Tank Girl (1995)

"I'm gonna need a microscope and tweezers, it's like, uh..."

Don't get me wrong; this is a B-movie, with all that entails, even though it feels strange to be talking about B-movies as late as 1995. But a B-movie can still be awesome, and this splendid feminist cult classic is no exception.

Yes, the budget looks cheap, but that doesn't stop future Doctor Who helmer Rachel Talalay from directing it stylishly and not being unafraid to use bits of comic strip and even cartoon to transition between scenes. I haven't read the original comic book but the film certainly sells it well, much as this post-apocalyptic future of water scarcity and feminist subtext feels very 2000 AD.

Lori Petty is superb as the wittiest, most double-entendre spouting pro-sex feminist hero in all of cinema, and Malcolm McDowell chews scenery as only he can, but Naomi watts is also superb as the initially beaten down Jet Girl who slowly learns how to kick ass in this world of cruel and unimpressive men. The soundtrack, which boasts the likes of Devo, Hole, L7, Portishead and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, is as awesome as they gets, much though it leads me to reflect mournfully on how plugged in I was back in '95 and how these days I'm, well, not.

The film is superb, at its heart a film about real darkness, cruelty, abuse and despair yet rising above it with the power of joyful wit. It has the feminism of Riot Grrl, "bollocks" in an American accent , pimped-up tanks and Iggy Pop as a silly masked mutant. What more can you ask for?

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

"You are now a murderer, little Alex."

Anthony Burgess may not be a fashionable author but I'm a huge fan of his. I've read a large amount of his work, from A Dead Man in Deptford to Earthly Powers and while, yes, there's certainly a fair amount of Catholic guilt in there as subtext, you can't reduce him to that as a writer; he has such fun playing with ideas in gloriously erudite prose. A Clockwork Orange is no exception- a treatise not only on sin but also on civil liberties vs. law and order, on free will, on the awkward fact that one can appreciate high culture and still be evil, whatever F.R. Leavis may think.

So how does Stanley Kubrick handle it? Well, with great aplomb. The entire film takes place amongst the brutalist architecture of the third quarter of the twentieth century, even the scenes set outside, with rose horrible associations not yet of decay (as I'm sure the same locations would have evoked a few years later) but of a brutal, soulless totalitarianism of the mind, which fits the totalitarianism of what happens to Alex. Yet law and order truly has broken down and totalitarian mind control is proposed as a solution; there is no role for decent liberals here, whom the script even seems to mock as elitists. It's a chilling echo of modern times. The fashions- while boiler suits, bowler hats, fake eyelashes- are striking and succeed in giving the film a sense of timeless in spite of the inevitable 1971-ness of various things, not least the police brutality.

The film would not be the triumph it is without a stellar central performance by a young Malcolm McDowell, who is not only convincing but successfully manages to imbue the psychopath Alex with sufficient charm to leaven the darkness of the film. McDowell is ably assisted by a strong cast including a startlingly young Warren Clarke. The directorial style is just as awesome as we might expect.

After a couple of crappy films it's such a relief to be blogging a true masterpiece like this. A truly seminal film.

if... (1968)

"Paradise is for the blessed. Not the sex-obsessed."

I wasn't privileged/unfortunate enough to go to a public school myself, being far too common: not for me the delights of fagging, chapel, cadets and assorted bizarre traditions. Most of what I know of the big public schools comes from Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot, a certain episode of Ripping Yarns and, yes, this film. No doubt this gives me an entirely realistic impression.

The film is a triumph of direction, of the riveting central performance of Malcolm McDowell, and of the dreamlike, searing anger of the film. And yes, that's an unusual combination. 

We begin with introductions to the school, its arcane traditions, its loathsome "whips", corporal punishment, hypocritical staff, and the fact that new boys are called "scummy". It's a harsh introduction to a harsh life for kids who are already having to cope with the brutal separation from their families. What sort of parent can do that to s child? Worse, what sort of parents can do that to a child on full knowledge of what it must feel like? One can understand why ex-public schoolboys are often so repressed, cold and weird. Privilege comes at the cost of devastating psychological trauma. That's how we do things on this country. Lovely.

Of course, this being a closed environment with little in the way of oestrogen, the inevitable homoeroticism is simply accepted. Boys are accused by other boys of "tarting". Teachers are either soulless authoritarians or deeply eccentric. It's all profoundly weird.

Into all this comes Mick Travis, a decidedly not-very-'60s rebel, obsessed with war. We see a number of his brushes with authority and two big dream sequences. The first of these sees him and his mate nick a motorbike (without consequences) after which he proceeds to get his end away. The second consists of his shooting  loads of people.

At least, I assume this last bit is a dream sequence. It's certainly shocking to see, especially given recent events in Oregon, Connecticut, and other places which fetishise the "right" to bear arms.

All the boys we see are damaged, profoundly weird and entirely unable to interact with other human beings in a natural way. Travis is no worse than many, especially not the tyrannical "whips".

This is a brilliant, brilliant film which skewers public school culture superbly while also benefiting from some delightfully arty direction. One of the best films of the '60s and a film that simply could not have been made in any other year.

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

"Burn the witch."

As per this film's predecessor, I ought to make the point that I know sod all about any of the computer games. Nevertheless, this is even better than Silent Hill, and bloody scary to boot. I understand the critics don't like it, but then they know the game (Silent Hill 3, my wife tells me); I suspect that's why. My wife, incidentally, is playing the game as I type. I've promised to protect her from the monsters.

Yes, there's a plot and yes, it works fine, but this film is all about the scary imagery and set pieces and that's what I plan to focus on. If you haven't seen the film, look away now.

It's a very nightmarish film, hence the narrative style, and so of course we begin with a dream sequence in which Heather (as she's now calling herself), the daughter from the previous film, sees images of Pyramid Head and other delights and is ominously warned to stay away from a certain West Virginia town called Silent Hill.

I like Heather's little speech in class; she moves around, won't be around long, and there's little point in the other students getting to know her. We quickly get a sequence of scary kids, reminding me a little of Village of the Damned. But we soon shift to a dream sequence and, after sequences introducing fellow student Vincent, with whom she muses philosophically on dreams vs. reality, reflecting exactly how the film is narratively structured, and a mysterious detective called Douglas Cartland, who promptly dies. Several delightfully unnerving dream sequences later, the action finally shifts to Silent Hill itself. The direction is already superb.

Having learned the backstory- fire burning underground, religious zealots etc- Heather, alongside Vincent, gains a McGuffin, loses both Vincent and her Dad as hostages, and gets some expository guff about how she's the only good part of Alessa's soul. More interestingly, we get a deeply scary scenes with shop window dummies which I very much hope strongly influences any future appearance of the Autons in Doctor Who. The plastic mannequin spider in the middle of its web is amazing. This is by far the highlight of the film.

Of course, we get scenes of Pyramid Head chopping off prisoners' hands, and we get to see the dilapidated amusement park again as the denouement plays out. The film ends very abruptly, it must be said, and I'm not sure a happy ending could ever have satisfied, but I very much enjoyed this film.

The Artist (2011)

"Quiet, please!"

I feel completely naked right now. Every time I've reviewed something up until now I've taken notes while watching (meaning much use of the pause button), and referred to them while tying out my review. But I saw this at the cinema, where making notes is not exactly an option. So I'm naked, without a safety net, swimming without water wings, or whatever metaphor you prefer.

Incidentally, I saw this at the Phoenix Square cinema in Leicester, a rather excellent little place, somewhat arty, and just around the corner from one of my favourite little watering hols, the Ale Wagon. Not only does it have a bar, not only does it do Boddingtons, but you can take your pint of Boddies in with you to see the film. Result.

The film is, let's not wait before saying it, completely bloody brilliant, and entirely deserving of its Oscar, although I would have thought it might be a little light-hearted for the Academy's tastes. The whole thing looks gorgeous: Michel Hazanavicious does rather a lot of very things with the camera. The film just bulges with sumptuous 1920's-ness; the cars, the clothes- everything from the opening titles onwards evokes the period in a way that films made in the actual 1920's, when all this stuff was ordinary and mundane, don't. The cast is superb, too, with Jean Dujardin being another deserving winner, accurately portraying a strangely period kind of matinee idol charm while also evoking the pathos of a proud man humiliated, all while showing a superb sense of comedy. He does all these things, and yet George Valentin (bit of a nod to Rudolph with the name there...) comes across as a coherent and nuanced character. Really, there are people in this world far less fortunate than a washed-up ex-actor whose diminished lifestyle would arguably still be the envy of many, especially during the Great Depression, and Valentin really is a proud, arrogant and self-centrede git. And yet he fully retains our sympathy in spite of all this, and even the attempt at suicide feels both real and horrifying.

Bérénice Bejo (the director's missus) is superb too in a role that demands her to convince as an A-list star while also showing us the real enthusiasm and the big heart that lies underneath. It sort of helps that she happens to be gorgeous.

But the best thing about the film is how damned clever it is. There are few things I enjoy in a film more than a bit of metatextual fun, and that's exactly what this film is about- a "love letter to Hollywood" that wallows in all the glamour of cinema while also showing us the tragedy of what happens to those who have finished their time in the Sun, and how cruelly they are cast off.

The opening scene, a scene within a scene from A Russian Affair, features Valentin being tortured and refusing to talk. This is, obviously, pretty much a metaphor for everything he does in the film. Just before his wife leaves him she's most upset at him for his refusal to talk to her. In every way possible, he refuses to talk, and this underlines just how thoroughly and suddenly he's been sidelined by the arrival of the talkies.

My favourite scene and, I suspect, most people's favourite scene, is the dream sequence where sound (though not dialogue!) suddenly intrudes, with his glass thudding on to the table and a feather falling to the ground with an almighty crash. Sound is what Valentin most fears.

Only at the end are we told why as he utters his only line of dialogue in a pronounced French accent, which is if anything even more meta. And the last few seconds of the film feature a cacophony of voices calling for quiet.

A splendid film, then, marred only by the parking ticket I got from some bastard traffic warden. I strongly recommend you go and see it, but be careful where you park!