Marnie (1964)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: Jay Presson Allen, Winston Graham

Cinematographer: Robert Burks

Composer: Bernard Herrmann

Cast: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Louise Latham, Martin Gabe, Bruce Dern

Hitchcock’s troubling film – in which a serial thief (Hedren, excellent) is blackmailed into marriage by one of her victims, despite her evident psycho-sexual problems – is one of his bleakest, most ambitious efforts but, perhaps due to Connery’s rather lightweight turn, it never quite reaches the heights of his best work. Iain.Stott

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All the President's Men (1976)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Writers: William Goldman, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

Cinematographer: Gordon Willis

Composer: David Shire

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook

Based on the book by the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, detailing their uncovering of a government conspiracy, involving a break-in at the national headquarters of the Democrats, which lead, ultimately, to the resignation of Richard Nixon from the post of president of the United States of America, this expertly crafted, beautifully-paced film, boasting exemplary performances and excellent dialogue, is a Hollywood thriller of the first order. Iain.Stott

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Rumble Fish (1983)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Writers: Francis Ford Coppola, S.E. Hinton

Cinematography: Stephen H. Burum

Composer: Stewart Copeland

Cast: Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper, Vincent Spano, Nicolas Cage, William Smith

Burum’s dreamy black and white photography and Copeland’s incredible, disquieting score give Coppola’s second collaboration with S.E. Hinton (after the disappointing The Outsiders) a decidedly surreal feel, and as such its tale of teenaged gangs and knife fights, revolving around the return of the mythical figure of The Motorcycle Boy, is strangely sensual and melancholically attractive in its fatalism. Iain.Stott

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Medium Cool (1969)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Haskell Wexler

Composer: Mike Bloomfield

Cast: Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, Marianna Hill, Harold Blankenship

Renowned cinematographer Wexler’s feature directorial debut, which manages to blur the line between documentary and fiction to an unsettling degree, culminating in some remarkable scenes from the riots outside of the 1968 democratic convention, follows a handsome young news cameraman around the mean streets of Chicago, where he encounters political activists of all colours and creeds. Iain.Stott

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Adaptation (2002)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Spike Jonze

Writers: Charlie Kaufman, Donald Kaufman, Susan Orlean

Cinematographer: Lance Acord

Composer: Carter Burwell

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Brian Cox, Judy Greer, Ron Livingston

Providing a funny and perceptive commentary on Hollywood, the film industry, and the artistic process, this clever (in all senses of the word) second collaboration between Jonze and Kaufman, in which a fictionalised Kaufman (played by Cage) attempts, valiantly, to adapt a non-fiction book about an orchid collector into a feature film script without Hollywood style embellishments, is as distinctive and original as its predecessor, Being John Malkovich (1999). Iain.Stott

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Gummo (1997)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Harmony Korine

Cinematographer: Jean-Yves Escoffier

Cast: Jacob Reynolds, Nick Sutton, Jacob Sewell, Darby Dougherty, Chloë Sevigny, Carisa Glucksman

Korine’s directorial debut occasionally veers dangerously close to freak show territory, but while its depiction of the aimless lives of the inhabitants of a dying small town may be off-putting/mirth-inducing to typical bourgeois sensibilities, these same people are drawn with enough humanity and care to inspire sympathy and/or empathy, with the overall effect of the film being strangely moving and even rather beautiful. Iain.Stott

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Chicken Ranch: A Legal Brothel in Nevada (1983)

Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Documentary

Director: Nick Broomfield

Cinematographer: Sandi Sissel

Chicken Ranch is an entertaining and enlightening look at life inside of the world famous Nevada brothel, Chicken Ranch – where the women work for three weeks at a time, unable to leave their rather unnatural confines – examining the personal and professional relationships of those within. Iain.Stott

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Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies (2004)

Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Director: Danny Leiner

Writers: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg

Cinematographer: Bruce Douglas Johnson

Composer: David Kitay

Cast: John Cho, Kal Penn, David Krumholtz, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Paula Garcés, Steve Braun, Christopher Meloni, Malin Akerman, Neil Patrick Harris, Gary Anthony Williams

Though rather juvenile and often very, very silly, Leiner’s stoner comedy – depicting the misadventures of a pair of Asian-Americans experiencing the munchies, who set out into the night on a quest to find a White Castle restaurant – is, never the less, also very, very funny, and, in its depiction of cultural roles and the influence of advertising and popular culture, it is also deceptively perceptive. Iain.Stott

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Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Recommended

Denmark/Finland/France/Germany/Iceland/Italy/The Netherlands/Norway/Sweden/UK/USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Lars von Trier

Cinematographer: Robby Müller

Composer: Björk

Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Cara Seymour, Jean-Marc Barr, Siobhan Fallon

von Trier’s polarising, excellently acted provocation – a bleak tale of maternal martyrdom with brief, Björky musical interludes, in which the aforementioned mother, a Czech immigrant with rapidly deteriorating eyesight, struggles to cope in small town America, as she strives to save enough money for an operation for her precious son – is a powerful, often painful work, but a rewarding one none the less. Iain.Stott

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Zombie Honeymoon (2004)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: David Gebroe

Cinematographer: Ken Seng

Composer: Michael Tremante

Cast: Tracy Coogan, Graham Sibley, Tonya Cornelisse, David M. Wallace, Neal Jones

A sexy, young, unconventional, just married couple set off for the seaside in the hopes of an idyllic honeymoon; unfortunately, on their first day at the beach, a lumbering zombie climbs out of the ocean and vomits blood all over the groom, who subsequently dies and comes back to life, only he’s no longer a vegetarian, in Gebroe’s entertaining, well acted (by the two leads, at least; Coogan is particularly excellent), and surprisingly moving (no, really!) zombie romance. Iain.Stott

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Jaws (1975)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb

Cinematographer: Bill Butler

Composer: John Williams

Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

Spielberg’s ridiculously popular film – depicting a small island tourist resort’s chief of police’s attempts to battle greed, corruption, and a bloody big shark – is a thriller of mixed quality; the film’s performances are generally good, but Shaw’s mannered turn sticks out like a saw thumb compared to Scheider and Dreyfuss’s more refined, naturalistic performances, and Williams’s rather unsophisticated score can wear after a while, but the film is generally diverting, often entertaining, and by-and-large well made. Iain.Stott

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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jonathan Demme

Writers: Ted Tally, Thomas Harris

Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto

Composer: Howard Shore

Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith

Hopkins’s performance hasn’t aged well at all, particularly when measured against Levine’s subtly creepy turn, but this film – once Hannibal the Cannibal’s cheesiness is put on the backburner – is an absolutely cracking thriller, with a seldom better Foster producing a magnetic performance, and Demme wowing us with his eye-catching yet refined direction. Iain.Stott

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Ace in the Hole (1951)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels, Billy Wilder

Cinematographer: Charles B. Lang Jr.

Composer: Hugo Friedhofer

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Bob Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, Richard Benedict, Ray Teal, Lewis Martin, John Berkes

Douglas’s down-on-his-luck, slumming, formerly renowned journalist stumbles upon a potential big story when a small town man becomes trapped by a cave-in, which the unscrupulous scribbler then strives to drag out for as long as possible, in Wilder’s cynical portrait of cynicism, which brilliantly presents an unrelentingly bleak account of mankind. Iain.Stott

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About Schmidt (2002)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Alexander Payne

Writers: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, Louis Begley

Cinematographer: James Glennon

Composer: Rolfe Kent

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney

A couple of sentimental moments aside, this melancholically funny road movie – in which Nicholson’s recently retired, recently widowed former insurance executive sets off for his daughter’s wedding in Denver, taking the scenic route in his brand new Winnebago – is a bitter-sweet comedy of rare refinement and intelligence. Iain.Stott

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Searchers 2.0 (2007)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Alex Cox

Cinematographer: Steven Fierberg

Composer: Dan Wool

Cast: Del Zamora, Ed Pansullo, Jaclyn Jonet, Sy Richardson, Zahn McClarnon

Two ageing actors (Cox regulars Zamora and Pansullo) plus the daughter of one of them (the delightful Jonet) pile into an SUV and head for Monument Valley in order to gain vengeance upon a tyrannical screenwriter (Richardson), who beat them when they were child actors on a film that he was involved with, all the while, discussing films, politics, cinema, movies, and more films, in Cox’s inventively and entertainingly rough-and-ready road movie-cum-faux western. Iain.Stott

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Carrie (1976)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Brian De Palma

Writers: Lawrence D. Cohen, Brian De Palma

Cinematographer: Mario Tosi

Composer: Pino Donaggio

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, John Travolta

Carrie White (an outstanding Spacek), the product of a repressed upbringing at the hands of her deranged, fanatical Christian mother, a late bloomer, gets invited to the senior prom by the handsome, charismatic athlete Tommy Ross, but not all of her classmates wish her the dream night that she deserves, in De Palma’s viscerally entertaining horror film, which comes across like a remake of Psycho (1960) and American Graffiti (1973) directed by David Hamilton. Iain.Stott

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The Nutty Professor (1963)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jerry Lewis

Writers: Jerry Lewis, Bill Richmond

Cinematographer: W. Wallace Kelley

Composer: Walter Scharf

Cast: Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Howard Morris, Elvia Allman

Lewis’s comic take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll & Hyde - in which Lewis’s timid, geeky science lecturer invents a potion that changes him into a brash, obnoxious, testosterone-dripping buffoon… whom everyone loves!?! – proves to be a gaudy, manic, delightfully satirical, and often quite hilarious look at contemporary social values. Iain.Stott

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Faces (1968)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: John Cassavetes

Cinematographer: Al Ruban

Cast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery

Cassavetes’s return to independent film-making after a mildly successful if rather unhappy flirtation with Hollywood – an intense, vital, and thoroughly authentic feeling portrait of unhappy, dysfunctional, alcohol-soaked lives – is, with its outstanding performances and improvisatory aesthetic, a powerful, painful, and quite brilliant masterpiece. Iain.Stott

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29 Palms (2002)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

DTV Film

Director: Leonardo Ricagni

Writer: Tino Lucente

Cinematographer: Horacio Maira

Composer: Mario Grigorov

Cast: Jeremy Davies, Rachael Leigh Cook, Michael Rapaport, Chris O'Donnell, Jon Polito, G. Paul Davis a.k.a Litefoot, Russell Means, Keith David, Bill Pullman

Uruguayan Ricagni’s picaresque American debut - a convoluted yet amusing tale of greed, chance, and coincidence, set in the titular small town, revolving around a much sought after bag of money, depicting the misadventures of a group of rogues, misfits, and chancers - proves to be a shamefully entertaining, easily forgettable piece of nonsense. Iain.Stott

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Twentynine Palms (2003)

Highly Recommended

France/USA/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Bruno Dumont

Cinematographer: Georges Lechaptois

Cast: Katia Golubeva, David Wissak

Dumont’s polarising, deliberately paced provocation - a sensual, intriguing, and almost incident free journey through the Mojave desert, mixing scenes of (very noisy) sex, misfiring communication, and plenty of (rather gorgeous) sand-gazing - is a work that most people will hate, and even those that admire it will find it hard to like, but I doubt that anybody who manages to make it all the way through to the end will ever be able to forget it (though they may wish to.) Iain.Stott

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