Starship Troopers (1997)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Ed Neumeier, Robert A. Heinlein

Cinematographer: Jost Vacano

Composer: Basil Poledouris

Cast: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown, Seth Gilliam, Patrick Muldoon, Michael Ironside

Verhoeven’s viscerally compelling, blackly comic, and cynically perceptive sci-fi film presents a satirical portrait of a group of Buenos Airean high school graduates, who sign up for the armed forces, in a culturally homogenised, Americanised military dictatorship, following them as they become involved in their War on Bugs (which proves to be eerily foreboding of the American-lead War on Terror). Iain.Stott

Read More

Lost Highway (1997)

Recommended

USA/France

Feature Film

Director: David Lynch

Writers: Barry Gifford, David Lynch

Cinematographer: Peter Deming

Composer: Angelo Badalamenti

Cast: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Loggia, Robert Blake, Gary Busey, Lucy Butler, Natasha Gregson Wagner

Lynch’s enigmatic, disquieting, and thoroughly bonkers thriller presents a pair of intertwining lives brought nightmarishly together with dream logic, combining tales of gangsters, jazz musicians, mechanics, and porn stars in a sexy, blood-stained Los Angeles. Iain.Stott

Read More

U Turn (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

USA/France

Feature Film

Director: Oliver Stone

Writer: John Ridley

Cinematographer: Robert Richardson

Composer: Ennio Morricone

Cast: Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Voight, Powers Boothe, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes

A down-on-his-luck former tennis pro, in debt to the Russian mob to the tune of $13,000, finds himself stranded in the small Arizona town of Superior when his car overheats and he loses all of his money in a bungled robbery; thoughts of escape seems futile until a potential murder or two offer a chink of hope, in Stone’s sexy, unpredictable, and guiltily pleasurable jet black comedy. Iain.Stott

Read More

Bubble (2005)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writer: Coleman Hough

Cinematographer: Steven Soderbergh (as Peter Andrews)

Composer: Robert Pollard

Cast: Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin Ashley, Misty Wilkins, Decker Moody, Omar Cowan, Daniel R. Christian

A directionless high school drop-out and a lonely middle-aged woman, who looks after her ailing father, have managed to form a rather unlikely friendship whilst working together at a small doll factory in a sleepy Ohio town, but the arrival of a new co-worker, a comely young single mother, looks set to drive them apart, in Soderbergh’s deliciously low-key murder mystery, a surprisingly well acted (giving its non-professional cast) and thoroughly compelling little film. Iain.Stott

Read More

Matinee (1993)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Joe Dante

Writers: Charlie Haas, Jerico

Cinematographer: John Hora

Composer: Jerry Goldsmith

Cast: John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Kellie Martin, Jesse Lee, Lucinda Jenney, James Villemaire, Robert Picardo, Jesse White

At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, film-maker and arch showman, Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman, hilarious) comes to Key West, Florida with his new film, Mant!, a gimmick laden nucsploitation epic, much to the joy of the nerve shredded, thrill seeking local populace, in Dante’s thoroughly entertaining and gently nostalgic love letter to William Castle. Iain.Stott

Read More

Mrs Brown (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/Ireland/USA

Feature Film

Director: John Madden

Writer: Jeremy Brock

Cinematographer: Richard Greatrex

Composer: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher, Gerard Butler, Richard Pasco, David Westhead

Three years into her period of mourning, Queen Victoria sends for John Brown, a no-nonsense Scotsman who was a favourite servant of her late husband; gradually, an unlikely friendship develops, much to the chagrin of just about everyone else, in Madden’s beautifully acted and quietly moving if slightly cold and disjointed film. Iain.Stott

Read More

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Sam Raimi

Writers: Ivan Raimi, Sam Raimi

Cinematographer: Peter Deming

Composer: Christopher Young

Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, Chelcie Ross, Reggie Lee, Molly Cheek

A timid loan officer, who wishes to put her rural past behind her, and who is in line for a promotion to assistant manager, is cursed by a hideous, elderly gypsy when she turns down her pleadings for extra time to make her mortgage payments, unleashing on her a demon set to drag her back to hell, in Raimi’s unevenly entertaining horror flick, which often feels merely awkward, particularly with its dialogue, which would perhaps have fit more comfortably in Bruce Campbell’s mouth. Iain.Stott

Read More

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Writer: Mark Boal

Cinematographer: Barry Ackroyd

Composers: Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christopher Sayegh

When the team leader of Bravo company’s EOD unit is killed by a remote-detonated bomb, he is replaced with a rather reckless, gung-ho sergeant, who seems to have very little respect for the safety of himself or those around him, leading to rising tensions between the members of the unit, in Bigelow’s intense and visceral yet strangely fun (which it probably shouldn’t be) war movie that often feels like a lost Lethal Weapon sequel. Iain.Stott

Read More

Affliction (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Paul Schrader

Writers: Paul Schrader, Russell Banks

Cinematographer: Paul Sarossy

Composer: Michael Brook

Cast: Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe, Jim True, Mary Beth Hurt, Holmes Osborne, Brigid Tierney

A hard drinking small town (sort of) policeman with a throbbing tooth ache, who was brought up in an abusive, testosterone filled household, and is in the midst of a custody battle over his daughter, becomes convinced that his best friend killed a wealthy businessman in what had been reported as a hunting accident, and slowly but surely begins to alienate all of those around him, in Schrader's diverting and well made if not entirely convincing adaptation of Banks’s novel. Iain.Stott

Read More

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Woody Allen

Cinematographer: Carlo Di Palma

Cast: Woody Allen, Richard Benjamin, Kirstie Alley, Billy Crystal, Judy Davis, Hazelle Goodman, Bob Balaban, Elisabeth Shue, Demi Moore, Caroline Aaron, Eric Bogosian, Tobey Maguire

An acclaimed New York writer, who is preparing to travel to his old college to be honoured, remembers incidents from his turbulent private life, revealing his numerous infidelities and his penchant for prostitutes, in Allen’s acerbically and misanthropically brilliant comedy, a formally adventurous journey into the artist’s mind. Iain.Stott

Read More

Gattaca (1997)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Andrew Niccol

Cinematographer: Slawomir Idziak

Composer: Michael Nyman

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Loren Dean, Alan Arkin, Xander Berkeley

In a future where genetic engineering has become the norm, and genomism has become rife, Vincent, an aspiring astronaut who was conceived the old fashioned way, chases his dreams with the blood, sweat, and tears (and urine) of another man, Jerome, a genetically great but wheelchair-bound Englishman; all goes well until a grisly murder brings unwanted attention on his workplace, the Gattaca Corp, putting in doubt his chances of achieving his ambition of space travel, in Niccol’s assured and thoughtful sci-fi thriller. Iain.Stott

Read More

4 Little Girls (1997)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Director: Spike Lee

Cinematographer: Ellen Kuras

Composer: Terence Blanchard

Featuring: The family friends of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, & Cynthia Wesley, & Arthur Hanes Jr., Wyatt Tee Walker, David J. Vann, Bill Baxley, Rev. Andrew Young, Rev. James Bevel, George Wallace

Spike Lee’s powerfully moving, respectfully sober, and utterly compelling documentary takes as its starting point the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 that resulted in the deaths of four adolescent girls who were attending Sunday school, and jumps off from there to examine the local civil rights movement in general, interviewing family, friends, and numerous other relevant parties. Iain.Stott

Read More

Wedding Crashers (2005)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: David Dobkin

Writers: Steve Faber, Bob Fisher

Cinematographer: Julio Macat

Composer: Rolfe Kent

Cast: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Jane Seymour, Ellen Albertini Dow, Keir O'Donnell, Bradley Cooper

Two commitment phobic thirty-somethings, who spend each summer crashing weddings to prey upon vulnerable young women, find their lifestyle under threat when an arrow from Cupid’s bow looks set to change everything, in this rom-com buddy-com hybrid, which proves to be, for the most part, very funny and mildly perceptive until it begins to run out of steam towards the end, becoming a little predictable. Iain.Stott

Read More

Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jonathan Demme

Writer: Jenny Lumet

Cinematographer: Declan Quinn

Composers: Donald Harrison Jr., Zafer Tawil

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Debra Winger, Tunde Adebimpe, Mather Zickel, Anna Deavere Smith, Anisa George

Kym, a beautiful but troubled and decidedly fragile young woman from a wealthy, liberal Connecticut family, gets out of rehab just in time for her sister Rachel’s wedding, which may well have come a little too early in her recovery process, as she is soon ruffling feathers with her discomfiting candour, in Demme’s astonishingly well acted, devastatingly moving, and painfully authentic feeling family drama. Iain.Stott

Read More

The Cove (2009)

Not Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Director: Louie Psihoyos

Writer: Mark Monroe

Cinematographer: Brook Aitken

Composer: J. Ralph

Featuring: Richard O'Barry, Louie Psihoyos

Although it’s hard to fault the basic sentiment behind the making of this admittedly eye-opening film – a polemical attack on dolphin fishing in Japan, highlighting both the inhumane slaughtering methods employed by the fishermen and the mercury related health risks of its meat – its thriller like structure (complete with blood-splattered finale), its rather manipulative score, and the fact that it was made by American rather than Japanese film-makers (giving it something of a patronising, colonial feel) ensure that the overall effect is somewhat distasteful. Iain.Stott

Read More

Permanent Vacation (1980)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Jim Jarmusch

Cinematographers: Tom DiCillo, James A. Lebovitz

Composers: Jim Jarmusch, John Lurie

Cast: Chris Parker, Richard Boes, Ruth Bolton, María Duval, Frankie Faison, Suzanne Fletcher, Leila Gastil, Chris Hameon, John Lurie, Eric Mitchell, Lisa Rosen

A Charlie Parker obsessed drifter wanders around the streets of Manhattan, interacting with various other individualists, listening to their philosophies, and generally just does his best to avoid acquiring a job, possessions, a home, or any other such indicators of polite society, in Jarmusch’s rough-and-ready yet thoroughly compelling feature debut. Iain.Stott

Read More

The Reckless Moment (1949)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Max Ophüls

Writers: Henry Garson, Robert W. Soderberg, Mel Dinelli, Robert E. Kent, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Cinematographer: Burnett Guffey

Composer: Hans Salter

Cast: James Mason, Joan Bennett, Geraldine Brooks, Henry O'Neill, Shepperd Strudwick, David Bair, Roy Roberts

When her 17-year-old daughter accidentally kills her lowlife boyfriend, a respectable middle-class woman takes responsibility for matters and disposes of the body, but unfortunately for her this doesn’t put an end to the affair, as a charismatically enigmatic Irishman shows up at her door with a bundle of incriminating letters, demanding $5,000 in exchange for them, in Ophüls’s exquisitely photographed, expressively directed, and convincingly acted film Noir. Iain.Stott

Read More

Proof (2005)

Recommended

USA/UK

Feature Film

Director: John Madden

Writers: David Auburn, Rebecca Miller

Cinematographer: Alwin Küchler

Composer: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Hope Davis, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins

When her father, a once brilliant mathematician with severe mental health problems, dies, leaving her alone, Catherine, a doleful young woman, struggles with thoughts about how many of her father’s flaws and virtues she may have inherited, in this small, impeccably acted film – an adaptation of Auburn’s award winning play. Iain.Stott

Read More

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cinematographer: Robert Richardson

Cast: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard

Two separate plans to assassinate the upper echelons of the Nazi regime at the Paris premiere of a violent propaganda film – one a joint operation between British intelligence and The Basterds (a band of Jewish American Nazi-hunters), and the other concocted by the Semitic owner of the film’s venue – come explosively to fruition, in Tarantino’s cartoonish but inspired piece of historical fantasy. Iain.Stott

Read More

Love Object (2003)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Robert Parigi

Cinematographer: Sidney Sidell

Composer: Nicholas Pike

Cast: Desmond Harrington, Melissa Sagemiller, Udo Kier, Rip Torn, Robert Bagnell, Brad Henke, John Cassini

A quiet instruction manual writer, under a great deal of pressure at work, orders a very expensive live size sex doll from the internet, which he models on his pretty new assistant Lisa, with whom he tentatively begins a relationship, much to the chagrin of Nikki, his rubber friend, in Parigi’s excellent directorial debut: a creepy, thoughtful, and well acted horror film. Iain.Stott

Read More