Sleepers review

 Number 792 on the top 1000 films of all time is the legal crime-drama Sleepers.

Lorenzo "Shakes" Carcaterra (Joe Perrino,) Tommy Marcano (Jonathan Tucker,) John Riley (Geoffrey Wigdor) and Michael Sullivan (Brad Renfro) are four boys growing up in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York. Father Bobby Carillo (Robert De Niro) keeps a watchful eye over them. But when a childish prank goes horribly wrong, the four boys are sentenced to Wilkinson's Home for Boys where they experience horrific abuse by the guards led by Sean Noakes (Kevin Bacon.) Cut thirteen years into the future, the now adult John (Ron Eldard,) Tommy (Billy Crudup,) Shakes (Jason Patric) and Michael (Brad Pitt) swear to take revenge on everybody who did them harm.

Sleepers is very much a story of two halves. We have the lives of the boys before they attend Wilkinson's and their lives afterwards. If anything I preferred the first half. We're given a rich tapestry and a deep insight into life within Hell's Kitchen. There's no doubt that our four protagonists are little shits, but they are still interesting to watch.

And then things go south in the second half. The narrative tension just stops, as we enter a courtroom drama. The contrivance of all four boys all being sent to the same prison aside, the second half was not as neat or tightly focussed, as the first half. *spoilers to follow*

Upon release, John and Tommy become hitmen in the Irish mob. By chance they see Noakes in a bar and they publicly assassinate him. The case goes to court. Michael, now an assistant district attourny, seeing an opportunity to punish the rest of the guards who abused them, takes the prosecution with the intention of botching it. He enlists the alcoholic Dan Snyder ( Dustin Hoffman) to defend John and Tommy.

But the problem lies in how Noakes was killed early on. Noakes was the ringleader. He was the big, bad villain. The other guards were just his cronies. Without him, we're just seeing John and Tommy being persecuted for a revenge kill that the audiences knows they were justified in carrying out. It was dull.

It would have been more interesting seeing Sean Noakes, and the other guards, standing trial for the atrocities they committed. Instead, we were focussing on John and Tommy. And that killed any narrative suspense. The second half felt almost disconnected from the first. It didn't help that Noakes' cronies were little more than names on a page with little characterisation other than being a crony. The one exception was Ralph Ferguson (Terry Kinney) who was the only guard to express any remorse over what he did.

Even though there were some big names in the cast; Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman have five Oscars between them, I don't think anybody really shone. Brad Pitt and Dustin Hoffman only appear in the second half and De Niro was closer to a supporting character.

Overall, Sleepers was an entertaining if uneven film that went to sleep in its second half.

The Kite Runner review

 Number 655 on the top 1000 films of all time is Marc Foster's 2007 adaptation of the Kite Runner based on Khaled Hosseini's novel of the same name.

Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) is a Pashto boy living in pre-soviet Afghanistan. His best friend is also his servant Hassan - a Hazara, (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada) who is an expert in the game of kite-running. After the soviets invade, Amir and his father flee to the US. Twenty years later, Amir (Khallid Abdalla) returns to a taliban-led Afghanistan to right the wrongs of his past.

I read this book in 2022. It was a powerful and harrowing read. But the film was incredibly underwhelming. I'm disappointed to stay this, but the film lacked the same emotional pathos. 

*spoilers ahead*

There are three harrowing stand-out scene in the book - Hassan's rape by Assef - an older Pashto boy, the stoning in the stadium and the final confrontation between an adult Amir and Assef. What should have been three brutally-honest scenes highlighting the sad reality of living in Afghanistan were little more than damp squibs. The emotional beats completely failed to land.

Perhaps that's due to the film's 12-rating. Maybe if it was fifteen or eighteen, it could have shown a lot more, and thus been more devastating to watch. But the 12 rating hampered it into either rushing or glossing over the most important scenes.

For example, Hassan and Amir win a kite-fighting competition. Hassan runs to collect the fallen kite as a prize for Amir. But Assef and his gang corner him and demand the kite. Hassan refuses. Assef rapes him. This is depicted mostly through allusion and some choice close-ups, but it is rushed, and thus the pathos didn't land. I'm not saying we needed to see a graphic depiction of the rape a la Oz or the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but they could have taken it further. Although I acknowledge this would have been problematic with the young actors.

As such, fearing for reprisals against the young actors, Paramount relocated them to the UAE, fully prepared to pay for them to grow up there. But Mahmoodzada had to return to Afghanistan due to visa issues. There he received death threats from both the Pashto and Hazara communities, and he had to seek asylum in Sweden.

Anyway, I would also make the same point about the final fight between an adult Assef and Amir. Again, it felt rushed without anytime for the emotions land. And I think this was a big faux pas considering this was such a climatic moment in the film. If anything the most emotional points came into the quicker scenes like after the rape Hassan returns to Amir still holding the kite. That was so sad.

But none of this criticism should be directed to the cast. Ebrahimi was very good as the adult Amir. He had to walk a fine line of a guilty man atoning for his past sins and a saviour saving Afghan children from a line of wretchery - a comparison aptly made within the film itself.

Perhaps I've been biased by reading the book first. If I had seen the film first maybe I would have left feeling more impressed. While it isn't inherently a bad film, it could have been a lot better.

The Count of Monte Christo review

 Number 572 on the top 1000 films of all time is the swash-bucking adventure 'The Count of Monte Christo.'

Based on Alexander Dumas' novel of the same name, 'The Count of Monte Christo' follows Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel,) a French sailor wrongly imprisoned due to a collusion between his so-called friend Fernand (Guy Pearce) and the corrupt magistrate Villefort (James Frain.) With the help of fellow prisoner Abbe Faria (Richard Harris,) Edmund swears revenge on all who wronged him.

I enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would. Before watching it, I had unfairly written it off as another tedious period drama, but I was pleasantly wrong.

This was an entertaining, fun-filled drama, albeit often straying into nonsense territory, but it was good fun nonetheless. Richard Harris only appeared in a supporting role, but he provided some much-needed light relief to what else could have been an overly-serious revenge story.

Guy Pearce was very good as the slimy Fernand. With friends like him, who needs enemies. And Jim Caviezel was likeable enough as our eponymous count. But can we just talk about his accent? I think it was supposed to be an English accent, but on many occasions it strayed back into his native American accent.

But both of them were far more convincing than Luis Guzman who played Dantes' loyal manservant Jacopo. He was completely out-of-place. He also stars in Narcos and Oz as gangsters and he was far more convincing there than here. Henry Cavill also plays Fernand's son Albert. And he was such a wet blanket, it's difficult to believe that Cavill is now one of the hottest men in Hollywood.

Nevertheless, the Count of Monte Christo was a fun, swashbuckling adventure albeit with awful accents and a miscast Luis Guzman.

The Machinist review

 Number 542 on the top 1000 films of all time is Brad Anderson's 2004 psychological thriller 'The Machinist.'

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) is a machinist who hasn't slept in over a year. Dangerously underweight, he starts having a paranoid delusions as he wonders whether somebody is playing games with him. But are these delusions or real or not?

This is the David Fincher film that David Fincher never made. It's easy to draw connections to Fight Club, most notably, with the theme of insomnia. Of course, it's impossible for anybody to stay awake for a year, so this film is pure hokum. I was certainly willing to suspend my disbelief for a good film.

And the Machinist was a good film. Up until the final reveal, Brad Anderson drip-fed us twist after twist. You could never tell what was going to happen next. He certainly created an atmosphere of dread with creepy imagery. Case in point that freaky ghost-train scene. Seriously, what was that? Although I'm not sure how much it works now that I know the final twist.

But Anderson also made great use of colour contrasting a cold, industrial blue-light for Reznik's present-day scenes and a warmer hue for all his flashbacks.

One thing I will admit is that I have never been keen on Christian Bale's acting ability. Sure he takes method-acting to an extreme evidenced by the intense amount of weight he lost for this role, but I don't think he has great emotional range. Trevor Reznik was just one of the many dark, brooding, moody men that he plays. Sure, he does it well, but I want to see something else.

Nevertheless, the Machinist was an incredibly creepy, and well-directed thriller. Although it's obviously pure hokum. Who's up for a game of hangman? 

500 Days of Summer review

 Number 461 on the top 1000 films of all time is the romantic-comedy 500 Days of Summer.

Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a greetings' card writer in LA who is looking for his soulmate. He thinks he has found it in Summer (Zooey Deschanel) a woman who doesn't believe in love or soulmates. What happens next?

If there were a list for most underwhelming films of all time, 500 Days of Summer would be number one. If I were to describe this film in one word, it would be average. Sure it was entertaining enough, but it didn't blow me away.

Let's start with the comedy or lack thereof. For the most part, none of the jokes elicited much more than a little chuckle from me. The funniest part was the parodies of the Ingmar Bergman films where Tom imagines himself in The Seventh Seal and Persona. Since beginning this challenge, I have become overly-familiar with Bergman. Otherwise I was only snickering throughout, sometimes at the narration or Tom's friends saying how pathetic he was being.

Let's come onto Tom and Summer whose romance was the focus of this story. Both characters were incredibly insipid. Tom was extremely whiny and Summer felt more like a rough sketch of the girl-next-door rather than a three-dimensional character. I am unfamiliar with Zooey Deschanel's other work, but this role was nothing compared to JGL's role in previous rom-com 10 Things I hate about you.

If anything, the true star of the show Chloe Grace Moretz who co-starred as Tom's half-sister Rachel. Many times she acted as the voice of reason. She was only twelve at the time, but you could already see her promise as an actress.

500 Days of Summer also employed a non-linear narrative in an attempt to subvert expectations. We are shown the different days of Tom and Summer's relationship out of order. However, we didn't get enough time on each day before it cut to the next. This hardly made for a cohesive film.

500 Days of Summer was certainly watchable enough, but it was nothing more than that.

Hamlet film review

 Number 544 on the top 1000 films of all time is Kenneth Branagh's 1996 adaptation of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh) is the crown prince of 19th-century Denmark. But when his father is murdered by his evil Uncle Claudius (Derek Jacobi,) Hamlet swears revenge. The huge ensemble cast includes Jack Lemmon, Julie Christie, Robin Williams and Kate Winslet.

There is a reason that film-reviewing will always remain my hobby rather than my profession. There so many films that are objectively-enjoyable, but I have no interest in. Hamlet is one of them. Most of that is down to how I have no interest in Shakespeare, but also in relation to Kenneth Branagah's direction.

Branagh's adaptation is the first un-abridged version with all the dialogue coming straight from Shakespeare's original folios. It has been transcribed verbatim. This means that there is a monologue every five minutes where characters would speak for whole paragraphs, but say very little. Some of the dialogue was needless exposition whereas others were purple prose. I'm sure I am sounding ignorant, but I had very little idea what they were talking about. And Hamlet was four-hours long. If the monologues were cut down, the run-time could have been easily reduced to one hundred and twenty minutes.

But also Brannagh made extensive use of extended long shots, having the camera rest on a focal object for much longer than necessary. This really killed off any narrative pace. It made the film feel much longer than four hours.

Although Kenneth Branagh has won an Oscar, it was for writing Belfast and not acting. Having seen Hamlet, I understand why. I was not impressed by his performance. It was so over-the-top.

I'm sure if you're a Shakespeare lover, you would love Hamlet, but I hated it. 

Dances with Wolves review

 Number 333 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Kevin Costner's 1990 epic Western 'Dances with Wolves.'

Lieutenant John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) is a soldier in the US Civil War. In 1863, he is assigned to a military post in the American frontier. Instead of finding his assignment, he finds a group of Lakota. There everything he has ever known is flipped on its head.

I've never rated Costner much as an actor. He's very wooden and over-the-top. After seeing this, I don't rate him much as a director either. Dances with Wolves was a slow-plodding affair that had no business being three hours long. The film centres on Dunbar's relationship with the Lakota, but they barely feature until an hour in - which was also the first sign of tension.

How Dances with Wolves won the Best Picture Oscar is beyond me. How it beat out brilliant films like Awakenings or Goodfellas is even more stupefying. And don't even get me started on Costner being nominated for Best Actor. His constant narration slowed the film to an absolute crawl. He logs all his interactions with the Lakota in a journal. This is accompanied by the slowest, most monotonous, expository voice-over known to man. We see something on screen, and, for some reason, Costner felt the need to over-explain it ad infiniteum. 

It made everything very on-the-nose. It would have been much better if the audience had been left to figure things out for themselves.

Dunbar wasn't an interesting character to follow at all. I was far more interested in the dynamics of the Lakota tribe. It would have been more interesting if the film had been told from their perspective rather than from a tepid soldier who loves the sound of his own voice.

I did not care for Dances with Wolves. It was an overly-long, tedious affair. And how it was the 1990 Best Picture winner is a complete mystery.

The Wild Bunch review

 Number 286 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1969 epic revisionist Western 'The Wild Bunch.'

Pike Bishop (William Holden) is the leader of an ageing band of cowboys who are finding their way before the outbreak of the first world war. Wishing to retire soon, they want to do one last robbery, but they are pursued savagely by a rival gang led by Pike's father partner Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan.)

The Wild Bunch takes place at the end of the cowboy era, as these rustlers and would-be outlaws try to find their way in the ever-changing world. It is a swan-song to their legacy, but I would argue it is also a swan-song to the Western genre itself.

By 1969, Leone had released his dollars-trilogy and the best days of the Western genre were behind them. Spaghetti Westerns were becoming a thing of the past. Roll on the 70's with the resurgence of the gangster genre, as well as the rise of the Vietnam war films. Coppola and Scorsese released the Godfather and Mean Streets, which were followed at the end of the decade by the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now. But the Wild Bunch paid homage to the best of the genre while keeping everything grounded in a gritty realism.

These aren't the romanticised, pretty-boy cowboys of Gary Cooper in High Noon, but rather the brutal anti-hero that Eastwood played in the Dollars' trilogy. The Wild Bunch have their own code of honour, but this doesn't apply to the civillians around them who are largely seen as collateral damage. It was a nice demystification of a highly romanticised figure. The Wild Bunch were just petty crooks masquerading as honourable cowboys.

They were led by William Holden in another morally duplicitous role similar to this Oscar-winning turn in Stalag-17. But he was good as the ageing, world-weary protagonist who just wants to retire and put the world behind him.

The Wild Bunch was an intensely violent, but enjoyable affair that acted as a lovely swan-song to the Western genre.

The Philadelphia Story review

 Number 231 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1940 romantic-drama 'the Philadelphia Story.'

Wealthy socialite Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn) has recently divorced from her ex-husband Dexter Haven (Cary Grant.) She is now intending to marry the wealthy George Kittredge (John Howard.) New York's Spy magazine sends journalists Mike Connor (James Stewart) and Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) to cover the glitzy affair.

I'm probably just a culturally ignorant millennial who's been spoiled by the rich, complicated storytelling of directors like Christopher Nolan, and the like, but the older films are so much more simplistic.

And, by simplistic, I mean dull and predictable. It was obvious from the get-go that this film would centre around a love triangle between Hepburn, Grant and Stewart: Grant still has feelings for his old ex, but he faces new competition not only by Kittredge but also Connor played by Stewart. Meanwhile Hepburn is initially only interested in improving her social status. This is the only reason she is marrying Kittredge. However, she becomes romantically involved with Stewart. And I saw this coming from a mile away.

Of course, this is isn't to slate the acting talent in this film - Grant and Stewart were charismatic as usual, but I did particularly like Hepburn. She was well-known as an outspoken feminist, constantly speaking out against the misogyny of the era. And she brought some of her fiery demeanour into her role. It was nice seeing a female lead as acting assertive and confident, rather than just a wet blanket, which was all too common for the films of the time.

While I was charmed by the three leads, I was less charmed by the film itself. All very cheesy and predictable.

3-Iron review

 Number 229 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean/Japanese romantic drama '3-Iron.'

Tae-Suk (Jae-Hee) is a lonely drifter who spends his days breaking into people's homes when they're away, eating their food, washing their clothes, fixing their appliances and sleeping in their beds. One day he breaks into the home of Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-Yeon) - a house wife who is being abused by her husband Min-Gyu (Kwon Hyuk-ho.) After Tae-Suk witnesses this abuse in secret, he proceeds to buffet Min-Gyu with golf balls before leaving with his wife who soon joins him on his escapades.

In 3-Iron, I've seen one of the strangest, most intriguing yet subtly powerful films about human connection and communication. What makes the theme of communication even stranger is how there is so little verbal communication between Tae-Suk and Sun-hwa. Despite having minimal dialogue, the two soon start to fall in love. This use of silence was completely intentional by director Kim Ki-duk who wanted the audience to focus on the relationship of the characters without being distracted by dialogue. There is so much more in what we don't say rather than what we do. Ki-Duk captures this idea perfectly. 

It's a great concept. So much of human communication is more than the words we speak. There is our body language, our facial expressions - all those little sub-communications that nobody ever thinks about, but make up so much of how we convey meaning to one another.

However, I wonder if Ki-Duk could have pushed this idea even further. The film is only short at eighty-eight minutes. That's not even an hour-and-a-half. Its short runtime meant that some of the plot-points were rushed and contrived so they could fit in the big thematic ideas within ninety minutes. Let's take the first meeting of Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa. Tae-Suk breaks into Sun-Hwa's home not realising that she is there too. He starts washing her clothes and fixing her bathroom scale. Meanwhile, she has spotted him there and, rather than confronting him or running and screaming for help, she watches him curiously.

After Tae-Suk beats Min-Gyu, Sun-Hwa leaves with him, no questions asked. Obviously she has to go with him for the plot to work, but it all happened too easily. I am no expert, but in many abusive relationships there is an element of Stockholm Syndrome. Despite being horrifically abused, the abusee still deeply loves their abuser. I thought Sun-Hwa would express distress at her husband being attacked or maybe she would try to stop Tae-Suk. At the very least, I thought she would be hesitant about leaving him, but that wasn't the case at all.

There are other plot points that were completely skipped over. When playing golf on a street corner, Tae-Suk inadvertently hits the golf ball into the head of a random passer-by. We see one shot of him wracked with guilt and then it's quickly onto the next plot point. Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa are caught in the bed of one of the homeowners they've invaded. What happens next? Nothing negative, as we're rushing along. These could have been great moments of conflict and tension, but they weren't explored properly.

I did enjoy 3-Iron. It was intriguing and very creative, but it definitely needed longer than ninety minutes to explore its big thematic ideas.

Barry Lyndon review

 Number 228 on the top 1000 films of all time is Stanley Kubrick's 1975 epic historical drama 'Barry Lyndon.'

Based on William Makepeace Thackery's novel 'the Luck of Barry Lyndon,' Barry Lyndon (Ryan O'Neal) follows the eponymous Irish rogue as he wiles his way into the upper echelons of society through marrying the rich widow Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) and ingratiating himself into her family and life.

Barry Lyndon really surprised me. As you may have gathered from some of my other reviews, I neither care for epics or period dramas of which Barry Lyndon was both. They're vague, overly-long and tedious. They're so boring. Yet I found Barry Lyndon to be very watchable. 

Did it need to be three hours long? Absolutely not. The pacing was incredibly slow, which was hardly helped by how the accompanying musical score was slow, serene and happy. That hardly helped to ratchet up the tension. Plus there were lots of shots of the characters sitting around doing very little.

But despite all that I thoroughly enjoyed Barry Lyndon. As a character, Lyndon is pretty despicable. He is charming on the surface, but he also has a darker side which regularly comes out when he doesn't get his way. However, he is still interesting to watch. I was intrigued to keep watching just to see whether he gets his just desserts or not, which *spoiler alert* he inevitably does. O'Neal made him a charismatic and three-dimensional character. It worked well enough to stop him from becoming a cliched cartoon villain.

Another reason period-dramas don't work for me is either the lack of stakes or stakes being so artificially produced that they become over-blown and contrived. Neither of these was the case with Barry Lyndon. There was plenty of drama. It was presented in a natural and authentic way, as we see Lyndon navigate obstacle after obstacle. He goes from duelling a rival to fighting for the English in the Seven-Year war to fighting for the Prussians in the Seven-Year war to becoming a gambler and hustler to marrying the widowed Lady Lyndon and then coming full-circle by duelling his stepson Lord Bullingdon. It is quite a journey.

Barry Lyndon really surprised me. I went into the film absolutely dreading it, but it was thoroughly entertaining. I guess you can't judge a film by its genre classification.

The Hustler review

 Number 226 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1961 drama 'The Hustler.'

Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) is a small-time pool hustler who wishes to make the big league by challenging legendary pool player Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason.) When Felson is crushed by Fats in a game, Felson vows to beat him the next time they play.

I really did not care for this film at all. If I were to describe it in one word, it would just be boring. Part of that is down to me and my own personal taste, I have never been that interested in pool. Or at least not interested enough to watch a 134 minute film on the subject. But the other main reason would be for the lack of musical score. I find that the music in a film can really make or break it. 

At times it can be far too loud *cough cough Christopher Nolan/Hunger Games,* at other times it can evoke entire eras like how Tarantino uses popular music in his films. And, in rare cases, the lack of incidental music can really up the tension.

This was not one of those cases. The music, or lack thereof, should pair well with what we see on the screen. And that wasn't the case here. Even though much of the on-screen action was nothing to be interested by, it could have been made interesting through the use of incidental music. The fact that there was little of it did next to nothing to help things. 

The Hustler was originally based on a book by Walter Tevis. When adapting this book, director Robert Rossen was keen to focus more on the characters and their relationships with each other rather than on the pool itself. Did he succeed in that? I don't think he did. There was still too much focus on the pool rather than on an actual likeable main character that I wanted to root for. Obviously Felson doesn't need to be likeable to make me curious to see whether he will succeed, but he needed to be interesting, and I didn't find him very interesting at all. He was arrogant and obnoxious.

As the Hustler is number 226 on the list of 1000 films of all time, I'm sure there are lots of people who found it interesting. In fact, it revitalised American interest in pool. However, I did not care for the film at all.

The Legend of 1900 review

 Number 221 on the top 1000 films of all time is the drama 'the Legend of 1900.'

Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince) is a trumpeter in early 20th century New York. When he tries selling his trumpet to make ends meet, he starts recounting the Legend of 1900 - 1900 was a baby found in a crate of fruit D. Lemon 1900 on the ship SS Virginian. 1900 (Tim Roth) grows up to be a virtuoso on the piano, and the best friend of Max Tooney.

Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince was the pairing I never knew I needed. I've seen Tim Roth in a few Tarantino films where he plays morally grey characters whereas Pruitt Taylor Vince has appeared in a number of TV shows like Deadwood, House and the Walking Dead. I never imagined I would see the two together especially with Roth being English and Vince American, yet they were great. They had an excellent chemistry. Considering their relationship was at the heart of this film, this was only the more important. They worked brilliantly together. The characters couldn't have been played by anybody else.

Without these two actors, the Legend of 1900 could have been a very different film. It's a story of friendship, music and two men becoming friends through their shared love of music. Without Roth or Vince, it could have completely descended into tedium or melodrama, but it remained incredibly watchable. Vince very much remains the straight man helping to navigate Roth's musical genius. 1900 spends the whole film on the ship where he was born. He is too hesitant to step into the outside world believing it to be too big for him.

Later on, Vince returns to the ship, that has since been decommissioned and has been scheduled to be destroyed, as he believes 1900 is still hiding away somewhere on it. He attempts to convince him to leave, but to no avail. Pruitt showed off his acting chops, as we see his heart break. This was a touching moment that underlined the relationship between he and 1900. 

I may argue that the film was longer than it needed to be, with some of the pacing being quite slow. At times, it was a little overly-sentimental, but overall, I did enjoy the Legend of 1900. It really took me by surprise. And it had brilliantly cast two lead actors that I never would have imagined together: Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince

La Haine review

 Number 220 on the top 1000 films of all time is the French social thriller 'La Haine.' (The Hatred)

Vinz (Vincent Cassel,) Hubert (Hubert Kounde) and Said (Said Taghamaoui) are three friends and second-generation immigrants living in Paris. The day after a riot, where one of their friends is brutally beaten, we see the three young men navigating life in the ghettoes of Paris.

Part immigrant experience, part gritty drama, part slice-of life, La Haine was an illuminating look into working-class life within Paris. It was a far cry from the romanticised Paris that we see on social media. It was raw, gritty and stark. There were no frills - just an authentic portrayal of life in Paris. It strongly reminded me of similar dramas set in London like Kidulthood or Top Boy.

Those dramas have no pretensions; they don't impart any judgement on their characters. Instead, they give you the facts and allow you to decide for yourself. And that's what the best film makers do. They leave their biases behind and leave matters in the hands of the audience.

You could argue that Vinz, Hubert and Said aren't the most likeable of characters. They're destructive miscreants causing trouble wherever they go, but they're not meant to be liked. They aren't heroes. They aren't villains. They just are. We're forced to see the world through their eyes and nothing more. We have no choice.

What made La Haine so powerful was its realism. Everything felt so real. I was right there with the characters walking through the dark streets of Paris. And that was only made better through the excellent decision of rendering the film in monochrome. The stark black-and-white only made the action all the more poignant. There are no distracting colours to hide behind. 

Watching La Haine was a hell of a ride. It was intense and it didn't let up for a second. But it had a brilliant authenticity that carried things along very smoothly. For those who are thinking Paris is like the way you see in Amelie, think again. La Haine presents the oh so painful, but also necessary truth.

In The Mood for Love review

 Number 216 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Chinese romance-drama 'In the Mood for Love.'

Mr Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung) are two neighbours who have just moved into a Hong Kong apartment block. Suspecting their respective spouses of cheating on them, the two start becoming attracted to each other. Will they be like their spouses and have an affair too?

Never mind love, I'm in the mood for an entertaining film, because this was film was dull. Insufferably dull. Boring. Tedious. Monotonous. Insert any other synonym for boring. It's a drama. Where was the drama? The tension?

It's quickly established that Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are lonely; their spouses work long hours and are inattentive. Although we never see this on-screen. Plus it isn't like the two would-be lovers are social pariahs. Mrs Chan's neighbours are constantly inviting her in for dinner, but she always refuses. If you actually had dinner with your neighbours, you wouldn't be so lonely. At a certain point, you're just being a victim.

And there's nothing stopping Mr Chow and Mrs Chan from having an affair if they really wanted. Their neglectful spouses are nowhere to be seen. They have no rivals for each other's interests. We, the audience, can see how lonely they are, so we're willing for them to get together. Where's the tension? It's virtually non-existent. In fact, the first moment of tension doesn't occur until the hour mark, where the would-be lovers realise they can't be together.

The film isn't particularly long; only one hundred minutes, but that's ten minutes too long. The film ends with Mr Chan in Angkor Wat whispering into the hole of a temple wall before stuffing it with moss. This references an earlier section where he says that in the olden times people would go up a mountain, whisper their secrets into a hole of a tree before filling it with moss. I get the visual metaphor, but why have it in Angkor Wat and not a tree on a mountain? And why we did then pan around Angkor Wat for five minutes?

One positive was that the original score was very good - it was mysterious and compelling, but it was only used sparingly. Much of the rest of the film had no incidental music, which only made it all the more boring.

And boring is the perfect way of summarising this film. Not enough tension. Annoying characters doing annoying things and too many lingering shots of characters sitting in empty rooms deep in thought.

Memories of Murder review

 Number 213 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Bong Jong-Hoo's 2003 South Korean neo-noir crime thriller 'Memories of Murder.'

Park Doo-man (Song Kang-ho) and Kim Roi-ha (Cho Yong-koo) are police detectives in 1986 Hwaseong who are investigating a string of grisly rapes and murders. They are soon joined by the Seoul hotshot Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung.)

This was a convincing thriller. It was tense, gripping with plenty of plot-twists along the way. Granted it was complicated and convoluted at times, but as such is the nature with these films. Bong makes great use of the weather and music to really up the tension. There were great sequences like when the detectives chase a suspect through the backstreets of Hwaseong.

As is common for thrillers, many of the key scenes took place at night and in the pouring rain, which certainly built the suspense. And one of the biggest clues that cracks the case is a radio song that is always requested to play while the murders take place.

However, there was something stopping me from really engaging with it and that was the interpersonal dynamics between Park, Kim and Seo. Their constant unprofessionalism and squabbling really got on my nerves after a while. I get it. Park and Kim are resentful of having an outsider come help them. They neither want or need their help, but for the greater good they must work together. It is quickly implied that Park and Kim are out of their depths. Their small police department doesn't have the resources or funds to successfully complete this investigation.

But their constant in-fighting made them seem incredibly amateurish. I had no confidence that they would find the true killer especially when they resort to beating confessions out of their suspects. I get that they're from the school of flawed, psychologically-damaged, rough-around-the-edges, willing to break the rules to get the job done, police detectives, but it was all too much. They weren't very likeable and I wasn't too bothered if they would successfully apprehend the killer. Rather than catching the killer, they just get even more people killed like their initial suspect.

And *spoilers*

they don't. Despite having three key suspects, including the most likely candidate Park Hyeon-gu, the case remains frustratingly unsolved. Having the killer escape was refreshing to see. In many thrillers, it's expected that after some ordeals and struggles, the cops would eventually catch the murderer and everything would wrap up nicely. Maybe not with a pretty pink bow, but nicely enough. However, that isn't the case here. And I quite liked this ending. It felt painfully realistic. Sadly, in real life, many murders do go unsolved, because the killers are never caught. They do escape.

Despite the rather unlikeable main characters, I still think Memories of Murder is worth a watch. It's a gripping thriller with a refreshing ending.

The Night of the Hunter review

 Number 211 on the top 1000 films of all time is Charles Laughton's film-noir thriller 'the Night of the Hunter.'

Ben Harper (Robert Graves) is a bank-robber who killed two people before escaping with $10,000. He hides the money and makes his two small children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) promise to never reveal the location. However, he is then caught and sent to death-row. Before his execution, he tells the preacher-disguised serial killer Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) about the money, although he doesn't reveal the exact location. Powell then visits Harper's family in his hometown in the hopes of finding the money. Although he quickly wins over the town and Harper's wife, his children remain distrustful of him.

Upon its initial release, the Night of the Hunter was so negatively reviewed that Charles Laughton never directed another film again. Although its critical evaluation has immensely improved in modern times, I do think this is great shame. The Night of the Hunter reminded me of the best of the old German expressionist films of old particularly Fritz Lang's M. This wasn't an accident either as Laughton gave the film a deliberate expressionist style.

 He deliberately employed the harsh lighting and strong shadows you would often see in expressionism. Much of the set design was also incredibly simplistic and minimalist. One of my favourite shots was when you see Powell's silhouette on the Harper children's bedroom wall. You only see the shape of his hat, but it was still incredibly sinister.

Robert Mitchum was also well-known for starring in film noir roles before he achieved mainstream success. From Undercurrent to the Locket to Pursued and Where Danger Rules, he has played a variety of roles. And he was the perfect fit for the duplicitous Harry Powell. He was charismatic enough to win over not only Harper's entire home-town, but also Harper's widow. And not only does he win her over, but he manipulates her into becoming his greatest acolyte. When Powell refuses to consumate their marriage, she starts believing that her soul needs to be redeemed and starts joining him in his preaching missions. Yet all of Powell's charisma was not enough to win over Harper's children.

However, I do think that the film's ending severely let it down. Everything changed from a tense, scary horror noir to a borderline Christmas film. All the suspense dissolved into unnecessary sentimentality and sweetness. Spoilers to follow.

After exposing Powell, John and Pearl run away from their home town where they take refuge with a woman called Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) a tough-as-nails badass who looks after troubled children. When Powell follows them there, Cooper fires a shotgun full of birdshot into his face. She holds him off long enough for the police to arrive and arrest Powell. Afterwards, Christmas comes and John and Pearl join Cooper's brood of lost children. They all live happily ever after. Although Cooper was only a supporting role, I thought she was a great character. It was brilliant seeing a female character having that much agency especially in a 1950's film

But at the end of the day, 'The Night of the Hunter' is a thriller. It should be suspenseful from start-to-finish and this ending killed the suspense. Okay, it's nice to know that the Harper children finally get to have a normal life after their traumatic ordeals, but this could have just been implied. We didn't need to get a whole Christmas special.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy this film. I do think it's such a shame that Laughton didn't make anymore films. Such a waste of potential.

Strangers on a Train review

 Number 210 on the top 1000 films of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 psychological thriller 'Strangers on a Train.'

Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is an amateur tennis star who wishes to divorce his wife Miriam to instead marry Anne Morton (Ruth Roman,) the daughter of a US senator. On a train, he meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker,) a psychopath who hates his father. Bruno suggests that the two swap murders - Bruno will kill Guy's wife if Guy kills Bruno's father. 

Hitchcock was dubbed the 'Master of Suspense' for a reason. This was another great outing. Possibly one of his scariest films since The Birds. A lot of this was down to Robert Walker's portrayal of the antagonistic Bruno Antony. Not only is he a psychopath, but he is a silver-tongued psychopath, charismatic enough to integrate himself into any social situation without raising an alarm. And he is clever enough to manipulate all situations to his advantage. He tricks his way into fancy dinners that Haines is attending and even into his tennis club. And like many psychopaths, he is delusional; he kills Haines' wife believing that Haines has accepted his offer, but this was never the case. 

Walker is definitely no hulking giant of a man, but he still created a true aura of menace. In some ways, he was what I would imagine Ted Bundy being like. Although I did read online that Hitchcock deliberately queer-coded Bruno. By today's standards that could be considered problematic, although I didn't really notice much of that. Perhaps because Walker was so charimatic.

But it wasn't just Walker's performance that kept me on the edge of my seat; it was the lighting, shadows and the cinematography. Guy is a famous tennis who wears his shiny tennis whites while Bruno is a nobody languishing in his dark, dingy mansion. All his wealth has failed to save his soul. Of course, there is also the famous shot of Bruno strangling Miriam reflected in her glasses that had tumbled to the floor. In fact, the whole sequence was tense, as Bruno silently pursues her through the tunnel of love in a fairground.

Speaking of the fairground, I was sceptical about the final confrontation between Bruno and Haines taking place on a carousel that is spinning wildly out of control. I understand that it is going very quickly, but it's not that high off the ground. There's no real danger there. Unfortunately, this did push my suspension of disbelief a little too far.

Anyway, this was still an enjoyable film. It was tense, gripping and had a great performance by Robert Walker.

Invictus review

Number 957 on the top 1000 films of all time is Clint Eastwood's biographical sports-drama Invictus.

Four years after being released from prison, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) is elected as president of a South Africa still recovering from Apartheid. However, he believes he can unite the country by helping the South African rugby team, 'the Springboks,' captained by Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. But this will be easier said than done as for many of the black South Africans, the Springboks still represent the Apartheid.

Invictus marks the third collaboration between Freeman and Eastwood after Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. I didn't much care for Million Dollar Baby, as I'm not a boxing fan. I'm also not a rugby fan, so I didn't think I would like Invictus, but I did.

Whether I like sport or not, there is no denying that it has the power to unite people across different countries, colours, cultures and creeds. Will this be the case with South Africa? A country that's been ravaged by Apartheid. That's what Invictus explored.

Mandela certainly had a big task on his hands. His goal of uniting his country through rugby is met with cynicism from both his supporters and detractors. And we see this on both the macro and the micro-level, as whites and blacks must work together for the common good. Mandela's black security detail resent having to work with their white counterparts and vice versa. But over time, the the men begin to bond shown through a lovely sequence of the two sides playing a friendly game of rugby each other. 

It certainly helped when you had an actor like Morgan Freeman playing Mandela. He had the same charisma you would expect from any Freeman role. Apparently, he was so convincing that even Mandela's wife had trouble telling the two apart. Freeman was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar ultimately losing to Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart.

However, I don't think that Matt Damon was anything special. Anybody could have played the role of Francois Pienaar. I'm not entirely sure how he got a Best Supporting Oscar nod where he ultimately lost to Christolph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds. Although I did like the scene where Pienaar and the rest of the team visit where Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island. I've done this trip myself and it was powerful.

*Spoiler alert* South Africa go on to win the 1995 world Rugby World cup just like they do in real life. As one might expect, the ending becomes incredibly cheesy and silly, as their winning moments are played in slow-motion. I couldn't stop laughing as I heard all the rugby players grunting in slow-motion. It was very stupid.

But that doesn't matter as South Africa won the tournament and have since won three more. Has that resulted in a fully unified South Africa? Maybe not, but it's a damn good start.

Capote review

 Number 891 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2005 biographical-drama Capote.

Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) was an American novelist who gained fame after the release of his 1961 book 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.' After the Clutter family are murdered in their Kansas home, Capote becomes fascinated with the case, so much so, he decides to make it the subject of his next book. Together, with his friend and confidante Harper Lee (Catherine Keener,) he begins interviewing the killers Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr) and Dick Hicock (Mark Pellegrino.)

As many of you will know by now, I don't care for biopics. I find them overly-long, vague, lacking in tension and bloated e.g The Aviator or Catch me if you Can. But Capote succeeded because instead of telling his life from start to finish, it narrowed in on a very specific part, and, arguably, the most interesting part.

From the off, we are thrust into murky territory as we see our hero Capote coming to form strong relationships with Perry Smith and Dick Hicock, the longer he gets to know them. He begins empathising with them. Although he claims that he just wants to document the facts, the more he investigates, the more there is the chance that he will discover something that could exonerate the pair. Or worse, he may deliberately sabotage the case, so the pair will go free. This conflict kept things moving on nicely. It stopped things from becoming too slow.

Philip Seymour Hoffman won the 2005 Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Truman Capote. It was well-deserved, as unlike his other roles it was wonderfully balanced. We saw many different sides of Capote: the flamboyant party animal, the duplicitous liar keeping the truth from Smith and Hicock, and the quiet, vulnerable man looking for support from his friend Harper Lee.

I have yet to see Hoffman in a role that I haven't liked. Many of the characters he has played have been very sleazy. There is nothing wrong with this; he plays the sleaze well, but I was wondering if he was becoming a one-trick pony. Capote proved this was far from the case.

Catherine Keener was also good as Harper Lee, often acting as Capote's conscience, telling him what he needs to hear, rather than what he wants to hear. Clifton Collins Jr was also good, but I think Mark Pellegrino was thoroughly under-used.

Nonetheless, this film pleasantly surprised me. Who knows? I might become a die-hard biopic fan?

True Grit 1969 Review

 Number 885 on the top 1000 films of all time is Henry Hathaway's 1969 Western 'True Grit.'

Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) is a teenage girl living in Yell County, Arkansas when her father is unjustly killed by outlaw Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey,) she enlists federal marshals Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) and La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) to bring him to justice. Accompanying them on their mission, Mattie soon forms a close relationship with Rooster and La Boeuf.

For a Western film, I quite enjoyed True Grit. This goes for both the original and the 2010 remake. Generally, I find cowboy films tedious and overly-long *cough cough* Sergio Leone, but True Grit was thoroughly watchable.

One reason was because of Mattie Ross. Just like in the remake, she was far from the typical damsel-in-distress cliche that many women of her era were relegated to, so it was very refreshing to have a character with as much agency and pep as Mattie did. She was a feisty female before that was even a thing. I do think it's a shame they gave her a tomboyish appearance though. She's a woman. Let her look like a woman. The Coen Brothers let Hailee Steinfield look feminine. Why not the same for Kim Darby?

True neither John Wayne or Henry Hathaway thought much about Darby's acting abilities, but I think that was more down to her dialogue. Her lines were so verbose and clunky, it was like she was in My Fair lady having elocution lessons with Rex Harrison. Her actions were also rash and impulsive and drove a lot of the film's conflict, but again that's more her writing than Darby's acting.

John Wayne gave a good spin as the irrascible Rooster Cogburn. It was good that he won the Best Actor Oscar. And I did enjoy his performance. He was a very likeable cinnamon swirl. Robert Duvall was also great as minor villain Ned Pepper. If anything he was better than Jeff Corey's rather simplistic performance as Tom Chaney.

Overall, I enjoyed True Grit more than I thought I would. It had John Wayne giving a great lead performance, a fresh spin on the standard female character and had that glorious cinematography that you would expect from a cowboy film.

Minority Report review

 Number 639 on the top 1000 films of all time is Steven Spielberg's 2002 science-fiction action film Minority Report.

Set in 2054, the Precrime police programme has virtually eliminated all pre-meditated murders in Washington DC. Three clairvoyant humans named 'precogs' including Agatha (Samantha Morton) receive psychic impressions of homicides and are able to alert the police who can stop the crimes before they even happen. One of these police is the Precrime police department chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise,) whose six-year-old son was abducted and never found. When DOJ agent Danny Witwur (Colin Farrell) audits the system, Anderton receives the disturbing news that he is about to kill Leo Crow - a man that he has never met. He quickly goes on the run, as the system he has fought to up-hold slowly turns against him.

Generally, I'm not a fan of science-fiction films. I find that they can be overly-intellectual and pretentious, with their writers being more concerned with showing off how clever they are rather than writing a comprehensible film. However, I think Minority Report struck the balance between intelligent social-commentary and thrilling action. It definitely helped that it had Stephen Spielberg directing it. Minority Report had all the excitement of his most famous blockbusters like Jaws, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones, but also the thoughtfulness like some of his quieter works such as the Colour Purple.

Perhaps it helped that Minority Report spanned multiple genres. It wasn't just science-fiction, but also a psychological thriller. Sometimes science-fiction can be insufferably dull, slow and boring *cough cough* the remake of Solaris, but the chase element kept this film moving along nicely. John Anderton is against the clock to solve the predicted murder of Leo Crow, before the authorities find and punish him. 

Tom Cruise is well-known for his action-roles which made him the perfect fit for John Anderton. Anderton is your cut-and-dry hero - he is a handsome, law-abiding man accused of a crime that he hasn't committed yet. It isn't the most original of characters, but it didn't have to be. And Cruise did it well.

But no actor is a vacuum and Cruise did have a strong supporting cast. You had Farrell as the slimy villain-turned-unlikely ally Danny Witwur, but also Samantha Morton as the lead precog Agatha. As we learn more about her, we learn all about her tragic past and Morton did well in bringing this tragedy to life. Max Von Sydow was particularly menacing as the precrime director Lamar Burgess and Peter Stormare brought a wonderfully chaotic energy to the sleazy Dr. Solomon Eddie.

Minority Report was certainly an entertaining film. I enjoyed watching it as it perfectly balanced the big questions of science-fiction with the edge-of-the-seat action of a psychological thriller.   

The Aviator review

 Number 835 on the top 1000 films of all time is Martin Scorsesee's biographical drama film 'The Aviator.'

'The Aviator' tells the true story of film and aviation titan Howard Hughes (Leonardo Dicaprio) from his childhood to his rise to a successful film producer and pioneer of the aviation industry, all while documenting his later struggles with severe OCD and germaphobia. 'The Aviator' also explores his relationships with famed actresses Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale.) Rounding out the cast are notable heavyweights like Ian Holm, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Gwen Stefani and Willem Dafoe.

I've never been a fan of period-dramas. I find them overly-long, boring and lacking in drama and tension. This also extends to biopics and historical dramas. The Aviator was no exception. Objectively, I can understand why this would be fascinating subject-matter to some audiences. It is effectively about one of the early cinema pioneers. He produced some of the biggest films of the twenties and thirties including Scarface, the Racket and Hell's Angels. In fact, Hell's Angels and its the ground-breaking practices feature heavily within the Aviator.

Leonardo Dicaprio was Leonardo Dicaprio. He was charismatic enough, as the maverick and eccentric film mogul. He did earn the second of six Oscar nods for his portrayal, ultimately losing to Jamie Foxx who played Ray Charles. Honestly, I did think Jamie Foxx gave a better performance. However, where Leo didn't win an Oscar, Cate Blanchett did. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn. Again, she was good as far as the role went, but I'm not sure whether it was really Oscar-worthy. The portrayal felt very surface-level. Katherine Hepburn features heavily earlier on, before disappearing for much of the second-act to appear at the end as a Deux-ex-machina figure.

I also didn't think much of Kate Beckinsale who was pretty insipid as Ava Gardner or perhaps that's because she didn't have the best material. She didn't have that much to do throughout the film except be the target of Hughes' paranoid delusions.

Don't get me wrong, there were some great sequences in this film: Hughes catastrophically crashing his plane was heart-pounding, edge-of-the-seat stuff, while the portrayal of his declining mental health was well-directed and acted out. Dicaprio and Scorsesee worked extensively with UCLA's Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz aiming to portray OCD and germaphobia as accurately as possible ... although I may argue that Hughes recovered from this nadir a little too easily. Surely, it would take more than just a pep-talk from your old flames. But I guess that's just Hollywood.

The Aviator was entertaining enough, but, personally I don't much care for biopics or period-dramas. And that's more to do with me than any criticism of Scoresee or the Aviator itself.

Stalag 17 review

 Number 202 on the top 1000 films of all time is Billy Wilder's 1953 war-film Stalag-17.

J.J Sefton (William Holden) is just one of six hundred and thirty sergeants being held prisoner in a German WW2 POW camp. He is a cynical, jaded loner who stays apart from the rest of his men. When an escape attempt that leads to two of his fellow prisoners being shot dead, he is quickly suspected of being a collaborator.

Admittedly, I wasn't looking forward to watching this. I thought that because it's a war film, it would be depressing, hard-going and difficult to watch. However, I was surprised to find it had plenty of laughs and light-heartedness. A lot of that was down to William Holden who was great as J.J Sefton. Sefton is your standard wise-cracking smart-arse. He is also enterprising often bartering with his guards for luxuries, as well as improvising a distillery, organising mouse-races for gambling, as well as other activities to keep the other prisoners entertained. Holden played the role well, stopping Sefton from becoming overly-cynical.

Billy wilder has done such a wide array of films over the years from noir to rom-coms to screwball comedies that it was no surprise that Stalag-17 succeeded in the way it did. It had the same off-beat humour as Some Like it Hot but also the drama of Sunset Boulevard.  Originally adapted from a stage-play, Wilder was able to keep that same theatrical feel, while making it suitable for the screen. He made everything bigger and better.

If the film fell down anywhere, it would have been the supporting cast. Although some of them like the German guards were funny in their own right, mostly they all blended into one. I did have trouble distinguishing the different characters. I did get mixed up between Lieutenant James Dunbar (Don Taylor) and security officer Frank Price (Peter Graves.) Other than Sefton, the only other character I really remember is Sefton's loyal, if naive aide Cookie (Gil Stratton) who also narrates the film.

Overall, I did enjoy Stalag-17. It was an entertaining war film with a great turn by William Holden.

Babel review

 Number 833 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu's psychological drama Babel.

Babel spans four separate yet inter-locking narratives across the US, Mexico, Morocco and Japan. Chieko Wataya (Rinko Kikuchi) is a deaf-and-dumb Japanese teenage girl who has a strained relationship with her father Yasujiro (Koji Yakusho.) Yasujiro, while hunting in Morocco bequeaths his rifle to his guide who in turn sells it to goatherder Abdullah, whose goats are being attacked by jackals. He sends his two sons Yusuf (Boubker Ait El Caid) and Ahemd (Said Tarchani) to tend to the herd with the new rifle.

Tragedy strikes when the two boys fire at a tour bus containing married couple Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett.) Having marital problems, they travel to Morocco leaving their children in the care of their Mexican nanny Amelia (Adriana Barraza.) When the two are unable to return in time for Amelia to attend her nephew's wedding in Mexico, she goes anyway, taking the children with her.

This is definitely one of the more depressing films I've seen on this list. It was a downbeat, bittersweet, yet powerful tale about the consequences of us not communicating with each other. The title 'Babel' is an obvious reference to the Tower of Babel. Angry at humans for trying to construct a tower to reach heaven, God made it that so none of them could no longer speak the same language.

But poor Chieko could not speak at all. Rendered deaf and dumb from the trauma of discovering her mother's dead body, she struggles in relating to the outside world. Rinko Kikachi was very good at portraying a young lady trying and failing to find any type of connection. She was a relatable character. At one point or another, I'm sure we've all felt like we haven't fit in somewhere. Although her narrative is the least-connected to the rest of the plot it was one of the most powerful.

From here, we go to Morocco. The young and immature boys Ahmed and Yussuf being eager to try the range of the rifle, nonchalantly fire at a tour bus. When they realise they may have killed somebody, the two orchestrate a web of lies, which only leads to more tragedy.

Enter Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Blanchett plays Susan who was subsequently shot by Yussuf. She was good in what little she had to do, but she was largely under-used. Brad Pitt impressed me though. Instead of being the suave action hero, he was a grieving husband trying to fix his marriage. It was the most mature I have ever seen him.

Finally, we've come to poor Amelia who makes one innocent mistake with disastrous consequences. Adriana Barraza was great in the role rightly earning an Oscar nod. It clear that Amelia is a loving, empathetic woman who never wanted any harm to come to her words, yet that's exactly what happened. I do find it strange that neither Adriana Barraza or Rinko Kikachi didn't receive star billing yet their male co-stars did. These two were just as integral to the plot as Brad Pitt or Koji Yashuko.

Multi-narratives with ensemble casts can often be difficult to follow, but Inarritu did a good job in navigating the various complexities. It was a good idea to pick four different countries with four different cultures and languages. That certainly gave each section a distinctive look.

Along with Amores Perros and 21 Grams, Babel is part of Initarru's death trilogy. Although all three films make use of the hyperlink narrative structure, I do think Babel does it the best. I would also argue it's the best of the three. With the film's central theme being communication, I will end on a pertinent quotation by Stephen Hawking:

"For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals, but then something happened that unleashed the power of our imaginations: we learned to talk....It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking."

House of Flying Daggers review

 Number 748 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Wuxia romance film 'House of Flying Daggers.'

At the end of China's Tang Dynasty, there is a power vacuum. Within that vacuum, multiple groups are vying for power. One of these is the House of Flying Daggers who are battling against the corrupt Fengtian government. Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are tasked with finding and killing the mysterious leader of this group. To aid him, Jin pretends to befriend Mei (Zhang Ziyi,) the blind daughter of the leader, to gain her trust, all while being pursued by government forces. But then the two fall in love and everything changes.

There is no denying that House of Flying Daggers is a technically beautiful film. From the cinematography to the choreography to the colour palate to the gorgeous original score, it was a sensory feast. Yes, the martial art sequences do push your suspension of disbelief, but that's all part of the fun. Considering it was directed by Zhang Yimou who also directed Hero, this should come as no surprise. Hero was also a visually stunning film. 

Of course it helped when you have an actress as talented as Zhang Ziyi. As well as acting she is an accomplished singer and dancer which helped her execute a brilliant dance sequence at the film's beginning.

It's just a shame that the actual storyline couldn't match the technical heights. House of Flying Daggers was intended to be more of a romance than a wuxia film, but it failed in both regards. It doesn't count as a romance and it shouldn't have been marketed as such. By convention, romances should end with the love interests having a happy ever after or a happy for now. *Spoiler alert* That doesn't happen at all. 

And as it was a romance, you would expect it to be interesting, but the love story was so dull. Rather than solely being between Mei and Jin, Leo is also involved. He was previously engaged with Leo and has loved her for years. But when she falls in love with Jin after only three days, Leo becomes dangerously jealous. Cue a rather tepid love-triangle that culminates in a cheesy, unsatisfying conclusion. 

*More spoilers* 

It is later revealed that Mei was only pretending to be blind. But this also subplot confused me, as it was frustratingly inconsistent. At times Mei seemed to have perfect eyesight, but at others she was stumbling and fumbling around. It's implied that she has extra-sharp, super-human senses, hence why she can survive elaborate fight scenes without drawing blood. Having said that, most of the characters had some very strong plot-armour. And that added to the dullness. There was no tension or stakes as these characters seemed virtually indestructible. 

I would have much preferred to have watched a film about the different factions warring for power in the Tsang dynasty. Hell, I would have enjoyed watching the House of Flying Daggers battling against the corrupt government. Instead, I got a boring, tepid love story set against a visually stunning backdrop.

The Fifth Element Review

 Number 669 on the top 1000 films of all time is Luc Besson's 1997 science-fiction action film 'The Fifth Element.'

Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) is a former army major and now taxi driver in 23rd century Earth. He receives an unexpected fare when Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) falls through the roof of his cab. It is revealed that she is the fifth element needed to safeguard the survival of the human race against an evil alien entity hell-bent on destroying the Earth. It's up to Dallas to bring her and the four other elements together before the planet is attacked. Ian Holm, Gary Oldman and Chris Tucker all co-star.

Luc Besson had a very specific vision when he created The Fifth Element. Rather than emulating the dingy, techno-dystopias of Blade Runner, he wanted a bright, vibrant and colourful world. That's why The Fifth Element has such eye-popping visuals and off-beat humour. In many ways, it seemed like a low-budget, science-fiction B-movie. Even for the 90's the special effects didn't look great. 

Rather than being depressing and downbeat, everything was over-the-top. And that's why I didn't like the film very much. Bruce Willis was just Bruce Willis. Korben Dallas was not unlike John Mclane - just another wise-cracking ex-military guy who becomes an unlikely hero. He certainly didn't bring anything other than a cheesy energy to the part. I don't think he had much chemistry with Milla Jovovich. 

And if we're talking about cheesiness, let's mention Chris Tucker. His performance has been divisive to say the least. Some critics liked him others hated him. I am in the latter category. He was so over-the-top to be completely annoying. Every time he was on screen I rolled my eyes. His character was just ridiculously loud and obnoxious. I guess he was supposed to be a comic relief character of sorts, but I didn't find him very funny.

I was also very disappointed with Gary Oldman. He played the film's villain Jean-Baptise Emanuel Zorg - an industrialist pawn working for the entity that wants to destroy Earth. But Oldman wasn't particularly villainous or scary or malevolent. He had no threat to his character. Perhaps that was because of how he spoke with a rather inconsistent Southern American drawl or he was just as over-the-top as Chris Tucker. It was very difficult to take Zorg seriously as a villain. His performance was a far cry from his excellent effort in Leon: the Professional - also directed by Luc Besson.

The film's saving grace was Milla Jovovich who was very charming as the eponymous fifth element Leeloo. She brought a great chaotic energy to the role, as well as a lot of humour. And unlike Chris Tucker, she was actually funny.

Overall, I wasn't impressed by the Fifth Element. From its b-film visuals to its over-the-top performances, it wasn't for me at all.

This is England review

 Number 599 on the top 1000 films of all time is Shane Meadows' 2006 British drama 'This is England.'

Shaun (Thomas Thurgoose) is a troubled twelve-year-old boy whose father has recently been killed in the Falklands' War. Bullied at school, he is taken in by a gang of skinheads led by Woody (Joe Gilgun) and his girlfriend Lol (Vicky McClure.) However, everything changes when the gang's volatile and racist member Combo (Stephen Graham) returns from prison.

Directors like Shane Meadows always have difficult jobs when it comes to films like 'This is England.' They can't be seen either out-right condemning or approving of their content; they have to portray an objective reality allowing the viewer to make their own decisions. And that's where Meadows succeeded. Without ever becoming too preachy, he provides a fascinating snapshot into skinhead culture.

But he cannot take all the credit. Much of that should be bestowed on the brilliant Stephen Graham. Before he became a household name, he was playing characters who were espousing the same nationalistic, jingoism that was just as relevant now as it was back in the eighties. And he did it with such nuance. It would be all too easy to play the role as a romping - stomping, red-faced gammon shouting at the top of his lungs, but Graham was smarter than that. He brought many layers to Combo showing his vulnerability. While never condoning them, you understand his actions.

All this was seen through the perspective of twelve-year-old Shaun. This was a clever decision, as it was a stark warning of how easy somebody can be brainwashed by ideology. Thomas Thurgoose was very good in his debut role. While many of his co-stars like Joe Gilgun and Vicky McClure have gone onto bigger and better roles, I can't say the same for Thurgoose, but I'm sure his time will come soon.

Granted, you could argue that there isn't much in the way of plot, but I don't think it was necessary in a slice-of-life film like this. It was a simple snapshot of skinhead culture. And that's all it needed to be. Plus it had the brilliant Stephen Graham as the lead. What more do you want? Just be warned, this is England is way too depressing to watch more than once.

The Last King of Scotland review

 Number 557 on the top 1000 films of all time is the historical drama 'The Last King of Scotland.'

Nicholas Garrigan (James Mcavoy) is a young Scottish doctor. Looking to make a difference, he travels to Uganda to work in a missionary clinic ran by David Merrit (Adam Katz) and his wife Sarah (Gillian Anderson.) But after a chance encounter, he becomes the personal physician of the Ugandan despot Idi Amin (Forrest Whitaker.)

In terms of dictators, Idi Amin is up there among the rest. He expelled all South Asians from his country, wiped out all political opposition and was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Despite all this, Forrest Whitaker showed a remarkably human side of the tyrant. Without never romanticising his actions, Whitaker made Idi Amin into a watchable character. He had a fascinating arc as we saw him spiral into paranoia and meglomania while remaining incredibly charismatic.

James Mcavoy was equally good as the naive, starry-eyed doctor initially a disciple of Amin, until his tyrannical actions become too much for Garrigan to ignore. The character of Nicholas Garrigan was a nice dismantling of the white saviour archetype. Rather than your average white colonist aiming to pacify, sedate and civilise the savage negro, Garrigan is a destructive force, albert unintentionally. Instead of saving the black characters, he gets many of them killed. *Spoilers*

One of these characters is Amin's third wife Kay (Kerry Washington) whom Nicholas impregnates while the pair are having a secret tryst. He is criticised for being a white man who couldn't resist the mystical trophy of a black woman.

The Last King of Scotland was penned by Peter Morgan who wrote other biopics like the Queen and the Crown. He wrote well knowing the most important sections to focus on. There isn't any spare fat anywhere in this film. I also want to give dues to Gillian Anderson. She was great in the supporting role of Sarah Merrit. Having seen countless dictators come and go, she fails to share Nicholas' wide-eyed optimism for Idi Amin's regime.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Last King of the Scotland. It was a great look into the life of Uganda's ruthless dictator. 

Lucky Number Slevin review

 Number 504 on the top 1000 films of all time is Paul McGuigan's 2006 neo-noir thriller 'Lucky Number Slevin.'

Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett) is a victim of mistaken identity. Believed to be his friend Nicky, he is thrust into a war between two mob bosses - the Boss (Morgan Freeman) and the Rabbi (Ben Kingsley.) This is all while Slevin tries to evade the ruthless hitman Goodkat (Bruce Willis.) Together with the love interest and coroner Lindsey (Lucy Liu.) Slevin has to survive however he can. But all is not what it seems.

The general problem with the noir and, by extension, neo-noir films is that they are so overly-convoluted. The Big Sleep is notorious for its incomprehensible plot. Lucky Number Slevin is no exception. Major spoilers lie ahead.

Things are all relatively straightforward until the film's conclusion where everything is explained in the most complicated way possible. Slevin has actually been playing both mob bosses against in each other. This is to take revenge for how they murdered his father when Slevin was a child. To top everything off, a corrupt cop Brikowski (Stanley Tucci) murdered Slevin's mother. And, of course, he is the cop investigating the Boss and the Rabbi. Naturally he comes under Slevin's radar too.

This was a contrivance too far. I don't see why they had any reason to connect Brikowski with the main pot. it was all so unnecessary. Plus Slevin was supposed to be killed at the same time at his parents. Carrying out the hit was none other than the ruthless Goodkat who spares Slevin as he is a hitman who has suddenly developed a conscience because of ... reasons. And then Goodkat becomes a mentor to Slevin helping him to take revenge.

And despite having some major acting talent, Kingsley and Freeman are both Oscar winners, none of the characters were particularly memorable. Maybe that's because the characters weren't particularly memorable.

Although the mistaken identity element did produce some funny parts earlier on, the overall convoluted plot and one-dimensional characters made this an unenjoyable watch.

Sabrina review

 Number 520 on the top 1000 films of all time is Billy Wilder's 1954 romantic-comedy 'Sabrina.'

Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is the daughter of Thomas Fairchild - the chauffeur to the wealthy Larabee family. All her life, she has held an unrequited love to younger brother and playboy David (William Holden.) Also present is David's older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) who soon starts harbouring feelings of his own towards Sabrina.

Never mind 520 on the top 1000 films of all time, this film should be number one on the most boring films of all time. Seriously, it was as dull as your average period drama. And I'm not hating on romantic-comedies - I thoroughly enjoyed Breakfast at Tiffany's and Roman Holiday - but Sabrina was insufferably dull.

It was all so flat. There was so little drama. And so little conflict. Okay, fair enough, Sabrina's broken heart at David's constant womanising leads to her trying to commit suicide by locking herself in a garage with a running car, but she is quickly rescued by Linus, no harm done.

She is shipped off to a French-finishing school where she takes some cooking classes for a couple of years, before returning home where David finally starts taking an interest in her. It's hardly on the some levels of drama as the Notebook.

*Spoilers* It's later revealed that Linus has macchinated a marriage between David and Elizabeth Tyson - wealthy heiress to a business empire, all to serve the Larabees' business interests. In doing so, he falls in love with Sabrina and she him, creating a love triangle between David, Linus and Sabrina. Yet this never worked due to the lack of on-screen chemistry between the three leads, probably due to Bogart's dislike of Hepburn and Holden.

Hepburn is an obviously charming and accomplished actress especially in performing her verbose lines, so it's a shame I didn't like this film more. There was just nothing to interest me.

Being John Malkovich review

 Number 500 on the top 1000 films of all time is the surrealist fantasy-comedy 'Being John Malkovich.'

Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a down-and-out puppeteer living in New York City. He is trapped in a loveless marriage with his wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz.) When he finds work as an office-clerk, he stumbles upon a mysterious portal that leads him into the mind of John Malkovich. He discovers that for fifteen minutes a day he can literally be John Malkovich. He and his co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener) then decide to exploit this by charging people $200 for the experience of 'Being John Malkovich.'

I have watched over 500 films on this list. I have watched comedies, dramas, musicals, romances and horrors. And this has to be one of the weirdest, zaniest, most creative films I have ever seen. It takes a simple concept, which could have easily become tedious, and kept taking it to new levels. The surrealism is what made everything so relatable. In many ways, the film is like a daydream - who hasn't thought about being a celebrity for a day? It's one hell of a vicarious thrill if completely bonkers.

Although could we expect anything less from Spike Jonze? This was the man who went onto the direct the absolutely excellent and similarly creative 'Her.' But what's most impressive is that 'Being John Malkovich' was his directorial debut, as well as the debut of Charlie Kauffman, who penned the script. Kauffman was up for the best Original Screenplay Oscar, but he ultimately lost to Alan Ball and 'American Beauty.' While 'American Beauty' is a good film in its own right, it is pretentious, and not nearly as creative as 'Being John Malkovich.' Kauffman penned a great script that didn't take itself too seriously.

But it only worked because John Malkovich agreed to star in it. Reportedly he only wanted to produce and instead recommended Tom Cruise, but Kauffman was adamant that it had to be Malkovich in the role. When the studio also suggested other actors, Kauffman stuck to his guns. This was a great decision, as the film wouldn't have worked with another actor in the role.

Cameron Diaz also really surprised me. She was virtually unrecognisable as Lotte. I have never rated her much as an actress, but she did the drama well here. And although Craig Schwartz was a slimy toad, John Cusack played the role well. He was intriguing enough to want to keep watching. He was also weak-minded enough to be influenced by the scheming Maxine who was a Lady Macbeth character of sorts. She machinates much of the film's conflict including the scheme to charge people to inhabit John Malkovich's mind.

Being John Malkovich might have been one of the zaniest films ever-made, but it is definitely worth a watch. 

Breakfast at Tiffany's review

 Number 490 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1961 romantic-comedy 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.'

Based on Truman Capote's novella of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany's follows the free-spirited Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn.) She is a vibrant and independent socialise who falls in love with her neighbour - the struggling writer Paul Varjack (George Peppard.)

Firstly, let's address the Mickey Rooney shaped elephant in the room. He plays Holly's landlord Mr Yunioshi. For this role, Rooney wore prosthetics to look Japanese. This received both historical and contemporary criticism for being a racist characterisation of the Japanese, and East-Asians in general. As someone with East Asian heritage, I didn't find this offensive so much as I found it annoying. 

In fact, if there was an Oscar for most irritating performance ever Mickey Rooney would have surely won. Mr Yunioshi was a one-dimensional, terrible character. Rooney seemed to spend all his time shouting at the top of his voice in an accent that quickly grated on me. I think he was supposed to be some type of comic relief, but there was nothing funny about his performance.

If anything, I was more grossed-out at the revelation that Holly was only fourteen when she married her first husband Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen.) She is only nineteen in the film. And this is something that the film completely glosses over. But then again this was the sixties, long before political correctness ever became a thing. 

That notwithstanding, I did enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany's. It was a wonderfully subtle film with plenty of laughs and a charming performance from Hepburn. She imbued the ditzy Golightly with enough charisma to make her a thoroughly likeable character. 

Director Blake Edwards also allowed for plenty of improvisation which helped the comedy to thrive. For the famous party scene, he let the champagne and food flow freely meaning, gave the cast little direction, permitting them to produce some authentic and hilarious moments.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is also well-known for its signature song 'Moon River.' Written specifically for Audrey Hepburn's limited range, it was the perfect accompaniment for the film. Suitably romantic and understated, it went onto rightly win the Oscar for the Best Original song. When a studio executive suggested it be cut in the film, Audrey Hepburn shot back with "over my dead body." If it wasn't for her strong convictions, we would have been robbed this gentle song.

The Mickey Rooney yellowface controversy aside, I did very much enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The Celebration review

 Number 199 on the top 1000 films of all time is Thomas Vinterberg's Danish black-comedy drama 'The Celebration.'

Helge (Henning Moritzen) is the ageing patriarch of the Klingenfeldt-Hansen family. For his sixtieth birthday party, he invites all his family and friends out for a big dinner at a country hotel. The guests include his eldest-son Christian (Ulrich Thomsen,) the obnoxious and racist younger brother Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen,) daughter Helene (Paprika Steen,) wife Else (Birthe Neumann) and Helene's African-American boyfriend Gbatokai (Gbatokai Dakinah.) At the dinner, the celebration quickly turns sour as dark family secrets come to light.

I found this film to be a deeply uncomfortable watch. It was mainly horrible people being horrible to each other. It was also claustrophobic and suffocating. Perhaps that was because of its status as the first Dogme 95 - a new avant-garde film movement pioneered by Vinterberg. It championed low-budgets and simple production allowing the plot and performance to shine. That would explain the tight close-ups and shaky, hand-held camera-work. These forced the viewer right into the heart of the distressing action. And distressing is the best way to describe it.

When Christian gives a drunken speech, he accuses his father *spoilers* of sexually abusing he and his twin sister as children. It is later revealed that his sister killed herself because she couldn't cope with the emotional trauma. He also accuses his mother of standing by and letting it happen. Despite Michael's attempts to keep his brother quiet, this doesn't stop him from levying his allegations. In private, Helge threatens to expose Christian's lack of success with women and his potentially incestuous relationship with his twin sister. 

Furthermore, Michael is also depicted horribly. It is revealed that he cheated on his wife with a maid who went onto abort a pregnancy. When she tries talking to him at the party, he beats her senseless. He is brutal, boorish and racist especially toward Helene's black boyfriend. As a means of provocation, he encourages his guests to sing a racist Danish folk song. And if that isn't enough, Michael also has a short temper and argues regularly with his wife.

See my point? I don't know how any of this was conducive to entertaining viewing at all. Also, how is this classed as a black-comedy? Where were the funny parts? All I saw was a lot of people shouting at each other.

I think this is one of these films where you have to be a true cinophile to appreciate. I am evidently not one of those people, so I imagine I missed a lot of the hidden genius. But I did not enjoy this film at all. 

Taken review

 Number 418 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2008 action-thriller Taken.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is an ex-CIA operative with an estranged wife and daughter. When his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped in Paris by an Albanian sex-trafficking gang, he has to put his very particular set of skills into good use.

Let's get one thing straight. Taken is your generic, run-of-the-mill, action-thriller. It's never going to be an Oscar darling nor will it get a standing ovation at Cannes. In the vein of many action-films, it's completely ridiculous and over-the-top. But that's okay. That's exactly what we expect.

And to criticise Taken for its action sequences would be to criticise its very essence. Not to mention its best parts. As the action and the dialogue were certainly nothing stellar. Although Maggie Grace didn't have much acting to do except be the damsel-in-distress for Liam Neeson's knight in shining armour. And Famke Janssen who played Mills' ex-wife had little characterisation except for being a giant thorn in the side of our big action hero.

Or should I say action-hero reborn. Taken redefined Liam Neeson as an action-star and he certainly carried the action well. The fight scenes were well-choregraphed and he was very convincing.  He isn't particularly big or imposing, but he still made Bryan Mills a character you don't want to mess with.

Taken was a fast-paced, exciting and intense thriller. If you like such things then you'll definitely enjoy this film. And if you don't then this is certainly not the film for you.