Days of Thunder

Days of Thunder [Tony Scott, 1990]:

What works is the action. The blur of color and movement as cars jockey for position, the thrum of engines, the sound of tires screeching. It’s in the thrill of the race - the rush of noise and movement - that the film springs to life, proving a technical tour de force for director Tony Scott and his crew. What doesn’t work is everything else. The dull protagonist, the unconvincing romance, the generic rivalries turned into friendships.

As screenwriter, Robert Towne can’t decide if he wants the film to be a straight rags-to-riches racing drama, a knockabout study on male ego and the rivalries between men, a sombre medical drama in which characters overcome trauma, a redemption story for a character haunted by past mistakes, or a generic love story ripped from the cheapest of daytime soap opera. 

The screenplay sets all these different elements against one another in the most predictable way possible, and rather than develop them into a coherent narrative or character study, merely watches them go around a few laps, like these cars on a race track. It feels like a succession of scenes that were written the night before the shoot and survived the final cut due to the insistence of Paramount’s publicity department. By no means terrible, but definitely a film in conflict with itself.

Anna

Anna [Luc Besson, 2019]:

Writer and director Luc Besson probably intended for the film's peculiar structure to draw comparisons to a matryoshka doll (the doll being the symbol with which his title character, Anna, a Russian criminal, turned spy, turned super model, is apparently linked.) So what we have is a series of nested flashbacks being presented as if they're different, hidden layers; each one intended to strip away the façade of Anna's differing personas to take us closer to the character's emotional truth.

It's an interesting approach, in theory, and especially for a film that deals with themes of espionage, role playing and appearance as deception. However, in practice, such intelligence is beyond Besson's capabilities, as he delivers a story that is less complex than convoluted. The structure, which cuts back and forth between 1985, 1987, 1989 and 1990 (and often flashing backwards and forwards three months at a time between scenes) is genuinely alienating, exposing the contrivances of Besson's plotting and the transparency of his narrative machinations. It also makes the relationships between his characters vague and unknowable, reducing every major plot point to a nonsensical twist. It's a fatal flaw in a film that already had a lot going against it.

Besson has been without interest for me for over a decade now, and Anna does little to reverse the downward trajectory that his career has taken. It's a joyless, by-the-numbers production that seems self-consciously manufactured to recall the filmmakers former glories, specifically La Femme Nikita (1990) and Léon (aka The Professional) (1994). Worse, it finds Besson pushing an incredibly sexist "female empowerment" narrative, where once again a wayward young woman is picked from the slums, rescued by an older male mentor (who also becomes her insatiable lover), and is then stripped (literally) of her identity and sense of self in order to be rebuilt as an image of the man's ideal.

Anna [Luc Besson, 2019]:

Thirty years ago, this same narrative was enough to see Besson tagged as a feminist filmmaker, but such a reputation now seems entirely ludicrous when we compare this tired scenario against the numerous sexual assault allegations that have since been made against the filmmaker, and how the nature of these allegations seem to mirror this male savior/male mogul ideal that he often endorses through his work. Anna might use her chess smarts to play the KGB and the CIA off against each other, but she does so by bed-hopping between the two factions and letting Besson's camera sneaks shots up her skirt.

As Anna, former model Sasha Luss deserved a better film. She delivers a strong performance, even with such weak material, and throws herself into the film's action sequences with great skill and enthusiasm. Besson was once a master of action cinema, but here he delivers mostly scenes of disorganized carnage or moments of self-parody.

Further reading at Lights in the Dusk: Taxi: Notes on 'the Auteur' [12 September 2020] Luc Besson: An Introduction? [26 September 2019], Possible Worlds: A look at the science-fiction films of Luc Besson [20 October 2019],

Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye

Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye [Antonio Margheriti, 1973]:

A film that sits comfortably within two spheres of Italian genre cinema. First, the Gothic horror, in which wealthy characters gather at a brooding castle to grapple with long-held family secrets, animosities, and murderous greed. Second, the Giallo, where titular allusions to animals and a specific number of forewarned victims, set the scene for a slow-burning tale of murder and madness. Many of the films in this Gothic tradition are often erroneously referred to as Giallo films, but this one - helmed by the prolific Antonio Margheriti, director of the earlier Gothic horror classic, The Long Hair of Death (1964) - has some legitimacy to the claim.

Here, Jane Birkin plays a young woman returning to her family castle in the highlands of Scotland, where she immediately becomes embroiled in a veritable soap opera of familial dysfunction. There's a touch of the eccentric here too, as Margheriti includes a rogues' gallery of characters, including Hiram Keller as a handsome young madman who might've killed his sister, Doris Kunstmann as a French teacher with lesbian intentions, and Anton Diffring as a doctor with more than medicine on his mind. There's also a potentially violent gorilla that lives with Keller's character, as well as the all-seeing cat that bears witness to each of the many murders, with both adding to the sense of the strange and the uncanny.

Birkin would go on to give much better performances in later films by directors such as Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda (among others), but she's undoubtedly at her most beautiful here, and is an always welcome presence. Her partner at the time, Serge Gainsbourg, also makes an appearance (uncharacteristically) playing the part of a laconic police inspector, which makes this of definite interest to the work of the pop provocateur. While somewhat prosaic and even old-fashioned compared to many other Italian murder mysteries released during this same period, Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye is quite excellent. It features a strong, often somber atmosphere throughout, and includes some almost psychedelic stylizations, including an early dream sequence and some exceptional use of light and color.

The Ballad of Tam-Lin

The Ballad of Tam-Lin [Roddy McDowall, 1970]:

I have a real fondness for strange, unclassifiable films, and they don't come much stranger and more unclassifiable than this. The only feature-film directed by actor and photographer Roddy McDowall, The Ballad of Tam-Lin (released in some territories as The Devil's Widow, The Devil's Woman, or simply Tam-Lin) adapts the traditional Scottish ballad by the poet Robert Burns and transposes it onto the then-contemporary world of swinging London.

Mod stylizations define the film's aesthetic, as Stephanie Beacham's sheltered vicar's daughter, Janet Ainsley, falls under the spell of Ian McShane's sexually charged photographer, Tom Lynn. Tom is part of a travelling coven of bored and beautiful scenesters who congregate around the wealthy, middle-aged American heiress, Michaela Cazaret. Cazaret in turn has bewitched the young Tom, resulting in a sparring love triangle that increasingly moves into the realm of the supernatural, as pastoral romance and folk horror influences combine with the excesses of drugged-out psychedelia.

Cazaret is played with great command and sensitivity by the fading superstar Ava Gardner, and it was in part McDowall's awe for Gardner, and his desire to provide the actor with a comeback role more befitting her talents and ageing beauty, that led him to direct the film.

The Ballad of Tam-Lin [Roddy McDowall, 1970]:

In terms of style and aesthetics, the film is a real time capsule, building on the influences of European art-cinema, with its careful, widescreen compositions, bold primary colors, and extraordinary use of the natural landscape. Here, a scene of seduction plays out across a series of stop-frame images, while frequent dissolves between characters, scenes and locations work to accentuate the dreamy, barely lucid tone that defines the film throughout. Many viewers will no doubt see such adornments as entirely dated, and that's fair enough, but as someone who really values fearless originality in picture-making, the excesses and indulgences of McDowall's film feel purely cinematic, and make sense within its strange witch's brew of bucolic fantasia, 60s art-house decadence and genuine horror.

The third act shift into psychotropic terror is a trip in every sense of the word, and sees the text of the original poem manifest in both literal and figurative visions of escape, transfiguration, and salvation from supernatural retribution.

The acclaimed folk-rock group Pentangle supply the soundtrack (along with instrumental music by Stanley Myers), which makes full use of the poet's verse and often underlines literal translations from text to screen. In any context, this is a film that remains obscure and fascinating in the best possible way, and is one that seems (intentionally or otherwise) to tap into the confluence between hippie era utopia and the darker, black magic influences threatening the dream of this generation of young lovers, which seemed to be permeating the culture following the Manson Family massacres.

Eye for an Eye

Eye for an Eye [John Schlesinger, 1996]:

If you’ve ever wondered what a late Michael Winner film might look like if it was produced with "prestige film" talent, then look no further than this. Everyone here is doing exceptional work - especially the starry cast, who commit entirely to the complexity of their individual characters, as well as grappling with the sensitivities of the plot - however, despite the hard work of all involved, the film is no less morally questionable or manipulative in its sensationalist pandering to fears around violent crime and justifications of vigilantism as something like Death Wish II (1982) or Dirty Weekend (1993). Disappointing for a filmmaker of John Schlesinger’s great talent.

Born American

Born American [Renny Harlin, 1986]:

Given the implications of the title and the politics of the era when the film was first released, the expectation here was for something steeped in jingoistic, pro-U.S., anti-Soviet propaganda, in which the north American protagonists get to espouse their traditions of liberty, freedom and justice for all, while simultaneously violating a litany of international laws and treaties. Surprisingly, this isn't the case. While the film is unashamedly anti-Soviet to an almost parodic level, it also seems to view its trio of American characters with a level of derision. These teens, who travel to Finland for vague reasons and immediately cross the border into Russia for a bit of fun (taking photos of military checkpoints and shooting a bow and arrow into the snow is apparently how these kids get their rocks off) are shown to be so aggressively stupid and naïve that one can only conclude that co-writers Renny Harlin and Markus Selin (the former making his feature debut as director) are lampooning the perception of north American exceptionalism as enthusiastically as they're lampooning Soviet sleaze and corruption.

It's a strange film, with some plot points that are so brazenly bizarre that they could've come from a work of science-fiction. For instance, Harlin and Selin begin with a very grounded, character-based study of three American teenagers on a road trip across the Soviet border (which initially recalls elements of Walter Hill's film Southern Comfort, 1980) before hauling the characters off to prison for what can only be described as an even more sensationalist and reactionary version of the Alan Parker/Oliver Stone adaptation of Midnight Express (1978). Here, inmates compete in games of human chess, while high-ranking Russian ministers with a propensity for torturing inmates with jumper cables attached to their nipples, bribe the U.S. counsel with unwilling victims dragged from the women's prison.

The entire film has an odd tone that's pitched somewhere between serious commentary on proxy wars and the CIA's involvement in prolonging the Soviet conflict, and the most ludicrous action movie (n)ever released by The Cannon Group. As director, Harlin is already showing a lot of potential, despite the limitations of the text. While the film ultimately exemplifies many of the weaknesses that still affect his work to this day (under-written characters, vague plotting, a questionable tone) it also shows a natural talent for directing large-scale action and gritty heroism. With its snow-bound locations and emphasis on ordinary men pushed into violence and survival by extraordinary conditions, we can already see faint traces of his later Hollywood movies, such as Die Hard 2 (1990), Cliffhanger (1993) and even his found-footage horror film, Devil's Pass (2013). 

The Presidio

The Presidio [Peter Hyams, 1988]:

A serviceable conspiracy thriller from director and cinematographer Peter Hyams - a dependable journeyman of such films as Capricorn One (1978), Outland (1981), 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) (an early example of what is now known as a "legacy sequel"), Time Cop (1994), Sudden Death (1995) and End of Days (1999), among others. Hyams tends to get overlooked by the contemporary movie culture, enraptured as it is by the lure of the autocratic auteur. I suspect this particular film might’ve retained more of a legacy had original co-star Kevin Costner not backed out, but it's still provides decent entertainment value. As criticism, the courtship between the characters played by Mark Harmon and Meg Ryan, and the complications this creates between our protagonists, Harmon and Sean Connery (the father of Ryan's character), is somewhat predictable, but the mix of murder mystery, action movie and lament of old soldiers still carries some weight. Similarly, the San Francisco setting (much of it fogbound) provides a great atmosphere.

Sliver

Sliver [Phillip Noyce, 1993]:

I've often felt there was a fine line between Hollywood's cycle of 1990s erotic thrillers and Italy's cycle of 1970s giallo movies, which might explain why I'm so fascinated by the sub-genre of films like Shattered (1991), Basic Instinct (1992), Final Analysis (1992), Striking Distance (1993), Color of Night (1994) and Jade (1995). These films, many of them critically derided, have a surface of contemporary Hitchcockian mystery, but are more often closer in tone to the lurid, psychosexual thrills of films like A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971), Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971), Death Walks on High Heels (1971), Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972), The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974) and Deep Red (1975), among others.

For all the Hitchcockian pretentions on voyeurism and dehumanisation present in this slick thriller from director Phillip Noyce and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, this psycho-killer loose in a modern high-rise movie is much closer to The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972) than it is to Rear Window (1954). Sharon Stone, an icon of this particular sub-genre of films and an underrated actor in her own right, is an engaging presence as the protagonist, Carly Norris, a successful, thirtysomething career woman who takes on a luxury apartment where the last tenant, an apparent doppelgänger for Carly, allegedly committed suicide.

Sliver [Phillip Noyce, 1993]:

There are shades of Roman Polanski here, specifically The Tenant (1976), though the connection might rest with Ira Levin, who as well as writing the book that Sliver is based on, also wrote the source material for the Polanski directed Rosemary's Baby (1968). Noyce's direction is stylish in a sleek, typically 90s manner, accentuating the bland and empty surfaces of these modern apartments and the disconnect between tenants (where their lives play out on fuzzy black and white video monitors as entertainment for a potentially voyeuristic killer.)

Sliver hits a lot of the right notes for this kind of film, which is well made on a technical level, but it's undoubtedly flawed by the fatal miscasting of both the male leads, as well as the fact that the motivations of the characters are dully predictable. Essentially, Noyce's film lacks a compelling enough hook to give weight to its scenes of surveillance and investigation. That it toys with the self-reflexive relationship between the viewer and the viewed is interesting, but there needed to be more of an emotional connection with the character and a stronger sense of mystery to draw the audience in. When you have a murder mystery where the identity of the killer becomes obvious from the first scene, and there is no misdirection or red herrings to provide a distraction, then the result is something that feels very plodding and predictable.

La Prisonnière

La Prisonnière [Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968]:

Redolent of the kinetic art that plays such a large role in the film and the lives of its characters. In theme, it's like the missing link between Buñuel's Belle de jour (1967) and Tsukamoto's A Snake of June (2002): as in another film about repressed female desire finding expression through sadomasochist fantasy; albeit, once again from a "male gaze" perspective. Either this or it's Clouzot's quietly unsettling take on the themes of Beauty and the Beast, where a woman falls under the spell of a monster and attempts to change him. The psychedelic climax is extraordinary cinema.

In many ways, this final work is an example of Clouzot reusing the plot points and aesthetic experimentation that he'd planned to use in his unfinished film, L'Enfer (begun in 1964 but abandoned after Clouzot suffered a heart attack three weeks into the shoot.) Élisabeth Wiener is excellent in the lead role here, backed by great support from the small ensemble, which includes Bernard Fresson, Dany Carrel and Laurent Terzieff. 

Every element of the film is loaded with symbolism and significance. The apartment with the shutters down, suggesting the closed-off repression of the suburban couple soon to have their lives disrupted; the emphasis on kinetic art, which, like the film, are effectively aesthetic objects that transform reality; the motif of mirrors and refracted windows that distort the perspective of the audience to match the distorted perspective and warped outlook of the central characters; the commentary on mass produced art and the commodification of human expression; the themes of voyeurism and objectification, both in art and desire; to say nothing of the premonitions of death and transfiguration, which are hinted throughout.

Beverly Hills Cop III

Beverly Hills Cop III [John Landis, 1994]:

In the same way that Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) was unmistakably "a film by Tony Scott," Beverly Hills Cop III is unmistakably "a film by John Landis." Cars smashing into each other, Motown music numbers, vaudeville-level skits, directors’ cameos and a flat, presentational filming style, which resembles early Hollywood slapstick, are characteristics here. The plot is thin, but if anything lets the film down it's Murphy. He's the weak link here, delivering a performance that’s less the detective Axel Foley we know and love from Beverly Hills Cop and more a bored version of himself. Murphy told Landis he wanted to play the role as more sensible and subdued, as if the character had mellowed with age, but this translates into a performance that's mostly on auto-pilot.

Nonetheless, I don’t think this is as bad as most people consider it. It’s certainly not the worst film Landis directed during this period, and despite his shortcomings as a person, he nevertheless remains a talented action director who shoots gunfights like he’s directing a 1930s western (a compliment.) A filmmaker like Joe Dante or Tim Burton probably would’ve done more with the Disneyland-like setting, using it to satirize the generic escapism and rollercoaster-ride nature of franchise cinema, but for Landis it’s just an opportunity for spectacle and broad visual humor. Bronson Pinchot returns briefly as Serge (the gallery manager from the first film) and practically steals the show.

Beverly Hills Cop II

Beverly Hills Cop II [Tony Scott, 1987]:

From the first scene, the tonal and aesthetic contrast between this film and its 1984 predecessor, is striking. The first Beverly Hills cop began with an upbeat pop song, which established a knockabout tone of mainstream entertainment, while also providing an ironic counterpoint to the film's opening montage of Detroit and its areas of economic adversity. From here, director Martin Brest launched into an introductory sequence that defined the film's effortless combination of action and character-comedy. It was a sequence that told us everything we needed to know about the central character, Eddie Murphy's fast-talking detective Axel Foley, while in turn setting up the clash of cultures between this blue collar professional and the world of greed, affluence and criminality that the titular location comes to represent.

Rather than begin with a similar scene of comic action, this sequel, directed by the unsung Tony Scott, begins with a percussive soundtrack over color-tinted images of downtown Beverly Hills, before launching unexpectedly into a violent jewelry robbery. The imagery, which was unfussy and presentational in Brest's film, is now heavily backlit, with deep shadows and a careful approach to composition. The cuts are short but match the rhythm of the music. The art direction and costume design stress style, glamour and decadence over functionality. It's a sequence of remarkable filmmaking ingenuity and proof of Scott's total command of the filmmaking elements. It's just unfortunate that such intelligent stylizations are often wasted here on a weak and derivative script.

The problems with Beverly Hills Cop II are manifest. On one side we have Scott directing a high-art heist movie that recalls the works of the “cinema du look” [where he applies the same incredible audio-visual aesthetics of his earlier film, The Hunger (1983), to a proper action movie], while on the opposite side we have a derivative sequel to Beverly Hills Cop almost intruding on this other, more interesting narrative. The script for the latter seems barely there and exists as a loose template for Murphy to improvise around. The same scenes and scenarios from the first film reoccur, giving this film an over-familiar quality. But everything about this new installment has been beefed-up and dumbed-down, resulting in a Beverly Hills Cop film that tries to play to the same audiences as Commando (1985) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). A not uneasy mix of elements.

Beverly Hills Cop

Beverly Hills Cop [Martin Brest, 1984]:

While it's disguised as an action-comedy (and a very good one), it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Beverly Hills Cop is more accurately a culture clash study on class relations, where blue-collar cop Axel Foley navigates the false fantasia of Beverly Hills and comes out on top. Every setting and scenario invites the audience to jeer and sneer at a community that hides corruption and inequality behind an elite surface. It doesn’t go so far as to become satire, but it's not merely escapism.

Here, the film could be seen as a companion piece of sorts to that other Jerry Bruckheimer production of the early 1980s, American Gigolo (1980), in the sense that Axel Foley, like the protagonist Julian Kay from the Paul Schrader film, is a working-class character navigating a world that he inherently doesn't belong to. He's there to provide a service, playacting roles and scenarios in order to plausibly navigate certain situations. The fake surface of the city becomes a carnival mirror, further alienating the protagonist by confronting him with its perpetual elitism, class bigotry and big money criminality.

Beverly Hills Cop [Martin Brest, 1984]:

That many of the film’s interactions are with people in the service industry isn’t accidental. Reception staff, waiters, valets, maître d's, cops, exotic dancers, gallery assistants. These are the invisible people that make the fantasia of Beverly Hills possible. They exist there only in the sense that they provide a service. They work to belong.

We can delight at Murphy’s incredible performance - which is absolutely tailored to his unique, comic skillset - but the film offers more than just the surface delivery of its admittedly engaging elevator pitch. From the opening montage of Detroit’s areas of economic decline, contrasted with the later montage of Beverly Hills opulence, to breaking up the party at elite social clubs and a literal raid on a mansion, the film is pushing its (playful) attack on systems of inequality for the benefit of its largely working-class audience.

My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine [George Mihalka, 1981]:

The valentine’s Day theme may have been better suited to a high school setting, closer to a film like Prom Night (1980) or April Fool's Day (1986) for example, so placing this in the confines of a blue-collar mining community with a backstory about a cursed town steeped in tragedy is certainly a choice. The identity of the killer seems like an afterthought here (I'm not convinced the twist stands up to much scrutiny, though a re-watch might be in order) but as an early example of the slasher genre this does a lot of things well. The use of the mine provides great production value and authenticity, and there are some really terrifying murder sequences, which take full advantage of the killer's incongruous and imposing look.

Intersection

Intersection [Mark Rydell, 1994]:

A largely forgotten remake of Les Choses de la vie (1970) by Claude Sautet (forgotten, despite featuring a stellar cast of then superstars: Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Lolita Davidovich and Martin Landau specifically), Intersection seemed to be released at a curious intersection in 90s cinema. Its tone and aesthetics are very much in step with the cycle of post-Jagged Edge (1985), post-Fatal Attraction (1987) thrillers from the early 1990s, such as Shattered (1991), Dead Again (1991), Basic Instinct (1992), Final Analysis (1992) and others - films that wove themes of crisis and infidelity around mostly affluent characters, and used them to indulge in thrillers that often weren't very thrilling, but rather oddly dreamlike - however, it was released in competition with films like Pulp Fiction (1994) and Clerks (1994). The culture was moving on from this kind of adult contemporary cinema and embraced the comparatively more vibrant and profane works of a new generation, and as such Intersection received almost entirely negative reviews and sank like a stone into the dark waters of cultural oblivion. 

The general criticisms of the film from the time seem fair; Gere's character isn't sympathetic and his life crisis at the center of the drama comes from a place of entitlement and egotism. It's difficult to follow this character on an existential journey when nothing beyond the vagaries of life and death are ever really at stake. That said, I found the strange scene towards the end of the film, in which the protagonist meets what could be, figuratively or even literally, himself as an old man (complete with a granddaughter modelled on his latest mistress) to be so fascinating and quietly surreal in nature that it brought together the various themes of the film and elevated the third act.

Leatherface

Leatherface [Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, 2017]:

While well acted (particularly by veterans Stephen Dorff and Lili Taylor in key supporting roles) and with strong production values throughout, no one who ever watched a prior version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" series imagined THIS as a potential backstory for the title character. Directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, best known for the gory French horror films Inside (2007) and Livid (2011), have a lot of fun furnishing this origin story for the most American of horror movies with lashings of Gallic grotesqueness, but they fail to provide psychological insights or consistent character development.

Night Key

Night Key [Lloyd Corrigan, 1937]:

An engaging if slightly wooden crime thriller, where Boris Karloff’s aggrieved inventor and security expert David Mallory is kidnapped by a band of high class gangsters and forced to help them commit a wave of crime. Karloff’s avenger, billing himself to the cops as “Night Key,” has something very comic book about it - as if this were the prelude to a Batman villain origin story - but the film does have more serious themes about class exploitation and the perils of revenge. Poverty-row limitations are obvious throughout the production, but director Lloyd Corrigan does a lot with what’s available. Karloff, always a great onscreen presence (if slightly broad here), is well supported by Warren Hull and Jean Rogers in a vaguely romantic subplot, as well as Hobart Cavanaugh providing some sympathetic comic relief.

The Exterminator

The Exterminator [James Glickenhaus, 1980]:

A grim, vigilante slasher film, which plays like Taxi Driver (1976) crossed with one of the sleazier Death Wish sequels. The settings are squalid, the tone is somber and the gore is sensationalistic. However, there's a strong political and social commentary here as well (if arguably somewhat right-wing in message.) It's one of the first horror films to really focus on PTSD as a motivating factor in the psychology of the central character. This isn't some deranged madman out to cause chaos, or a masked slasher in the tradition of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, but a man trained in violence, trained in death, and pushed too far by the iniquities and injustices of a pre-gentrification New York. As well as being a fantastic bit of filmmaking in its own right, the lurid Vietnam War sequence, which begins the film with a stylized hellscape of scarring violence (care of special effects legend Stan Winston), sets the tone throughout.

The Ringer

The Ringer [Guy Hamilton, 1952]:

Modern audiences will guess the identity of the titular "The Ringer" within the first ten minutes, but nonetheless, director Guy Hamilton's feature debut remains a great deal of fun. Based on a 1929 play by Edgar Wallace, this blend of country house mystery, Doctor Mabuse-inspired crime drama and wry comedy of manners ably establishes the visual style and thematic concerns of subsequent Hamilton films, such as An Inspector Calls (1954), A Touch of Larceny (1959) and Evil Under the Sun (1982).

Prior to this debut, Hamilton had previously worked as assistant director to Carol Reed [a bit of trivia, in The Third Man (1949), Hamilton was also the camera double for Orson Welles in many of the film's long shots] and the scene where Denholm Elliott's character is pursued across the rooftops of Piccadilly shows a definite influence from both The Fallen Idol (1949) and the aforementioned The Third Man respectively.

The cast is excellent here. As well as the then-fresh-faced Denholm Elliott there's also Herbert Lom, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, and the original "Doctor Who" himself, William Hartnell. Already we're seeing Hamilton's propensity for large ensemble casts made up of  huge stars and well-known character actors.

Lux Æterna

Lux Æterna [Gaspar Noé, 2019]:

As someone not ordinarily attuned to this filmmaker's particular wavelength, I know how easy it is to be put off by Noé's more juvenile provocations. Climax (2018) was a real surprise for me, especially since I'd been left underwhelmed and somewhat incredulous by the experience of his earlier works, specifically I Stand Alone (1998) and Irréversible (2002), but Lux Æterna confirms something that even those early provocations have always suggested. For all of his tricks and gimmicks, or his attempts to shock and appall, the truth is, there's no other filmmaker challenging the conventions of cinema and experimenting with the language of film and film "form" as consistently and successfully as Gaspar Noé.

This film, Lux Æterna (or "Eternal Light"), strikes me as one of the filmmaker's greatest works. An epilepsy-inducing, strobe-lit, split-screened, "live at the witch trials" for the post #MeToo era, which through extended dialogues and arresting imagery, aims to explore the marginalization, abuse and exploitation of women in the context of a film about filmmaking (and with the added bonus of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle, two of my absolute favourite actors.) At 52 minutes the film doesn't outstay its welcome.

Near Dark

Near Dark [Kathryn Bigelow, 1987]:

A propulsive soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and director Kathryn Bigelow's natural affinity for visceral action sequences are the standout elements of this revisionist neo-western vampire movie. Lance Henricksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein, reunited after Aliens (1986), provide great value as the nomadic bloodsuckers, but are let down by the two young leads, who are like beautiful models with nothing behind the eyes. Some strong individual scenes, but not much beneath the surface.

The casting definitely does a lot of heavy lifting here. So much so that most people don’t seem to mind that none of the characters are in any way defined or developed. We learn nothing about who they are, what they want, or where they come from. Any sense of who they appear to be comes from the personality or charisma of the actor. We connect with Severen, not because of anything inherent to that character, but because he’s enlivened by Bill Paxton, and this is true with other casting decisions here as well.

Near Dark [Kathryn Bigelow, 1987]:

This is the type of film where I suspect a lot of people love it because it has two or three stand-out sequences (the kidnapping of Caleb, the massacre at the bar and the shoot-out at the motel) but the connective tissue joining these scenes together is almost non-existent. Likewise, the consistency with which characters are presented. In one scene we’re supposed to be horrified as the vampires’ slaughter innocent people, then in the next scene we’re supposed to be concerned for their survival. Are they unrelenting monsters or misunderstood anti-heroes? Bigelow can’t decide.

There was a lot more the filmmakers could’ve done with the concept here. Nomadic vampires travelling across smalltown America at a time when these communities were being ravaged by Reaganomics (failing industries, social and economic decline and the dissolution of the traditional American family), but Bigelow isn’t interested in the politics of the American western (neo or otherwise) only in the aesthetics of the genre. As such, the early emphasis on lost youth and marginalised characters in search of connections soon gives in to scenes and images (striking as they are) that feel purloined from Mad Max movies.