respectively

In visual terms, it’s excessively filtered – another distraction.

The joy of Christopher Reeve’s Superman was watching him save lives again and again. Man of Steel has surprisingly little of that. Also, the relationship with Lois Lane – so integral to the Reeve films starring Margot Kidder as Lois – is completely and coldly undeveloped here. There’s virtually no romance. 

All in all it’s an expertly made yet completely empty experience.