Memento (2000): review: 9/10

 *

Memory loss affects an insurance investigator. 

He attempts to trace his actions, making use of a Polaroid camera

 Unusual film, a sot of Noir, with many provocative ideas about experience, identity and responsibility.

 It is elegantly filmed by Christopher Nolan and beautifully acted by Guy Pierce.

*

A Perfect World (1993): review: 9/10

Two prisoners escape in Texas, one is much nastier than the other. They kidnap a fatherless boy.

This is a melancholy film notable for combination of two plot elements: the first is the close and sometimes charming realationship that develops between escaped convict and a kidnapped boy which describes tenderly the importance of fathers for boys (especially those, it would appear, forced to suffer the restrictions of a Joehovah's Witness mother).

The second plot element traces the attitudes of macho policemen: these attitudes are set in relief by the presence of Laura Dern as an official seconded to join the all male team by the mayor's office: she is treated unpleasantly by her surly male peers, whose instincts for violent solutions lead to the unnecessary death of their quarry.

Costner is very good: the boy is supurb, as is Dern; Eastwood more formulaic.

The White Ribbon (2009): review: 9/10

As narrated by a schoolteacher, a series of bizzare events occur in a North German village just before The Great War:

The film depicts the life of a village through narrratives folding about several households: that of three prominant village figures- a doctor,  the landowner and the pastor, and that of a family of labourers. These households reveal a patriarchal culture of harsh discipline, hypocrisy, ignorance and unkindness: children are often the victims.

The film is beautiful, with startling images of the villages through the seasons which contrast strangely with the cruel social atmosphere.

Perhaps the film is unbalanced, but the many narratives are comunicated with immense skill and the acting is supurb.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997): review: 9/10

As a British special agent, Austin Powers is unfrozen from the 60s to tackle Dr Evil, also unfrozen from that time. Dr Evil is trying to blackmail the UN.

Austin powers has a pretty assistant, for whom he feels a strong sexual attraction.

The film is a very funny, good natured on male sexuality, and British sixties films and culture, which it manages both to satirise and celebrate simultaneously.

Savage Grace (2007): review: 9/10

A wealthy American couple seperate. The wife becomes fixated on her son, the husband steals his girlfriend.

Alas, all these shenanigans end in tears.

This is a marvellous, claustrophobic celebration of an unusual family, brilliantly acted and very tense.

Double Indemnity (1944): review: 9/10

"I was thinking about the dame upstairs and how she'd looked at me and I wanted to see her again- close"

In LA, an insurance salesman and married female client fall for each other: they concoct a scheme to make some money from his firm and get rid of her husband at the same time.

Magnificently acted throughout, with splendid cinematography, shot through with laconic wit.

Out of the Blue (1980): review- 9/10

Portrait of an adolescent girl whose father has recently returned from prison.

The film describes, with beauty, the girl's relationships with her mother, her father and peers, all of whom are variously selfish, immature or imbalanced.

She attempts to find release in punk and by wandering in the city.

Strong performances in a film which manages seriousness while avoiding portentousness.

Man on Wire (2008): review- 9/10

Documentary about a high wire walker and how, with the help of his team, he crosses the gap between the twin towers, New York.

A wonderful film about enthusiasm and triumph.

The French Connection (1971): review- 9/10

*

"That stuff is in that car"

Two narcotics police pursue a French based drug gang in New York and Washington. The film provides provides a magnificent tour of the seamier neighbourhoods of New York, in beautiful fleeting images. There are fine performances from Hackman as the downbeaten cop and from those he encounters: the scenes are often shot through with a certain Chandleresque wit.

Fantastic Mr Fox (2009): review- 9/10

Based loosely on Dahl's characters: Mr Fox is married and suburbanized: he seeks to re-experience some of the wilder, feral pleasures of his youth.

Magnificently made with a witty, insightful script.

Pleasantvile (1998): review- 9/10

A boy and his sister are magically transported from the 1990s into a TV soap from 1958 where they question the orthodoxies of the time.

An intelligent film that challenges sweetly, with excellent acting and beautiful art direction.

My Cousin Vinny (1992): review- 9/10

9/10

Two boys are wrongly acccused of a murder in Alabama: they hire inexperienced New York lawyer Pesci to clear their name. He drives down there with his girlfriend.

Very funny farce mainly about the culture clash between working class Italian-New Yorkers and Alabamans, and the relationship between Pesci and his girlfriend, both whom perform excellently.

Ace in the Hole (1951): review- 9/10

Down on his luck, again sacked from a major paper, an out-of-work reporter finds himself working for a small newspaper in sleepy Albuqurque.

This story is about his return to prominence, media manipulation and the ethics of news management.

Told with wit, it contains excellent performances and observations with beautiful camerawork, lending it the mood of a film noir.

10 Things I hate About You (1999): review- 9/10

Cleverly directed high school drama about two sisters, opposite in character: one outgoing, superficial and popular, the second a mean-spirited loner.

Their conservative father will only permit the first sister to date if the second sister also has a date: so rebel Heath Ledger is paid to ask the second sister out by the first sister's consort.

The twists and turns of plot are handled with wit and aplomb and the film is often very funny, and even insightful (which should perhaps come as no surprise given that it is based on "The Taming of the Shrew").

The Year of Living Dangerously (1983)- 9/10

An Australian journalist begins his first foreign assignment in revolutionary Indonesia, assisted by a mysterious Indonesian photographer dwarf, and conducting a romance with an English woman.

The film describes excellently the ex-pat community but the most interesting element is the relationship between the journalist and his Indonesian friend, who behaves with an unusual mixture of kindness and egoism.

The film is very good at touching on the "unknowability" of others: this theme of "unknowability" can be seen as extended to an entire country.

Factotum (2005): review- 9/10

Matt Dillon is magnificently world weary as the struggling writer, stumbling from job to job in St Paul, Minnesota.

This film is Norwegian and there is more than a little of Hamsun's "Hunger" in all this, though the film is based on Bukowski.

Very beautifully shot, with great music too.