My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Cautiously Recommended

Hong Kong/China/France
Feature Film
Director: Wong Kar Wai
Writers: Lawrence Block, Wong Kar Wai
Cinematographer: Darius Khondji
Composer: Ry Cooder
Cast: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Frankie Faison

The delightful scenes between Law’s Mancunian café owner and Jones’s heartbroken customer, in the first of three patchy episodes, in Wong’s beautifully photographed English language debut, just about make the other two parts – a maudlin, clumsy middle passage, and a fluffy, throw-away third section – palatable, but this is a long way (about 8000 miles) from the Hong Kong director’s best work. Iain.Stott

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London to Brighton (2006)

Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Paul Andrew Williams
Cinematographer: Christopher Ross
Composer: Laura Rossi
Cast: Lorraine Stanley, Georgia Groome, Johnny Harris, Nathan Constance, Sam Spruell, Alexander Morton

Williams’s grim tale - part social-realist character study (excellently done) part gangland thriller (less well done), chronicling a young prostitute and an eleven-year-old runaway’s flight to Brighton following a trick gone wrong - is a disturbing and harrowing yet sensitively made film, boasting a number of excellent performances, not the least of which, coming from the astonishing Georgia Groome. Iain.Stott

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The Bridge (2006)

Recommended

USA/UK
Feature Documentary
Director: Eric Steel
Cinematographers: Peter Baldwin, Peter McCandless
Composer: Alex Heffes

Despite the film-makers’ slightly dubious ethics (the film’s structure is particularly troubling), the resulting documentary, an unflinching look at suicide, featuring actual footage of people jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge as well as interviews with family and friends, is an undeniably invaluable, strangely beautiful, and deeply sad work, and one that highlights the insignificance of the individual, as it dispassionately shows images of people who have reached their lowest ebb, contemplating the end of their lives, whilst all around them life whirs gently on. Iain.Stott

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Be Kind Rewind (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Michel Gondry
Cinematographer: Ellen Kuras
Composer: Jean-Michel Bernard
Cast: Mos Def, Jack Black, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, Melonie Diaz

This decidedly light concoction from Gondry – chronicling a young clerk and his eccentric friend’s attempts to remake, with the aid of a camcorder and plenty of naff props, the entire back catalogue of a video rental store after a magnetic accident wipes all of the VHS tapes clean – manages to hold the attention throughout, and even contains a number of trouser soilingly funny moments, but unfortunately the film all too often disappears into a hazy sea of whimsy, inconsequence, and even sentimentality. Iain.Stott

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My Kid Could Paint That (2007)

Recommended

USA/UK
Feature Documentary
Director: Amir Bar-Lev
Cinematographers: Matt Boyd, Nelson Hume, Bill Turnley
Composers: The Rondo Brothers
Featuring: Marla Olmstead

This compelling and emotional documentary - chronicling the rise, fall, and sort of rise again of four-year-old, art prodigy, Marla Olmstead, whose abstract paintings became the toast of the New York art world until a television exposé cast doubt on their authenticity - largely sticks to the did she/didn’t she question, whilst rather ignoring the more interesting question of even if she did paint them, so what? (Surely a painting made without any sort of intellectual contextualisation, something that can only come with an adult mind, is nothing more than a series of random marks on a piece of canvas.) Iain.Stott

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The Page Turner (2006)

Cautiously Recommended

France
Feature Film
Original Title: La tourneuse de pages
Director: Denis Dercourt
Writers: Denis Dercourt, Jacques Sotty
Cinematographer: Jérôme Peyrebrune
Composer: Jérôme Lemonnier
Cast: Déborah François, Catherine Frot, Pascal Greggory, Xavier De Guillebon, Clotilde Mollet, Antoine Martynciow, Julie Richalet, Christine Citti, Jacques Bonnaffé

Coming across like an art house version of an erotic thriller, only without the sex, this mildly entertaining revenge flick, in which a young girl’s musical dreams are dashed in a laughably silly way, and who grows up determined to gain vengeance on her perceived wrongdoer, is a film that manages to build incredible levels of suspense from the most unlikely events, but never really feels credible enough to be totally effective. Iain.Stott

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The Baby and the Buddha (2008)

Recommended

UK/France/Denmark/USA/Israel
Feature Documentary
aka Unmistaken Child
Director: Nati Baratz
Cinematographer: Yaron Orbach
Composer: Cyril Morin

Delicately presenting a picture of a process that could easily be seen as anything from mystically beautiful to something akin to child abuse, Baratz’s fascinating documentary chronicles a devoted Nepalese monk’s quest to find the reincarnation of his former Tibetan master, Lama Konchog, a journey that takes him to a number of remote Tibetan and Nepalese villages, which have barely been touched by the 20th let alone the 21st century, in search of this holy child. Iain.Stott

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boymeetsgirl (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

UK
Television Mini-Series
Publicity Title: Boy Meets Girl
Director: Alrick Riley
Writer: David Allison
Cinematographer: Sean Van Hales
Composer: David A. Hughes
Cast: Rachael Stirling, Martin Freeman, Angela Griffin, Paterson Joseph, Marshall Lancaster, Tamzin Malleson, James Lance

This slight if rather addictive mini-series - in which a brash, working class, conspiracy theory spouting man and a timid, superficial, fashion obsessed woman, through a freak electrical accident, swap bodies, and consequently struggle to come to terms with their new situations - never really, despite its satirical potential, manages to say anything particularly insightful about gender, sexual, class, or other societal roles. Iain.Stott

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Man on Wire (2008)

Recommended

UK/USA
Feature Documentary
Director: James Marsh
Writer: Philippe Petit
Cinematographer: Igor Martinovic
Composer: Michael Nyman
Featuring: Philippe Petit, Jean-François Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau, Annie Allix, David Forman

Using archive footage, staged recreations, and new interviews, Marsh – managing to capture the suspense, wonder, and ridiculousness of the event – paints an entertaining portrait of the charismatic Petit’s 1974 World Trade Center shenanigans, when he spent 45 minutes perched 1350 feet above New York on a high-wire. Iain.Stott

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Hunger (2008)

Essential Viewing

UK/Ireland
Feature Film
Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh
Cinematographer: Sean Bobbitt
Composers: Leo Abrahams, David Holmes
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Liam Cunningham

Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen’s feature debut – a harrowing, unflinching portrait of IRA member Bobby Sands’s time in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland, chronicling his many abuses at the hands of the guards, as well as his various protests, including his fatal hunger strike – is a blood-stained, shit-smeared masterpiece, which somehow manages to find poetry and sensual beauty in amongst a barrage of images of hate and violence. Iain.Stott

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Son of Rambow (2007)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/France/Germany
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Garth Jennings
Cinematographer: Jess Hall
Composer: Joby Talbot
Cast: Bill Milner, Will Poulter, Jessica Stevenson, Neil Dudgeon, Ed Westwick, Jules Sitruk

Jennings’s follow up to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) never quite lives up to its fantastic sounding premise - two young boys, lonely outsiders, tentatively form a friendship whilst making their own version of First Blood (1982) with a camcorder and plenty of enthusiasm - but the largely unsentimental film is never less than entertaining and manages to hold one’s attention throughout with some accomplished juvenile performances and a few nice visual flourishes. Iain.Stott

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The Air I Breathe (2007)

Best Avoided

USA

Feature Film
Director: Jieho Lee
Writers: Bob DeRosa, Jieho Lee
Cinematographer: Walt Lloyd
Composer: Marcelo Zarvos
Cast: Forest Whitaker, Brendan Fraser, Andy Garcia, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Bacon, Emile Hirsch, Julie Delpy, Cecilia Suárez

Despite relatively accomplished performances and good if over-stylised production values, Lee’s feature debut - based on an ancient Chinese proverb that divides existence into four emotional states (happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and Love) - is a film constantly mired by laughably silly plot details and developments that are played with a po-faced straightness that is more likely to provoke embarrassed giggles than thought, wonder, or anything else. Iain.Stott

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Evil Things (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Dominic Perez
Cinematographers: Laurel Casillo, Moran Hooper, Ryan Maslyn, Elyssa Mersdorf, Dominic Perez, Mario Valdez, Torrey Weiss
Cast: Laurel Casillo, Moran Hooper, Ryan Maslyn, Elyssa Mersdorf, Torrey Weiss

Perhaps a tad too reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project (1999), right down to its publicity material, to be wholly effective; never the less, Perez’s ultra-low budget debut, following a group of young friends on a trip out into the country to celebrate a 21st birthday, where things begin to go bump in the night, stands out from other imitators by way of its accomplished, naturalistic performances, authentically inane dialogue, and bravely uncompromising pacing and general aesthetic. Iain.Stott

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Woman of the Dunes (1964)

Essential Viewing

Japan
Feature Film
Original Title: 砂の女
Director: Teshigahara Hiroshi

Writer: Abe Kōbō

Cinematographer: Segawa Hiroshi

Composer: Takemitsu Tōru

Cast: Okada Eiji, Kishida Kyōko

Teshigahara’s enigmatic, allegorical magnum opus – chronicling the escape attempts of an insect fancying school teacher, mysteriously imprisoned in a sandy dungeon with a taciturn woman by unscrupulous villagers, and forced into back-breaking manual labour – is, with its erotically charged performances, Segawa’s striking photography, and Takemitsu’s unsettling score, perhaps Teshigahara’s finest film and something of a masterpiece. Iain.Stott

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The Unloved (2009)

Highly Recommended

UK

Television Film
Director: Samantha Morton
Writers: Tony Grisoni, Samantha Morton
Cinematographer: Thomas Townend
Cast: Molly Windsor, Lauren Socha, Robert Carlyle, Susan Lynch, Craig Parkinson, Andrea Lowe, Karl Collins, Johann Myers, Michael Socha, Darren Campbell, Kerry Stacey

Morton’s outstanding directorial debut – an ethereally beautiful, achingly sad, and painfully honest look at the life of an abused eleven-year-old girl, who has recently been taken into care – would suggest that the actress’s time spent in front of the camera may have been merely an apprenticeship, served in order to bring us this wonderful, sensitive film-maker with a delicate touch to rival Terence Davies and Lynne Ramsay – wonderful. Iain.Stott

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Stick It in Detroit (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

USA
DTV Film
Director: Robert Daniel Phelps
Writers: Gaetano Aprea, Shaun McLean, Robert Daniel Phelps, Justin Rose
Cinematographer: Stephen Treadway
Composer: Ken Joseph
Cast: John Lutz, Brett Gelman, Jon Daly, Kieran Campion, Matt Chapman, Robert Daniel Phelps, Susan Misner, Gerrit Graham, Sasha Allen, Katharine Leonard, Manuel Cabral, Jessica Golden

Although not for all tastes, and certainly not for the more refined palette, this laddish, episodic, blue-collar comedy, a patchily entertaining look at the dysfunctional lives of a group of twenty-something Detroiters, contains enough moments of inspired lunacy to overlook some its more tired, gross-out sequences; it's also worth noting that its working class setting makes a refreshing change from the usual college campus shenanigans that we’re continually subjected to. Iain.Stott

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Das Experiment (2001)

Recommended

Germany
Feature Film
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Writers: Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstädt, Mario Giordano
Cinematographer: Rainer Klausmann
Composer: Alexander van Bubenheim
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Maren Eggert, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke Möhring, Justus von Dohnanyi, Nicki von Tempelhoff, Timo Dierkes, Antoine Monot Jr., Edgar Selge, Andrea Sawatzki, Philipp Hochmair

Inspired by the Stanford University psychological experiments of the early ‘70s, in which a group of students were assigned roles of either prisoners or guards in a mock prison, and their reactions monitored, Hirschbiegel’s big screen debut, transplanting the action (tellingly) to Germany, is a rather disturbing and frighteningly credible examination of man’s tribal nature and his susceptibility, given the right heightened circumstances, to committing the most atrocious of acts. Iain.Stott

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Somers Town (2008)

Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Shane Meadows
Writer: Paul Fraser
Cinematographer: Natasha Braier
Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Piotr Jagiello, Ireneusz Czop, Perry Benson, Elisa Lasowski, Kate Dickie

This small, gentle film from Meadows – a touching account of a burgeoning friendship between a gobby, homeless, Nottingham teenager and a quiet, sensitive Polish boy in the eponymous area of London, and their brief encounter with an attractive French waitress – is probably the midlander’s funniest film to date, and perhaps even his most beautiful and moving, though far from his most powerful. Iain.Stott

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Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Richard Boleslawski
Writers: Sidney Buchman, Mary McCarthy
Cinematographer: Joseph Walker
Composers: Arthur Morton, William Grant Still
Cast: Irene Dunne, Melvyn Douglas, Thomas Mitchell, Thurston Hall, Rosalind Keith, Elisabeth Risdon, Margaret McWade, Spring Byington, Nana Bryant, Henry Kolker, Leona Maricle, Robert Greig, Frederick Burton

Dunne’s spirited performance as a prim-and-proper, small town girl who, pseudonymously, also happens to be the best-selling author of a racy and controversial novel, forms the heart of this entertaining romantic comedy that, despite its central narrative of a good girl going wild being seldom (if ever) credible, manages to hit all the right satirical buttons, and tickle all the right funny bones. Iain.Stott

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The Sickie (2006)

Recommended

UK
Short Film
Director: Rupert Jones
Writers: Neil Hunter, Rupert Jones
Cinematographer: Tat Radcliffe
Cast: Toby Jones, Stuart Goodwin, David Hayler, Martin Hyder, Dominic McHale, Kate Sissons

Toby Jones’s pleasingly restrained, deadpan portrayal of a put-upon middle-manager, struggling to organise corporate hospitality for the imminent arrival of a VIP from Spain, forms the centre of this entertaining little short, in which the aforementioned stony figure resorts to the titular event when things get on top of him. Iain.Stott

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The Boss of It All (2006)

Recommended

Denmark/Iceland/Sweden/Norway/Finland/France/Germany/Italy
Feature Film
Original Title: Direktøren for det hele
Writer/Director: Lars von Trier
Cinematographer: Automavision
Cast: Jens Albinus, Peter Gantzler, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Benedikt Erlingsson, Iben Hjejle, Henrik Prip, Mia Lyhne, Casper Christensen, Louise Mieritz, Jean-Marc Barr, Sofie Gråbøl

von Trier’s frequently hilarious workplace comedy – employing the “innovative” Automavision process; a computer programme that randomly resets camera angles and sound levels (the small print in accompanying bumph would suggest that this is more of a publicity stunt than an exercise in capricious film-making) – is a cracking little allegorical farce, examining, amongst other things, the artistic process, office politics, emotional weakness, and the walls separating taste and theory from corporeality and validity. Iain.Stott

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Gregory's Girl (1981)

Highly Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Bill Forsyth
Cinematographer: Michael Coulter
Composer: Colin Tully
Cast: John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Jake D'Arcy, Clare Grogan, Robert Buchanan, Billy Greenlees, Allan Love, Caroline Guthrie, Carol Macartney, Douglas Sannachan, Allison Forster

Forsyth’s typically and delightfully inconsequential look at the lives of a group of small town Scots teenagers – following, in particular, the awkward and good natured Gregory as he attempts to find his eponymous other half – is a film that seems to get better with each passing year, as its universal themes of sexual awakening, emotional growth, and the capriciousness of adolescent affections and feelings, continue to feel enchantingly truthful and authentic. Iain.Stott

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Kontroll (2003)

Not Recommended

Hungary

Feature Film
Director: Antal Nimród

Writers: Jim Adler, Antal Nimród

Cinematographer: Pados Gyula

Composer: Neo
Cast: Csányi Sándor, Mucsi Zoltán, Pindroch Csaba, Badár Sándor, Nagy Zsolt, Mátyássy Bence, Szabó Gyözö, Balla Eszter, Nádasi László, Scherer Péter, Kovács Lajos

An opening prologue suggests that Antal’s first feature - a blackly comic look at the working lives of a group of dysfunctional, underground ticket collectors, who put their physical wellbeings on the line on a daily basis - should be read as allegory, but the film’s often flashy, lowbrow stylings would perhaps suggest otherwise; however, the film is, never the less, patchily entertaining.
Iain.Stott

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Chopper (2000)

Recommended

Australia
Feature Film
Director: Andrew Dominik
Writers: Andrew Dominik, Mark Brandon Read
Cinematographers: Geoffrey Hall, Kevin Hayward
Composer: Mick Harvey
Cast: Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, David Field, Dan Wyllie, Bill Young, Vince Colosimo, Kenny Graham, Kate Beahan, Serge Liistro

Eric Bana’s astonishing performance as the infamous, self-publicising criminal Mark “Chopper” Read, revealing the man to be a worryingly unstable, unpredictably violent, and yet strangely beguiling creature, drives this blackly comic (and fictionalised?) biopic, which proves to be as simultaneously alluring and repulsive as its larger-than-life protagonist. Iain.Stott

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Mute Witness (1994)

UK/Russia/USA/Germany
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Anthony Waller
Cinematographer: Egon Werdin
Composer: Wilbert Hirsch
Cast: Marina Zudina, Fay Ripley, Evan Richards, Oleg Yankovskiy, Igor Volkov, Sergei Karlenkov, Alec Guinness

A mute SFX/make-up artist gets locked inside a Moscow studio at the end of the day’s shooting, and stumbles upon the filming of a snuff movie, and consequently must flee for her life, in this stylish, entertaining, (silly), and often unbearably tense thriller, which unfortunately runs out of steam before the end. Iain.Stott

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How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)

Highly Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Bruce Robinson
Cinematographer: Peter Hannan
Composers: David Dundas, Rick Wentworth
Cast: Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward, Richard Wilson, Jacqueline Tong, John Shrapnel, Susan Wooldridge, Hugh Armstrong, Mick Ford, Jacqueline Pearce

Robinson’s follow-up to the "cult classic" Withnail & I (1987), an unrelenting satire of the evils of advertising, in which Grant’s successful ad-agent literally grows a second head in order to separate his malignant, professional side from his inner human being, is a blackly comic delight that will never allow you look at the world in the same way again. Iain.Stott

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White Zombie (1932)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Victor Halperin
Writer: Garnett Weston
Cinematographer: Arthur Martinelli
Composer: Xavier Cugat
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazer, John Harron, Brandon Hurst

Despite some frankly rather naff dialogue that’s often delivered with all the panache and skill of a cardboard box, this brief horror flick, detailing the nefarious acts of Lugosi’s Haiti based zombie-master, is, thanks mainly to the finesse and ingenuity with which Halperin and Martinelli fill the screen, a creepily memorable little film. Iain.Stott

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Shall We Dance (1937)

Essential Viewing

USA
Feature Film
Director: Mark Sandrich
Writers: Allan Scott, Ernest Pagano, P.J. Wolfson, Harold Buchman, Lee Loeb
Cinematographer: David Abel
Composers: George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Jerome Cowan, Ketti Gallian, William Brisbane

This Astaire-Rogers vehicle, a musical farce with songs by the Gershwins, chronicling two dancers and their managers’ attempts to variously prove and disprove a rumoured marriage aboard an ocean liner, is, with a number of unforgettable song-and-dance numbers and a couple of trouser-soilingly funny comic asides, a delight from beginning to end. Iain.Stott

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The Father, the Son and the Housekeeper (2009)

Recommended

UK/Ireland
Short Television Documentary
Director: Alison Millar
Cinematographers: Seamas McCracken, Michael Quinn
Composers: Danny Todd, Jeremy Vass
Featuring: Father Michael Cleary, Ross Hamilton

Despite a couple of questionable soundtrack choices, Millar’s documentary - a delicate depiction of superstar priest, Father Michael Cleary (coming across like a lost character from Father Ted), and his illegitimate son, Ross Hamilton (a tragically beautiful figure), which also manages to be a damning portrait of the system that forced these two people to live such disparate lives - is a revealing and moving experience. Iain.Stott

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Burn After Reading (2008)

Recommended

USA/UK/France
Feature Film
Writer/Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki
Composer: Carter Burwell
Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche, J.K. Simmons

Coming across like one of the Coens’ typical morality tales, only without the moral (a trend continued from No Country for Old Men), this cynical farce, chronicling the path-crossing misadventures of several middle-aged CIA operatives and gym workers, is a cracking little film, and the brothers’ funniest effort for quite some time. Iain.Stott

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The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1940)

Not Recommended

UK

Feature Film
Director: Thorold Dickinson
Writers: Donald Bull, Patrick Kirwan, Thorold Dickinson, Alan Hyman, Leonard Reginald Gribble
Cinematographer: Desmond Dickinson
Cast: Leslie Banks, Greta Gynt, Ian McLean, Liane Linden, Anthony Bushell, Esmond Knight, Brian Worth, Richard Norris, Wyndham Goldie, Alastair MacIntyre, George Allison

Despite the fantastic title, Dickinson’s mildly diverting murder mystery - chronicling an eccentric police inspector’s investigation of the murder of a famous amateur footballer, killed in the midst of a match against league champions Arsenal - is fairly forgettable, with Banks’s spirited performance and the casting of a number of famous footballers its only real plus points. Iain.Stott

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Les Amants (1958)

Highly Recommended

France
Feature Film

Original Title: Les amants
Director: Louis Malle
Writers: Louise de Vilmorin, Dominique Vivant
Cinematographer: Henri Decaë
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Marc Bory, Judith Magre, José Villalonga, Alain Cuny

With an extraordinary performance from Moreau, exquisite photography from Decaë, and a delightful soundtrack of Brahms, Malle’s second feature, the depiction of a love story simultaneously as alluring and repulsive as its central, titular protagonists, provides both a damning portrait of the idle rich and a beautiful, sensual apologia for their transgressions. Iain.Stott

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Water Lilies (2007)

Cautiously Recommended

France
Feature Film
Original Title: Naissance des pieuvres
Writer/Director: Céline Sciamma
Cinematographer: Crystel Fournier
Composer: Para One
Cast: Pauline Acquart, Adele Haenel, Louise Blachère, Warren Jacquin

Although it pales in comparison to Lukas Moodysson’s similarly plotted Show Me Love (1998), and Sciamma’s talents seem to lay behind the camera rather than the typewriter, and some of the performances are a little uneven (although Acquart is fantastic), this tale of adolescent longing and sexual exploration, set amongst a group of synchronised swimmers, is, never the less, affecting. Iain.Stott

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The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)

Not Recommended

UK/USA/Canada
Feature Film
Director: Tony Richardson
Writers: Tony Richardson, John Irving
Cinematographer: David Watkin
Cast: Rob Lowe, Jodie Foster, Paul McCrane, Beau Bridges, Lisa Banes, Jennie Dundas, Seth Green, Wally Aspell, Nastassja Kinski, Joely Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Matthew Modine, Wilford Brimley, Cali Timmins, Dorsey Wright

Richardson’s brave/foolish adaptation of Irving’s meandering novel – a sprawling, idiosyncratic examination of an unconventional family’s various dalliances with hoteliery, in which gang rape, incest, and suicide, amongst other unpleasant things, are presented for comic effect – is a maddeningly self-indulgent and only occasionally mildly entertaining film. Iain.Stott

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Compulsion (2009)

Best Avoided

UK
Television Film
Director: Sarah Harding
Writers: Joshua St Johnston, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley
Composer: Jennie Muskett
Cast: Parminder Nagra, Ray Winstone, Ben Aldridge, James Floyd, Sargon Yelda, Bhasker Patel, Veena Sood, Emma Campbell-Webster

Nagra’s recent Cambridge graduate begins a torrid affair with her father’s odious chauffeur (Winstone), progressing from revulsion to compulsion and conspiracy to murder, in this rather disagreeable tale about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things unpleasantly, and, if that isn‘t enough, it is also really rather silly. Iain.Stott

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Endgame (2009)

Recommended

UK/USA

Television Film
Director: Pete Travis
Writer: Paula Milne
Cinematographer: David Odd
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, William Hurt, Jonny Lee Miller, Clarke Peters, Derek Jacobi, Mark Strong, Grant Swanby, Lihle Bangani, Mike Huff, Timothy West

Despite the incongruous visual style (all crash zooms, whip pans, and awkward cuts), this uncompromising drama - chronicling the secret UK based talks between representatives of the ANC and the South African Government that helped to lead to the abolition of Apartheid - is compelling viewing, and (and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything here) has perhaps the happiest of all endings. Iain.Stott

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The Gold Rush (1942)

Not Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director/Composer: Charles Chaplin
Cinematographer: Roland Totheroh
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Georgia Hale, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite

This 1942 re-release, complete with horribly literal and rather camp narration from Chaplin himself, is something of a disaster, and should really be avoided if at all possible, but is still a mildly entertaining experience, as there are some wonderful sequences that just about survive the pointless voice-over. Iain.Stott

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Alien (1979)

Recommended

UK/USA
Feature Film
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Cinematographer: Derek Vanlint
Composer: Jerry Goldsmith
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto

With its elegant camera work, unhurried pacing, convincing effects, sumptuous sets, and impressive performances, this painfully suspenseful science-fiction/horror film, a tale of a killer alien let loose aboard a cargo ship in deep space, is something of a genre classic. Iain.Stott

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Amelie (2001)

Recommended

France/Germany
Feature Film

Original Title: Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writers: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant
Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel
Composer: Yann Tiersen
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze, Clotilde Mollet, Claire Maurier, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon

Should you be in the right frame of mind, this whimsical, child’s-eye view of Parisian life, in which Tautou’s adorable ingénue acts as karmic angel to those around her, is likely to seem every bit as delightful and life-affirming as a lover’s kiss, but should you be in a more cynical mood, Jeunet’s distinctive work is more likely to prove interminable. Iain.Stott

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Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film
Director: Otto Preminger
Writers: Wendell Mayes, Robert Traver
Cinematographer: Sam Leavitt
Composer: Duke Ellington
Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell, Eve Arden, Kathryn Grant, George C. Scott

With Leavitt’s photography and Ellington’s score being every bit as sexy as the provocative turn from Cinema’s Sexiest Actress Lee Remick, Preminger’s languorously paced court-room drama, following a murder case from initial arrest to final verdict, is not only brilliantly made and thought provokingly manipulative, but also exceedingly entertaining. Iain.Stott

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The Full Monty (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Peter Cattaneo
Writer: Simon Beaufoy
Cinematographer: John de Borman
Composer: Anne Dudley
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, Hugo Speer, Lesley Sharp, Emily Woof

Although the sanitised dialogue never quite convinces, and there’s a general lack of credibility to much of the action, there’s no denying that Cattaneo’s heartfelt tale of six unemployed steel-workers forming a stripping act in order to avoid the blues of the dole queue, is never anything less than entertaining. Iain.Stott

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A Room with a View (1985)

Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: James Ivory
Writers: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, E.M. Forster
Cinematographer: Tony Pierce-Roberts
Composer: Richard Robbins
Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day-Lewis, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Rosemary Leach, Rupert Graves

This episodic Merchant/Ivory production, an adaptation of Forster’s acclaimed novel, chronicling an ingénue’s romantic awakening against a number of idyllic backdrops in Italy and England, is a gently comic, swooningly enchanting, and beautifully observed little film. Iain.Stott

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L.A. Confidential (1997)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Curtis Hanson
Writers: Curtis Hanson, Brian Helgeland, James Ellroy
Cinematographer: Dante Spinotti
Composer: Jerry Goldsmith
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, David Strathairn, Ron Rifkin, John Mahon

James Cromwell’s baffling accent aside, this cracking thriller - a tale of corruption, sleaze, and the Hollywood nightmare - is, with its strong performances, attractive production values, and brilliantly written script, a thoroughly well made and absorbing entertainment. Iain.Stott

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Superbad (2007)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Greg Mottola
Writers: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Cinematographer: Russ Alsobrook
Composer: Lyle Workman
Cast: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Seth Rogen, Martha MacIsaac, Emma Stone

A pair of socially inept best-friends manage to snag an invite to a party, and set off into the night in search of alcohol, hoping beyond hope to finally shed their virginity, in Mottola’s riotously funny and surprisingly tender journey down well ridden roads. Iain.Stott

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The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Best Avoided

USA/Germany
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Rob Zombie
Cinematographer: Phil Parmet
Composers: Tyler Bates, Terry Reid, Rob Zombie
Cast: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, William Forsythe, Ken Foree, Matthew McGrory, Leslie Easterbrook, Geoffrey Lewis, Priscilla Barnes, Dave Sheridan, Kate Norby, Lew Temple, Danny Trejo, Dallas Page

Zombie’s sequel to House of 1000 Corpses (2003), chronicling a small town sheriff’s pursuit of a family of murderous loons, made with more skill and poetry than is typical of the genre, is a nevertheless distasteful experience, mixing scenes of physical and psychological torture with blackly comic filler to decidedly unpleasant effect. Iain.Stott

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The Muppet Movie (1979)

Recommended

USA/UK
Feature Film
Director: James Frawley
Writers: Jack Burns, Jerry Juhl
Cinematographer: Isidore Mankofsky
Composer: Paul Williams
Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Dave Goelz, Charles Durning, Austin Pendleton

By turns knowingly naff, brilliantly inspired, and quietly subversive, the Muppets’ big screen debut - a post-modern road movie filled with cracking musical numbers, starry cameos, and some fantastic gags - is a thoroughly entertaining film and is guaranteed to put a smile on the face of just about anybody. Iain.Stott

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