Film Reviews 2020

 

Film of the year and best war film - 1917 – Epic!  Amazing single take at the start.  That Sam Medes thinks he’s dead clever, doesn’t he? (Prime)

Best comedy – A Personal History of David Copperfield – Genuinely funny, excellent cast, as you’d expect from Iannucci.  (Prime)

Best Musical - Cabaret - Had forgotten how great this film is and that we had a posh BFI freebie from back when newspapers used to give away discs. (DVD)

Most re-made music drama - A Star is Born - Lady Gaga very good (well, who wasn’t better than Streisand but not as good as Garland) as too was Bradley Cooper as drunken has-been.  Not enough songs.  This film has now been made 5 times! (Prime)

Best Noir - Terminal - Interesting effort by Margot Robbie.  Stylish and twisty. (Prime)

Worst Brad Pitt - The Dark Side of the Sun -  a very young Mr. Pitt debuts as boy with weird skin disease meeting lovely actress.  Set in Yugoslavia thus showing its age.  Rather fond of fighting and drink driving round those parts. (DVD)

Best Shakespeare-derived - Ophelia – Colin Farrell excels as evil king. (Netflix)

Most mixed genres - King of the Travellers - 2 Irish traveller families feud.  Funny start, went a bit western, then ended up as Romeo & Juliet.  Great song by Johnny Cash: ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’. (Prime)

Best suspense drama - Go With Me - Anthony Hopkins helps a young woman track nasty Ray Liotta.  Good but lots of unexplained stuff such as why the sheriff didn’t help her and why Hopkins was so keen to catch the bad man. (Prime)

Best Spike Lee Joint - Da 5 Bloods - Old Vietnam vets go back to find body of their fallen comrade and gold, with inevitable results. Good use of old footage and Trump jokes but Inevitably preachy at the end. (Netflix). 

Best Melodrama - The Artist - Black and white, mostly silent, funny, and wonderful acting dog. (DVD)

Best Western - Lonesome Dove - True tale of preacher’s ambition to build a church. (Prime)

Best Spy - Black Book - Jewish woman joins Dutch resistance, accused of spying for the Nazis. Good, twisty story.  Made Dutch look as bad as the Nazis; interesting as it’s by Paul Verhoeven. (Prime)

Close second - Despite the Snow - Story of Russian woman spying for America interspersed with modern day ancestor finding out what happened to her. (Prime)

Best teen - Enola Holmes - Entertaining tale of younger sister of Sherlock.  Possible TV pilot. (Netflix)

Daftest action - Rambo Last Blood - Thin, predictable storyline. The Rambo goes to rescue his not-daughter, with inevitable results. (Prime)

Glitziest - The Aeronauts - First balloonists to get above the clouds.  Loosely based on a true story, female lead  an amalgam of 2 actual women.  Felicity Jones very funny in the role. (Prime)

Most intelligent Statham - Redemption (Aka Hummingbird) - wondered anew why he didn’t do more stuff like this. (Prime)

Best sequel - Angel Has Fallen - best in the franchise by far, possibly due to Nick Nolte as jaded Vietnam vet who springs into action. (Prime)

Best disaster - Skyscraper - Dwayne as ex-soldier having to save family from mile-high skyscraper on fire.  An updated Towering Inferno but fun. (Netflix).

Best Psychological Thriller - The Devil All The Time – based on book by Donald Ray Pollock, in the vein of Cormack McCarthy.  Best quote: “some people are born to be buried.”  (Netflix)

Most pointless remake - Rebecca - Ben Wheatley manages to make it less spooky than the original. (Netflix) 

Best of the Rest

Comedy

Second best comedy - The Story of Fire Saga - hilarious!  Tons of cameos from actual Eurovision contestants, fantastic fake songs and great research on Icelandic folklore; un sure what Icelanders made of it! (Netflix)

Best Shakespeare-related - Bill - Lute-player seeks fortune in London. (Prime)

Most mayhem - The Baytown Outlaws - Ne’er do wells rescue a boy in a wheelchair, with attendant mayhem, car chases and shoot ups. (Prime)

Cleverest - 5 Greedy Bankers - imaginative low budget Brit Flick. Hilarious turn by Pippa Heywood, good use of cheap locations and props, great music, some good old-fashioned slapstick and several laugh-out-loud moments. (Prime)

Best caper - The Captor (aka Stockholm) - story of daftest heist in history, from where term ‘Stockholm syndrome’ comes; actually a misnomer; she was just glad to meet someone in Sweden who wasn’t totally boring and conformist! (Prime)

Best Welsh - The Baker - hitman hides in Welsh village, ends up as a baker. (Prime)

Quirkiest - Blow The Man Down - 2 girls in small coastal Maine town try to cover up a crime leading to uncovering others. (Prime)

Best Hugh Grant - The Gentlemen - Grant channelling Michael Caine in typical Guy Ritchie caper. Excellent routines from The Toddlers. (Prime)

Best old men - Going with Style.  Gentle comedy wherein old blokes cheated out of pensions do a bank robbery.  Lovely acting and good cameos. (Netflix)

True Life/Biopic

Best court-room - The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Well-told story of anti-Vietnam war activists accused of starting riots. (Netflix)

Most shocking - Dark Waters - How Dupont poisoned us all with Teflon. Terrifying!  Enough to make you join the tin-foliers! (Prime)

Best girl power- Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl – Indian film about first female fighter pilot, battling chauvinism all the way. (Netflix)

Second best - Hidden Figures - Amazing Black women at NASA.  A bit cheesy but good.  (Film 4)

Best Nazis - Good - Writer given job of justifying eugenics.  Rises up the ranks despite misgivings. (Prime)

Best Christian - The Meanest Man in Texas - Young man gets sentenced to death row for murder he was only partly responsible for.  Finds love and redemption.  Good apart from the Jesus message. (Prime)

Best Space - Skywalker - Russian tale of first man to do a spacewalk.  Entertaining and exciting. (Prime)

Pedestrian second - First Man – A boring Neil Armstrong. but some good imagery and background on the Gemini Project. (Netflix)

Best maniac - The Professor and the Madman - Mel Gibson gets help writing the first OED from psycho Sean Penn. (Prime)

Close second - Mad to be Normal - David Tennant convincing as the maverick RD Laing. (Prime)

Best German - Balloon - 2 families try to escape East Germany.  But why? You may well ask. (Prime)

Best French - The Emperor of Paris -  about Francois Vidocq, who effectively invented forensics during the Napoleonic era.  Good sets, costumes and fight scenes. (Prime)

Best American - The Great Debaters - Denzel  in true tale of African-American debating team beating waspy whites at Harvard. (Prime)

Best inter-War - The Exception - Kaiser Vs. Nazis.  Excellent turn by Chris Plummer. Gripping. (Prime)

Best 9/11 - Shock and Awe - Tale of the only press agency to dig out the truth about WMD. Very educational and excellent cast. (Prime)

Close second - The (Blank) Report - how the CIA covered up torture after 9/11, investigator spends years finding the evidence on behalf of a senator. (Prime).

War

Craziest - Midway – True story of decisive naval Pacific battle.  So crazy it’s hard to believe. (Prime)

Best low budget - Lancaster Skies - British film that could have been made just after WWII.  Low-key, low-budget claustrophobic feel reminiscent of Neville Shute. (Prime)

Best imitation of the ‘A’ team - Rogue Warfare trilogy – Although number 2 is quite slow, it picks up again in number 3. Could there be a number 4?

Best Korean War - Operation Chromite - Yanks vs commies at Incheon.  Liam Neeson a joy as General MacArthur with corn husk pipe!  (Prime)

Best Spanish Civil War - There Be Dragons – 2 childhood friends drift apart to opposite sides during Spanish Civil War.  Prague stood in for Madrid, making a big mess of Wenceslaus square! (Prime)

Best Middle East - 12 Strong – Jerry Bruckenheimer telling of special forces hooking up with a warlord against Taliban in Afghanistan.  I reflected that’s what led to the war in the first place. (Netflix)

Best Norwegian - The Bird Catcher - Jewish girl disguised as boy hides out with family on farm, subsequently occupied by Nazis.  Gorgeous scenery and good story but weird murder/suicide shooting scene. Lead actress had amazing eyes! (Prime)

Best Irish - The Wind That Shakes The Barley - A young Cillian Murphy in fictionalisation events leading up to Irish partition.  Explained the background politics really well. (Prime)

Best Post-war - The Song of Names - Man searches for childhood wartime friend who’s lost and regained his faith and learnt the song of names.  Incredibly moving. (Netflix)

Best Cold War - The Coldest Game - Aged professor and ex chess grandmaster gets roped into a game in Warsaw as part of a complicated spy scheme amidst Cuban missile crisis. Good turn by Bill Pullman. (Netflix)

Crime

Best - The True Story of the Kelly Gang - NOT a true story of Ned Kelly, but really good Australian effort with men in large beards and dresses. (Prime)

Most predictable - The Judge - Son defends dad who is a judge on trial for murder.  Set in gorgeous little town of Sherburne Falls.  Good characters, especially grumpy old git Robert Duvall. 

Most action - The Courier - Ex-military courier kicks ass to protect witness to heinous crime. (Netflix)

Best sequel - Equalizer 2 - Denzel in top action mode.  Much better than the first one. (Netflix)

Best homage - Knives out - Parody of Agatha Christie whodunnit in large country house. Funny, entertaining and good cast but Dan Craig had a ridiculous mid-west accent. (Prime)

Daftest - Cut Bank - Caper wherein small-towners come up with a rouse to extort money from USPS. (Prime)

Best drug-related - Crossing the Line - slow but watchable modern western tale of young woman roped back into drugs running.  Great music fit well with backdrop of depressed ‘rusty belt’. (Prime)

Close second - White Boy Rick - Teenager with crap dad, gunrunner, turned FBI informer, turned drug dealer, turned longest-serving non-violent criminal in US history. (Netflix)

Least convincing assassin - Ava - Crack assassin foils assassination attempts on herself.  Entertaining but Chastain too small to be believable. (Netflix)

Best Scorsese-inspired - Uncut Gems - Relentlessly paced action in the Scorsese tradition (who’s credited as an exec producer) but portraying Jewish rather than Italian community. (Netflix). 

Best British - The Corrupted - Loosely based on land grabs before London 2012.  Among an eclectic cast, Timothy spall very convincing as evil property developer.   Harrowing in places. (Prime)

Best arms dealing - The Last Thing He Wanted  - Journalist agrees to final arms deal on behalf of her ill dad; does not turn out well. (Netflix)

Sci-fi

Best acting - Hotel Artemis - Jodie Foster plays Nurse running underground hospital for criminals. Good turn from Dave Bautista.  Odd but entertaining. (Prime)

Worst thought-out premise - Upgrade - Paraplegic gets AI implant with predictable outcome. Some imaginative elements but issues with basic premise – the Elon Musk character could have just stomped on it. (Netflix)

Best action - The Old Guard - Charlize Theron leads band of ancient immortals to root out evil. Possibly another A-Team-style pilot. (Netflix)

Too Uber- cool - Curvature - too-cool meta-physical effort about time travel. (Prime).

Daftest - Bleeding Steel – Daft Jackie Chan outing.  Ace psychedelic colours but unfathomable plot. (Prime).

Most fun - Rampage - The always-entertaining Rock in a romp with giant GM animals. Ridiculous fun. (Netflix)

Most unfathomable - Jauja - Viggo Mortensen goes in search of his missing daughter in weird foreign co-production. (Prime)

Quirkiest - The Man from Earth - Interesting premise of man who might be Jesus. Amazingly for a quirky cheap film, the sequel Holocene, was made by popular demand. (Prime)

Most imaginative - The Vast of Night - nerdy teens investigate strange noises, 1950’s style. (Prime)

Best British - Frequency - Imaginative film about everyone operating at different frequencies. A low frequency boy gets together with a high frequency girl which isn’t meant to be possible. (Prime)

Best Russian  - Attraction - Young woman attracted to an alien.  More than a nod to the day the earth stood still. (Prime)

Best space opera - Jupiter Ascending -  Girl turns out to be saviour of the world. Daft but enjoyable. (Netflix)

Best robots - Revolt - American soldier and French medic versus scrap metal robots in Kenya. (Prime)

Most cheesy - Love and Teleportation - Ex Ivy League prof builds a teleporter. Cheap and cheesy fun. (Prime)

Fantasy

Most ridiculous - John Wick 3: parabellum.  So ridiculous we watched it twice. (Netflix)

Oddest - Dean Spanley - Odd tale of transmutation and re-incarnation with Peter O’Toole in scrooge mode. (Prime)

Horror

Best vampires - Nightwatch - Long-overdue repeat viewing for this bonkers but clever, original and highly entertaining Russian film. (DVD)

Best war horror - Deathwatch - Had forgotten about this film which is odd as it has a great cast.  Although a work of fiction, it really captures the psyche of WWI. (DVD)

Best ghost - An English Haunting - Good old-school British ghost story. Posh people whingeing about inheriting huge house. (Prime)

Most psychedelic - Colour Out of Space - From the crazy mind of HP Lovecraft.  Meteor-like thing drops in Nic Cage’s backyard. (Prime)

Best British - White Chamber - originally viewed as post-Brexit Britain, could now be seen as post-Covid too. (Netflix)

Best Welsh - Dark Signal - Radio station in North Wales picks up signals, leading to discovery of who the psychopath is. (Prime)

Silliest- They’re Watching - US TV crew travel to Moldova for a home makeover show. Very silly but sometimes hilarious. (Prime)

Most moronic - Cell - Stephen King feeds conspiracy-theorists. (Prime)

Period Drama

Best - Soldier of God - Knights Templar and Saracen save each other in desert.  Atmospheric and ponderous. (Prime)

Best epic - The Mission: The Story of Islam -  tale of Mohammed getting messages from god. Those Isis dudes ought to watch it for the true message of peace and tolerance!  (Prime)

Grimmest - The Nightingale - Young Irish woman in Tasmania enlists Aborigine to avenge her. (Netflix)

Best Indian - Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy - Hero fights evil British in colonial India. Uplifting and inspiring. (Prime)

Best romp – Northmen - Vikings looking for Lindisfarne land in Scotland by accident. Lots of romping through forests, clashing of swords and manly growling. Thin on plot but entertaining. (Netflix)

Films watched 2016

Best crime drama

Legend - Tom Hardy excellent at playing both Kray twins and very funny.  Best line: a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a bar…

Best action movie

Black Sea - Jude Law and associates as submariners in search of Nazi gold.

  

Best foreign crime drama

Suburra - Italian tale of gangsters in Rome and Ostia.

Best Kid’s film

Big Hero 6 – American/Japanese collaboration.  Surprisingly few of the latter credited as compositors/digital artists.

Best Biog

Miles Ahead – very amusing film about Miles Davies.  A hoot!

Best Bollywood

Veer - historical romp that flits between India and England (extensive use of Greenwich, and featuring Dover castle).  Also featured some excellent man earrings.

Best Cheap Brit Flick

Re-directed - Vinnie Jones has a riot in Lithuania.

Best Brit comedy

Golden Years: Grand Theft OAP – nice gentle comedy about old people robbing banks.  Good cast too. 

Best Foreign comedy

Look Who’s Back – Hitler time-travels to present day and gets mistaken for a stand-up comedian.

Best Shakespeare

Macbeth - very atmospheric 2015 version.

Best re-telling of an old classic

In the Heart of the Sea – Excellent re-telling of Moby Dick.  A great whale and lots of manly antics. 

Best Brit horror

Stonehearst Asylum - lunatics take over the asylum, with a twist…

Best foreign horror

Asmodexia - amazing Spanish film about an exorcist and his granddaughter, with an extraordinary twist!

Best comedy horror

Frankenstein’s Army - hilarious tale of Nazi Frankenstein creatures being discovered by Russians at the end of WW2.  I hadn’t laughed so much in ages although methinks the actors playing the monsters (Zombots) had the most fun dressing up in junk and acting like Lindsay Kemp. 

Best fantasy

Alice Through the Looking Glass -  awesome shiny CGI and a very funny Sacha Baron Cohen.

Best blockbuster sci-fi

The Martian – a veritable Ridley Scott masterpiece.  Most excellent, even by his standards.

Best British sci-fi

High-Rise - really good period details and true to Ballard, despite the iffy reviews.

Best Russian war film

Come and See - weird old Russian film, set in Belarus in WW2.  Made some valid points about the effects of war, unbelievably made in 1985 when Russia was still communist. 

Nordic Noir

Order of Disappearance - great title; decent film.

Most educational

The Last King -  educational and scenic Nordic offering, with snow, Christmas trees and pretty horses.

Funniest Guardian film

Lost in Karastan (funny Guardian film)

Best Western

Wild Horses - modern western about an old git and a missing persons search.  The main characters are played by Robert Duvall and his daughter – both excellent.

Best post-war German

Labyrinth of Lies - good but not cheery story of Germans being in denial about Auschwitz.

Best Irish

Odine - sweet tale of a fisherman who catches a woman in his net.

Best Zombie flick

Pride and prejudice and Zombies - very clever and quite amusing but not enough zombies.

Most unwatchable

Exorcist – House of Evil.  Terrible!  I was expecting a follow-up to the original exorcist but it turned out to be a really cheap effort with jerky frames and bad acting.