#16: A KNIGHT'S TALE

 

STARRING: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk, Laura Fraser, Shannyn Sossamon, Berenice Bejo and James Purefoy. Written and directed by Brian Helgeland. Budget $65 million. Running time 132 minutes. Originally released in 2001.

Has it really been 25 years since this was first released? I suppose it must be, I mean 2026 minus 25 is 2001, so yes it really has been a quarter of a century since this first graced our silver screens. But has time been good to it, or does it now look decidedly silly and dated? On first release it only managed a paltry 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it did take in a worldwide box office of $117.5 million, so you know, mix bag, mix bag, some sort of chicken-like dinner. 

An amusing side note, the film gained notoriety back in 2001, when it was revealed that the film posters featuring glowing reviews from critic David Manning of The Ridgefield Press. Trouble was, he didn't exist he was created by a member of the Columbia advertising department.  

And so, what of the film itself? Well, first off, I've never seen this at the cinema, before, back then it didn't appeal to me, I've only ever seen bits of it, mostly the ending on TV, so when it turned up on my local Cineworld schedule, I thought I'd give it a go. As far as I remembered it's mostly remembered for it's fantastically anachronistic soundtrack and obviously Heath Ledger, who'd go on to die seven years later, just after finishing The Dark Knight, thus sealing his reputation for all time as a proto-type Chris Hemsworth.

The plot, set in 14th Century medieval Europe sees peasant, Willian Thatcher (Heath Ledger) steal the identity, and armour, of a dead Knight so he can take part in jousting tournaments, while committing fraud and dating scams across Europe, while PTSD suffering, Count Adhemar of Anjou, (Rufus Sewell) does his best to bring him to justice. 

It's a savvy idea to mix contemporary music, attitudes, fashions and blacksmithing techinques into a period of history best know for the Black Death, misery, and unbelievable poverty. Brian Helgeland, who not only wrote and directed this, but also produced single handedly carries the can. Sure he delivers some meaty, solid and jarring jousting matches, lots of them, I mean if you like watching men in armour shoving other men in armour off their armoured horses with exploding lances then this is most certainly your film! Sadly for me, after a while they all blurred into one, plus it's hard to work out who's who beneath all that fake modern armour. The plot is fun, it's got baddies, heroes, romance, and action but it never really ignites, it fizzles but never bursts.

William changes from scene to scene, at one point a poignant and poetic romantic, the next as petulant bore, he's intelligent and then stupid, agile and clumsy whenever the plot needs him to be. It's not a terrible film, it was entertaining but ultimately nothing more than that. 

And the one good thing in it's favour is that it's the answer to a great Pub Quiz film question. 

"WHAT FILM FEATURED THE VISION, THE JOKER AND SOLOMON KANE?"

7/10

#15: SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

 

STARRING: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn and Ted Levine. Screenplay by Ted Tally based on the book by Thomas Harris. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Budget $19 million. Running time 118 minutes. Originally released in 1991. 

Trainee FBI agent Clarice Sterling (Jodie Foster) is called in by the Head of Behavioural Science, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) to help him investigate a series of serial killings carried out by a killer called Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Crawford sends her off to interview the legendary, personal friend of Donald J. Trump, Hannibal Lecter (Sir Anthony Hopkins) a.k.a Hannibal the Cannibal. And so begins the utterly gripping, atmospheric and Oscar winning Silence of the Lambs, a film much copied but seldom bettered, and the film that successfully launched Hollywood's super-intelligent serial killer genre. 

The film was a huge success both financially, critically and also went on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, making it only the third film in movie history to achieve this incredible feat.

Described as a psychological horror thriller film, Silence of the Lambs is a truly impressive film, serious, sombre and utterly engrossing, but also bloody entertaining, gripping and scary! Jonathan Demme directs his cast face first, with the actors looking and talking directly into the camera, which gives the film a surprisingly intimate and personal connection that works brilliantly, it makes you feel as if you and Starling are interviewing Hannibal in the basement of hospital together. The film is unfussy and brilliantly directed and feels like a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The cast is outstandingly good too, not just Jodie Foster, who's simply superb, but everyone, even the bit parts, like legendary director Roger Corman. The music by Howard Shore gives the film an uneasy edge that just enhances the tension brilliantly. 

There's also something that is much more significant today than it was when first made, and that's the way Starling is treated, throughout the whole film, she is constantly battling outdated male attitudes towards her, and is often the only woman in the scene, apart from her Quantico fellow student, she's battling the system and it gives the film yet another level, or edge. 

Not seen this at the cinema since it was released and it was an utter joy to see it again on the big screen. 

There are people who over the years take a pompus attitude towards the film and say, about Anthony Hopkins, that Brian Cox was a better Hannibal, well I'm here to tell them they are utterly wrong, Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor and creates in his version of Hannibal one of the greatest screen monsters ever!

Anyway, enough waffle. This was brilliant, if you haven't seen it, drop everything and go and see it while it's on at the cinema, cos it's the best way to see films.

10/10 

 

#14: SEND HELP

 

STARRING: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. Directed by Sam Raimi. Budget $40 million. Running time 115 minutes.

In a nutshell the plot of this couldn't be simpler, socially awkward, but fantastic at her job as a strategist for some sort of financial company, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) and her horrible, entitled, arrogant and deeply bullying new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O'Brien) find themselves shipwrecked on a beautiful desert island in the Gulf of Thailand after a plane-crash. What follows is a 21st Century remake of The Admirable Crichton but far more psychological, gory, and fantastically intense. Oh, and funny, cos this is the darkest comedy I've seen in a long time.  

The plot of Send Help most certainly isn't new, the idea of social status reversing due to location and situation, but in the hands of Sam Raimi it's never been this intense, gory, or as entertaining. McAdams seems to revel in her role as Liddle, who comes to life on the island using her survival skills (she's a keen 'outdoors person', and dreams of being a contestant on Survivors), from nerdy, clumsy, and and awkward, to a confident, powerful and more than capable, Linda thrives on the island and quickly becomes the person she was always meant to be. While, on the other hand, O'Brien's Bradly is a fish-out-of-water, hating every grain of sand of the beautiful island and longing to get back to his pampered corporate life, his trophy fiancee and his beloved golf courses. He hates Linda and as their dynamic changes that hatred grows stronger. However, due to an horrible injury he suffered due to the plane crash, his very survival depends on Linda. 

The power dynamic see-saws as their survival fortunes ebb and flow, tensions rise leading to an exhilarating final act. With plot twists galore, a clever, witty script and some seriously game performances, this was an absolute hoot and had me wincing, yelping, and roaring with laughter, along with the audience. Indeed it's been a while since I heard an audience so invested in a film. There are many scenes you'll watch through your fingers and Sam Raimi expertly nails the landing, despite a nervous tonal shift in the final act that threatens to sink the whole affair. Luckily, Raimi knows what he's doing and steers the ship away from the rocks. It's been four years since we had a Raimi film and it's great to see him back doing something small and horror based again, rather than a big budget Hollywood blockbuster.  

A wonderfully gory, exciting and funny little romp and I was thoroughly entertained!

9/10

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#13: MELANIA

STARRING: Melania Trump. Directed by Brett Ratner. Budget $47 million. Running time 104 miserable minutes. 

The plot to this fly-on-the-wall mock-umentary follows Melania Trump (the world, and history's most success trophy wife) over 20 days back in 2025 leading up to the inauguration of her husband, the orange-faced, pedo-protector, convicted felon, insurrection-instigator, sexual predator, failed business man, and worst President e-ver, Donald J. Trump. The camera slavishly follows her, ogling her killer heels shoes, lusting after her perfectly coloured & coiffured hair, simpering over her permanently smoky made-up eyes, and positively drooling over her pouty pinched mouth. From the genuinely hideous Trump Tower in NYC, where every square inch is either gold, marble or mirror and gaudy beyond belief, although the view's nice. Then on to Mar-a-Largo, not as much gold but just as tacky. We get to watch Melania as she meets a series of grovelling lackies and 'designs' her outfits, picks carpets, wall fabrics, and furniture for her White House take-over, then styles every aspect of the coming inauguration ball, from the gold-leaf toilet paper to the army of arse lickers eager to clean the orange fool's huge fat arse. Throughout the whole film, Melania glides around on castors dispensing vizdom on a vide range of subjects, from orphans, to Hamas hostages, to der children. She teaches world-class experts in their fields how to be better and she fawns over her freakishly tall son, Baron, who according to this film is the only child that Donnie seems to have, as so little mention of the other spawn of his loins is made. 

All we get, endlessly, is her telling us vat a vonderful humanitarian she is, how much she loves her dead mother, and fantastic her son Baron is, how vunderful is family and her husband is too, and just how lucky she is to be so very talented at everything. We get to spend much time with her, as she changes outfits every scene and sunglasses, we get to see her interacting vid der little people who run her life so perfectly, ve get to zee her mourning her dead mother at a private little pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, which has been specially cleared of people so she can sashay up the isle and light a candle. Ve are told how much she loves everybody and ve get to see the staff of the White House and Mar-Largo and I found myself wondering what they must look like after ICE.

This film is an afront to all that is decent, the music made up of a veritable list of well-known pop stars and pop music include 'Who Wants to Rule the World', by Tear for Fears and that other well-known peado, Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. We get to see the sheer opulence of the Trump world, everything tacky and gold and  everything disgustingly gauche. Because this is right back in the beginning of his second presidency, everyone we see seems to have a semi-lob-on for that stinking sac of orange shit. They love him, although this is before the abhorrent ICE raids that saw the deaths of two people, the splitting up of family through deportations, the naked avarice, the open greed of the Trump presidency and the absolute contempt for foreign countries, international law and just good old fashioned common decency. 

This film is a fantastic reminder of just what a hateful, petty, spiteful, and shit the fake orange-faced, small-handed president really is. He gloating over Biden then pathetically patting him on the back in a shallow show of support. Trump waddles through this all, vindictive and eager for retribution, he can't wait to start sowing seeds of destruction, but we don't get to see any of that, the film mercifully ends with one last peek of her high heels before a sickening final series of captions tell us what a fucking saint she is and how much she's achieved, and how wonderful her freakishly tall son is. 

And through it all Epstein acolyte and accused sexual predator, Brett Rayner, directs with all the subtly of a porn film, as he oggles every inch of his 'star', listen carefully and you can hear his drool-filled mouth muttering fawning appreciations of his Slavic heroine. 

This film tries hard to position the Dump Dynasty as some sort of royalty fawned over by other world leaders and sycophantic worshippers, but scratch the surface and all you get is shit. One of the things you realise watching this, is that at no point does Melania ever actually interact with ordinary human beings, she lives completely isolated inside her sickeningly gilded cage, whisked from Dump Towers by limo to a private Dump jet to another limo and then to Mar-a-Lago, or driven in a motorcade to some city location before being driven home. She doesn't do anything remotely normal, by Christ she can't even dress herself without help and I doubt she even knows how to boil a kettle, let alone where the kitchen is. This whole film is the purest form of an empty experience, for she has nothing to offer beyond the glamour and opulence. How anyone thought that a country as ridden with bread-line existence as America would react well to something so filled with hubris and greed and that cost $75 million dollars to make is beyond me. The fact Bezos spent so much trying to humanise these parasites is despicable. 

Also, I can imagine that a lot of Dumpy's MAGA supporters are going to be truly upset when they realise his wife is just another immigrant stealing jobs from Americans, although in this case it's a job no American clearly wanted. 

This was a hideous, miserable, fawning spectacle that gives us nothing new but shows the world just how naked and hateful the avarice filled world that Melania and Dump inhabit truly is. 

1/10

   

#12: SHELTER

 

STARRING: JASON STATHAM, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie and Daniel Mays. Written by Ward Parry. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Running time 107 minutes.

It's time for The Stath's new action movie! Nothing new there you might think, he's been releasing new action films every year for almost 25 years. However what is new is the formula! Last year the Stath played Levon Cade an ex-Marine, and one-man killing machine, who was working as construction site labourer, in 2023 he was Adam Clay a bee-keeper who just so happened to be an ex-government one-man killing machine, and in 2021 he was a one-man killing machine, who worked as a security guard. This year, he's a lighthouse keeper who used to be the world's greatest one-man killing machine. See, real change! He's working in light house!

Actually, this one is different from the rest, perhaps because The Stath is getting older, but it feels more grounded, more weary. His portrayal of its hero, Mason as a man carrying the woes of the world on his shoulders, he's weary, he's insanely stoic but he's living his life in a state of permanent fear. He feels vulnerable. 

The story sees Mason forced to end his self-imposed exile as a lighthouse keeper when Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), an orphaned teenage girl who delivers his groceries, gets ship-wrecked on his outer Hebridean Island following a storm and suffers a nasty ankle injury that gets infected. This forces Mason to go to the mainland in search of medicine and accidentally getting his retina scanned by a CCTV, which  in doing so triggers a variety of government kill squads and assassins who are all determined to kill him for something he's done in the past. What that something is has something to do with Manafort (Bill Nighy) who used to run M.I.6. but who now operates a covert government-sanctioned kill squad utilising the world's CCTV capabilities. Then it's bloodbath time as Mason and Jessie are forced to go on the run while Mason finds a way to save his young charge.

Filmed in and around the UK gives this an all-together different feel and helps to ground the film, making it feel far more real than last year's rather turgid Working Man, similarly Mason isn't your usual Statham hero, he's jaded and more real than the others, more grounded. Although he still has that fantastic ability to shrug off gunshot wounds and stabbings and takes a beating that would kill lesser men.

Look, no beating round the bush (not a pun), this is another by-the-numbers, Ronsil-style action movie, it references John Wick at times but it's not a gun orgy, the fights are short and brutal. Sure, The Stath does his usual hard-hitting kicks and punches but it looks plausible. The fight scenes are frantic and very kenetic. It's more than competently directed by Ric Roman Waugh, a former stunt man and director of Angel Has Fallen who knows his way round a fight scene and that certainly helps in spades! And through it all Mason becomes human again and that gives this film something that The Stath's films don't usually have, heart. 

It's a film that doesn't out stay its welcome, it's a compact, action romp that actually rather entertaining and more grounded than most, and it has an emotional core that really rather sweet. And I enjoyed it greatly! Most satisfying.

7/10

#11: PRIMATE

 

STARRING: Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander and Troy Kotsur. Written by Johnanes Roberts and Ernest Riera. Directed by Johnanes Roberts. Budget $24 million. Running time 89 minutes. Certificate 18!

A group of victims - comprising one vet, one deaf author who's also the father of two of the four girls, one handsome young man, and two random boys, whom the girls meet on the flight to Hawaii and invited over for a drinking and sex-party all end up in a cliff-top villa with an infinity pool all promptly become the soon-to-be victims of a man in a monkey suit pretending to be a chimpanzee with rabies. Much hilarity ensues as the bloke in the suit lumbers around the place offing teenagers, ripping off faces, biting chunks out of them, breaking fingers, smashing skulls, and generally not being a good boy. 

Offering nothing new to the tired genre of teenagers getting killed by somebody, save for the conceit that it's a bloke in a monkey suit doing the killing, while pretending he's been bitten by a rabid mongoose and thereby suffering from Rabies, which as we all know turns you into an almost superhuman, supernatural being able to come back to life for one more go, even though he's quite clearly dead. And which also means the victim of Rabies becomes phobic about water leading most of the cast to get in the pool to wait things out, only getting out constantly to progress the plot and provide victims for the ape-suited killer.

Not much to say about this really, there's the occasional jump scare, which always makes me tut, some gruesome deaths, the best in a bed will have you squirming, and the rest are gorily unpleasant. The cast, or at least their characters all deserve death, so that's fun, watching them die horribly. Continuity takes a holiday at times during the proceedings when it's needed to make sure this thing stays on the tracks. Characters avoid saying things or doing things that could help them, and injuries are only obstacles when needed and can be ignored if necessary - like broken hands, blood loss, broken ribs, skulls and/or limbs. Thankfully, the ending trundles into view briskly and you realise it's only taken 90 minutes of your life. 

Not the worst thing I've ever seen.

6/10

Actually, come to think of it, maybe it wasn't a man in a suit, maybe it was supposed to be a monkey with Rabies, but it was being played by a bloke in a monkey suit. That might explain why he was living in a cage in the garden. The monkey I mean, not the man in the monkey suit. Unless of course he's a method actor. 

#10: WILD AT HEART

 

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton and Crispin Glover. Written and directed David Lynch. Based on the book, Wild at Heart by Barry Gifford. Music by Angelo Badalamenti. Budget $10 million. Running time 124 minutes. Originally released in 1990.

Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) leaves prison after serving two years for man-slaughter, to reconnect with his teenage lover Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Their relationship is raw, passionate, all consuming and forbidden by Lula's mother Marietta (Diane Ladd) who lusts after her daughter's lover. Skipping bail, the two young troubled lovers head south while Marietta sends a couple of killers to kill him and bring her home. 

Like Lynch's previous film, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart is another Neo-Noir crime movie, one filtered through a fever-induced nightmare by means of the Wizard of Oz, it's a film so pure, so raw, so infused with relentless energy that it positively vibrates with power, it's a film staggering sexy, and seemingly obsessed with cigarettes, smoking and the mechanics of lighting said fags. It's filled with violence, and has a quality unsettling and sinister, although this is not as dream-like as Eraser Head, Blue Velvet or his later films, Lynch brings a sense of fantasy to the film with the Wizard of Oz playing a strange part in the proceedings. Through it all stride Cage and Dern taking no prisoners, shinning brilliantly and committing to their roles 100%. Likewise Willem Dafoe is positively mesmerising as the twisted Bobby Peru bringing true malevolence to the role.

A strange intense film that roars with passion and energy but doesn't quite stick the landing, Cage feels uncorked at times and there's a sense of nasty misogyny that permeates proceedings. Ultimately there's just too much of everything, sex, violence, dancing, music and smoking, so much smoking. 

8/10