Crooklyn

This semi-autobiographical directed by Spike Lee, and co-written by Lee and his siblings, Cinque and Joie Susannah.  The film is set over the spring and summer of 1973 in a tough but close-knit neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, and focuses on nine year old Troy Carmichael (Harris) growing up with four rowdy brothers and her troubled by loving parents:  Strict school teacher Carolyn (Woodward), who holds the family together, and ambitious but naive musician Woody (Lindo), who had some success with pop music covers in the past but now wants to concentrate exclusively on his own music.

The film is colourful, lively and is unusually light for a Spike Lee film, however there is still plenty of grit.  The neighbourhood is populated with eccentric characters, children play on the stoops and the street, everyone knows what is going on with everyone else and more often than not look out for each other, but it is tough, and there is always a threat of violence, although having said that, it's more likely to be a light punch rather than a gunshot.  The film is visually inventive.  Troy goes to stay with relatives in the South, which she finds very disturbing and disorientating, and these scenes are filmed in widescreen without anamorphically adjusting the image, which gives it a strange elongated look.  The performances are great, Alfre Woodward, Delroy Lindo and Zelda Harris are all superb, and the Carmichael family do feel like a real family, and your left wondering what happens to them after the film.  Spike Lee has a part as the neighbourhood glue sniffer Snuffy.  It's a loose film, without a strong plot, and feels quite baggy and episodic.  It's warm, funny, gritty and real, with a fantastic soundtrack of early '70s soul music.

A Clockwork Orange

Near future England:  Teenage gang leader Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell) leads his three friends (or "droogs") on nightly rampages of theft and savage violence against whoever is unlucky enough to encounter them.  Tiring of Alex's arrogance, his friends set him up to be arrested after their latest attack goes fatally wrong.  Alex is convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison.  After two years inside, Alex is submitted to an experimental treatment called the "Ludovico Technique" which is intended to cure criminality by making the subject unable to act violently.  Alex is released after the treatment and soon finds that where he was once the predator, he is now the prey.

Released in 1971, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and based on the 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess, this is hugely controversial film is now acclaimed as a modern classic.  It is still a shocking film, in fact I would say that it would probably not get made today. because it would just be too problematic.  Not necessarily because of the on-screen violence, which is heavily stylised and more shadowplay than graphic blood and gore, but because we are invited to like and sympathise with a  brutal, unrepentant rapist and murderer.  The entire film is shown through Alex's eyes, and he breaks the fourth wall with his voice-over narration (addressing the audience directly as "my brothers and only friends").  The first part of the film, depicting Alex's crimes is heavily stylised, whereas the latter part of the film, where Alex becomes the victim, the violence is much more realistically depicted thereby inviting the audience to enjoy Alex's rampages at a distance, but to sympathise with his own sufferings.  Which is, of course, how Alex would see it.  Also there is the towering performance of Malcolm McDowell as Alex, alternately threatening and innocent, it is a career best performance, and he is in pretty much every scene of the film. 
The film is relatively faithful to the novel, although it discards the final chapter of the original, British version of the book.  There are some odd elements in regards to the book, in which Alex's age is stated as being fourteen.  Malcolm McDowell was in his late twenties when he made the film, and yet he is constantly referred to as a child, despite being clearly an adult.
The film depicts a very seventies future, and it really is a product of it's time and place, it feels more like an alternate early seventies than a futuristic piece.  The novel was written in an invented slang called "Nadsat" and this is memorably retained in the film, although toned down.  Burgess invented nadsat because he felt that if he wrote it in then-current slang then novel would feel dated as soon as it was published, and he was right.
The film was famously withdrawn from release in Britain by Kubrick himself and was not legally available there until after his death.
It is still a troubling, shocking and powerful experience. 

Performance

This film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970, and was directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg.  In London, Chas Devlin (James Fox) is a brutal gangland enforcer, who genuinely enjoys his work.  When he disobeys direct orders from his boss and kills a rival for personal, rather than business reasons, Devlin becomes targeted by his own gang.  He decides to hide out in the vast mansion of reclusive rock star, Turner (Mick Jagger), who lives with Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michele Breton).  In Turner's surreal, erotic, decadent world of drugs, sex and mysticism, Devlin finds the boundaries of reality and fantasy collapsing.

This is a film that, if you see it once, you will never forget it.  It's very much a film of two halves.  The first half is, in terms of plot, a great if conventional gangster film (in terms of style and technique it is a million miles away from an ordinary gangster film), and in the second it becomes a surreal fantasy of sex, drugs and identity.  It utilises a fragmented, stream of conscience style, using almost every cinematic trick in the book.  James Fox is perfect as Chas Devlin, someone who is, in British criminal slang, a "performer" (a gangster with a special talent for violence and intimidation), he frequently tells people "I know who I am", he lives in a pristine apartment, and is always immaculately groomed and dressed in sharp suits, and is always in control.  Mick Jagger's Turner is another type of performer, a rock star who has retired because, as he says "I lost my demon".  Devlin, a man who needs to be in control, suddenly finds himself, in Turner's house, in a situation where he has no control, where all the old rules just don't apply.  Very much a product of it's time, and full of references to Jorge Luis Borges and William Burroughs, this is still genuinely shocking and disturbing.

Mother!

A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence), referred to as "Mother" in the credits, although nine of the characters are named in the film, is married to a successful poet (Javier Bardem), who is suffering from writer's block.  They live together in a rambling country house which she is renovating after a severe fire.  One night a strange couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) arrive and insinuate themselves into the lives of the homeowners.  It then gets progressively darker and weirder as more and more people invade the couple's home.

This film from writer/director Darren Aronofsky is frankly bizarre.  It's full of striking, memorable images and sequences, and Jennifer Lawrence gives a fantastic, tortured performance.  Some of it though is frankly tedious, and almost the whole thing makes very little sense.  It's probably best to see the film as an allegory, not to be taken literally, and there is likely to be a lot of discussion about what it actually means.  My take on it is that Jennifer Lawrence just wants to be left in piece with her family, but it's impossible to escape from the demands and intrusion of the world outside.  It's worth watching for it's sheer ambition.  You'll likely not see much like this, certainly not from a mainstream Hollywood release.  Personally I didn't enjoy the film, but I'm glad that I saw it, and I*'m still trying to decode what the hell it's all about.

 

It

This is an adaptation of the 1986 novel by Stephen King.  Set in 1989 (as opposed to the novel's 1958 setting) in the small town of Derry, Maine, which has been terrorised by a spate of mysterious disappearances of children.  Seven young outcasts, who call themselves "The Loser's Club" decide to put a stop to it:  Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) has a bad stutter and his younger brother, Georgie, is among the missing; Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is picked on because he is overweight; Beverley Marsh (Sophia Lillis) is abused by her father and is the subject of cruel rumours; Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard) is the group clown, often getting in trouble due to his loud mouth and foul language; Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff) is picked on because he is Jewish; Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) is subjected to racist bullying; and Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer) has become a hypochondriac due to his over-protective mother.  They discover that the culprit is Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard), who is in reality an evil, shapeshifting entity which feeds on fear, particularly children's fear.

Previously adapted as a two part TV miniseries in 1990 which was re-edited into a feature film; It is one of Stephen King's best known books.  The film lacks the richness of the book, but is an effective horror film, with a reliance on sudden jump scares.  It is well acted, and the film really shines in  the quieter character moments.  

The Limehouse Golem

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Juan Carlos Medina
Screenplay:  Jane Goldman, based on the novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd
Starring:  Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Douglas Booth, Daniel Mays, Sam Reid, Maria Valverde, Henry Goodman, Morgan Watkins, Eddie Marsan
Running Time:  105 minutes
Genre:  Horror, crime, period drama, mystery, thriller

Limehouse is one of the poorest and roughest areas of Victorian London where every kind of crime, degradation and vice is rampant, and now it is targeted by a brutal serial killer, the so-called "Limehouse Golem" which strikes seemingly at random, targeting the young, the old, men and women.  World weary Police Inspector John Kildare (Nighy), who has been passed over for promotion due to rumours about his private life, is put in charge of the case and during the investigation finds himself drawn to troubled music hall actress Elizabeth Cree (Cooke), who is on trial for the poisoning of her husband, one of several suspects in the Golem case.

This is a lurid, full-blooded Victorian melodrama, rich with atmosphere and period detail.  It's full of gore and horror, but also works as an intriguing mystery.  The film uses historical figures as characters, such as Karl Marx (Goodman), novelist George Gissing (Watkins) and comedian Dan Leno (Booth).  Bill Nighy is great as the sensitive, troubled police inspector and the connection he forms with  Elizabeth is genuinely touching.  The film explores themes of social inequality and the pursuit of fame.

Class of Nuke 'Em High

Year of Release:  1986
Directors:  Richard W. Haines, Michael Herz and Samuel Weil
Writers:  Lloyd Kaufman, Richard W. Haines, Mark Rudnitsky and Stuart Strutin
Starring:  Janelle Brady, Gil Brenton, Robert Prichard, Pat Ryan

This is a comedy horror high school movie from cult production company Troma Entertainment.  In the town of Tromaville, New Jersey, the local high school is only a quarter of a mile away from the nuclear power station.  The honor society have transformed into violent mindless thugs who call themselves "the Cretins".  They sell the students contaminated drugs, which cause strange changes in nice high school couple Chrissy (Brady) and Warren (Brenton).  To make matters worse, there is a baby monster in the basement which has grown into a big monster.

The film is technically bad on almost every level (although the monster does look pretty impressive), the acting is atrocious, the jokes are bad and it is awash with gratuitous violence.  However, none of that matters, because the film is actually a lot of fun.  The filmmakers are in on the joke.  They obviously knew their audience and it's perfectly tuned to the midnight movie cult crowd.  It zips along merrily enough and it never gets boring.  If your a fan of cult cinema or are just looking for a campy fun movie to laugh at with your friends then you'll probably enjoy it.

There is a kind of satirical undercurrent to it about nuclear safety (the staff of the plant are depicted almost unanimously as being completely incompetent or crooked, even though it is full of posters proclaiming how clean and safe nuclear power is) and also about fears of rebellious youth (in the principal's office one of the Cretins sneers "We're the youth of today" and they all start singing the "Star Spangled Banner").