Tired of mankind’s wicked ways, God has had enough. He instructs his general; The Archangel Michael (Bettany), to lead his army to earth to exterminate the human race for good. Convinced that there is still hope for man, Michael gives God the finger, heads down to Earth and cuts off his wings, transubstantiating into complete human form and heads to a diner in the middle of nowhere. There he meets up with a motley crew of misfits including a woman pregnant with man’s only saviour. It is here the final battle for mankind’s survival will unfold. Oh yeah, did I mention that Michael has a fuck load of guns? Probably should have.

Got all that? Good. Legion had some decent potential. Constantine mixed with Assault on Precinct 13 mixed with The Prophecy… with MOAR GUNZ!? Hell yeah it sounds like something I could get on board with. The reality, however wasn’t so great. In fact, it was downright disappointing. Not the plot or premise so much but the execution.

First of all, the dialogue was apparently written by a 5 year old. Subtle and nuanced is most certainly was not. Plus, I got the distinct impression that at certain (seemingly random) points during a scene that someone behind the camera gave the actors a signal to throw in an arbitrary F-Bomb. That’s how asinine it was. The only saving grace here was Charles S. Dutton gave the best dialogue of the whole movie and a pretty decent gag related to his character’s prosthetic hand.

Next big problem was how dark the bloody thing was. I appreciate that it probably didn’t have a monumental budget but come on, guy! Shrouding everything in total darkness might cover your bargain basement CGI but it’s fucking annoying. Did AVP2 not teach us anything!? Had it not been for this, the movie might have just been passable as a semi-decent Saturday afternoon actionfest… but no, the bastards ruined that too!

The final nail in the coffin for this debacle is the fact that it used every cliche in the book! Not just the action and scenes, things like 9mm MP5s that can not only shred cars from 500m away but also never run out of bullets, but even the camera work! It seemed like every other shot was a panning close-up of a person or object with a horribly executed shallow depth of field that looked like a faux tilt-shift photoshop effect.

“At least we get to see a kick ass fight between some hard-core angels and shit right?” No. You see 2 minutes of hopelessly dark blurry CGI followed by some bullshit cop-out of an ending that will leave you going “What… but what about the… WHAT!??! Oh fuck you, movie!”

So yeah, Not so much.

Verdict:

When his daughter is gunned down in front of him, aging detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) begins an investigation that will lead him into the darkest realms of corporate conspiracy and government corruption. Edge of Darkness sees Gibson return to kicking ass and taking names and also stars Ray Winstone and Danny Huston.

The most notable thing about this movie is that you don’t get what the trailers lead you to believe you’ll be getting. From the very first (and very gory) death scene, Edge of Darkness is a fast paced revenge come man-with-nothing-left-to-lose tell with some great suspense and a marvelous performance from Gibson. Anyone who thinks he’s too old can sit down and shut up!

Truth be told, this movie has a great deal in common with Taken, a movie that received mixed reviews but I, personally loved every ass-kicking minute of. What Edge of Darkness has, however that Taken didn’t have is a surprisingly complex plot involving a rather large amount of characters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as complicated as something like Primer but it’s not your average brain-dead shoot-em-up either. The number of characters, however did the movie one small injustice in that, at times the pace was a little jittery and fractured as newly introduced characters are developed (as with Ray Winstone’s character) outside the context of the main plot.

This flaw is only a minor one, however and the sheer adrenaline and ferocity of Mel Gibson’s character are enough to satisfactorily fill any cracks that may appear. The flaw that costs the movie the fifth star, though is the ending… I mean the very ending… I mean literally the 30 seconds before the end credits roll which, because of spoilers I won’t go into. It almost felt like an afterthought, or maybe even an added extra thrown in at the whim of a certain aging Christianity enthusiast… say no more. The scene that directly precedes this could have been played up a lot more to create a far more satisfying finale (think the end of Watchmen).

All things considered, Edge of Darkness remains an extremely accomplished and entertaining conspiracy thriller with enough thematic backbone to stand up to all the action, bullets and snappy dialogue that the director and star could throw at it.

Verdict:

Moon (2009)

Sometimes what we need as movie lovers is something to strip things back to the old school to remind us that a genre is worth our time. Moon did this for the sci-fi genre. Written and directed by Duncan Jones (David Bowie’s son), Moon tells the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell); the lone occupant of a lunar mining station coming to the end of his three-year rotation. But with just a few days to go Sam begins to see strange things. These hallucinations cause him to crash a lunar vehicle and become trapped. Things get really weird when Sam is rescued by an apparent clone of himself.

A super stylish tale of paranoia and the malice of the multi-billion dollar mining corporation; Moon is a triumph. The confusion and claustrophobia are palpable and the ending will leave you slack-jawed but totally satisfied. A rare thing in modern movies.

Can’t Hardly Wait (1998)

So with coming-of-age comedies having had somewhat of a revival with Empire Records in ‘95 one of the earliest of the new school teen comedies that spawned American Pie and the like was Can’t Hardly Wait. Starring Ethan Embry and Jennifer Love Hewitt, Can’t Hardly Wait is story of the last high school party before the class leave for college (Cliche now but quite fresh back then). It focuses on Preston’s last chance of give Amanda (Hewitt) a love letter he’s been holding on to since the first year of high school when Amanda moved from another town.

Running in parallel to this soppy love story is actually a pretty funny teen comedy. A good, old fashioned feel good movie Can’t Hardly Wait stands out among a bazillion other, sub par teen comedies. Sunday afternoon fare, for sure.

Street Kings (2008)

The third cop movie from writer/director David Ayer to feature in my recommendations, Street Kings is a story of crooked cops and betrayal in a Los Angeles police division. Keanu Reeves stars as Tom Ludlow, a great but disgraced cop battling alcoholism and discrimination. When a fellow cop is murdered Tom begins to see where the trail of deceit leads.

Featuring Forest Whittaker and Hugh Laurie (as House MD in everything but name and limp) Street Kings is a high action, fast paced cop thriller with all the tension of Ayer’s other greats, Training Day and Harsh Times. If you enjoyed them, you’ll enjoy this. Simple.

Disturbing Behaviour (1998)

Not quite teen movie, not quite horror and not quite sci-fi, Disturbing Behaviour is a bit of an oddball. It stars James Marsden and Katie Holmes before she went all schizo and married that dwarf and revolves around Steve (Marsden) who is new to the town and sees that not everything is as perfect as it first appears with the “Blue Ribbons”; the group of seemingly perfect students. Steve, with the help of friends Gavin (Nick Stahl) and UV (Chad Donella) soon discovers that the Blue Ribbons are the result of an experiment with the aim of eliminating teenage rebellion and creating a perfect school.

Though not as slick as it could have been, Disturbing Behaviour is something a little different. You can clearly see that The Faculty draws a lot of its inspiration from it and for its time, it was pretty unique in the teen genre. Maybe not the very very best but a pretty good example.

Martyrs (2008)

I wasn’t sure about recommending this one. Ash suggested that I watch it after she said it scared her so much she couldn’t get through it. Martyrs is about a girl who goes after revenge some years after she escaped from a prolonged horrific abduction. Well, at least the first 20 minutes are. Then it gets reeeeally nasty!

Believe me when I say this; Martyrs is the most horrific film I’ve ever seen. Nothing is sugar coated and no punches are pulled. Most people who have seen this make the obvious reference to Hostel but me, I saw something darker. Something more akin to Hellraiser than Eli Roth’s blackly comical splatterfest. Really, really, really use your discretion with this one.

So that’s all of them, folks. Sorry for the dealy this time. Hopefully March part I will be on time. See you then.

What the hell kind of book would you write!? I hear you ask. You see, I’m a cynical fucker. I make observations of the world’s shortcomings that people with a normal brain wouldn’t notice or ever care about. In a way I’m the bitter old bastard that yells at kids for doing something that affects him in no way what so ever. I see problems and annoyances where others don’t. So the “book” would be a sort of Clarksonesque indictment of the world as I see it. I think I’d split it up into chapters based on what I was talking about (the web, TV, movies, people etc.) however, seeing as it will more than likely be a website, I’m thinking of doing something along the lines of an art-directed blog. Sort of like how Sam Hardacre and Greg Wood and Jason Santa Maria do it with each “article” being styled in such a way that it would compliment the theme and subject.

Exactly how I’d execute it is still up for debate. I don’t intend on having comments open so maybe I could hard code the lot. That, however would present the problem of it requiring quite a lot of tinkering each time I posted a new page. Ollie Kavanagh’s Hip Hop Quoted site seems to do exactly what I’m after and it’s built on WordPress (win) but what that dude’s development skills make me look proper retarded. It’s all a learning curve, though and I think I’ll get there one way or the other. Maybe this will help… If you have any resources to share or tips that will help me cut my art direction teeth then please get in touch.

As for web standards, the site will be highly experimental. It will take much inspiration from the Sam Brown school of thought and will include fancy CSS3, HTML5 and browser specific pretties that mean it will not look the same in every browser. (Read: if you use IE you’ll probably be shit outta luck.)

Wolf Creek (2005)

Only the second Australian movie I’ve ever recommended, Wolf Creek is a terrifying story of a group of young backpackers who are stranded in the outback and rescued by a passing bushman. What at first seems like an end to their nightmare turns out to be only the beginning as one by one the group are picked off by their rescuer in a variety of sick and brutal ways.

Blindsided isn’t the word here. I had no idea this movie was going to turn out to be such a violent, horrifying journey or such a well executed bit of film making. The cast of unknowns add to the feeling that this could happen to anyone and the villain isn’t hammed up like a lot of Hollywood slashers are. It is bound to keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Heathers (1988)

Heathers is seriously weird… In a good way. Imagine True Romance and Natural Born Killers if they were told in the form of an episode of Twin Peaks and you’d be getting close. What we essentially have is a high school love story between a girl who hates her friends (Wynona Rider) and a guy who hates everyone (Christian Slater). The two meet and begin a bizarre and hilarious murder spree cutting through the school’s popular cliques.

Everything about this movie is unconventional. The story, the music, the direction and especially the characters. While the clothes and vocabulary might be dated, the movie still stands the test of time. Weird, it seems, never goes out of fashion.

Stir of Echoes (1999)

Around the time we started to see rapid-fire low budget horror coming to the fore once again, out came Stir of Echoes starring Kevin Bacon. The plot revolves around Tom (Bacon) who is hypnotised by a family friend and later begins to see haunting images and what appears to be the ghost of a young girl (Yes, cliche now but not so much when it was released) He soon begins to realise that these are clues and he must get to the bottom of the girl’s death before the hauntings ruin his family’s life forever.

You have to be in the right frame of mind to see this. Don’t watch it expecting Oscar worthy performances or Kubrick calibre direction. This is good, old fashioned shock-horror. That said, it’s better than the majority and she story stands up fairly well too. Stir of Echoes will fit in nicely as part of a horror movie marathon or a lazy night on the couch movie with popcorn.

Fortress (1992)

Are you ready for some cheese!!? You are? Great, then here’s Fortress! Starring Christopher Lambert, yeah the Highlander, as John Brennick, a man who is thrown into a high security underground prison when he and his wife attempt to flee the country with their illegal, unborn baby (the country is under population control).  He makes it his mission to not only escape but rescue his wife (from the women’s wing of the same prison) and destroy the evil facility and its corrupt warden. See… CHEESE!!!

As cheesy as this movie is, you can’t fail to enjoy it. The dialogue is hilarious, the action is over the top and the plot is just bonkers. Unplug brain, open bag of your favourite movie snacks and just enjoy what some refer to as the last great B movie ever made.

Body Bags (1993)

A first for these recommendation posts of mine, Body Bags never had a theatrical release. The low budget horror anthology “hosted” by John Carpenter was made for TV and still airs from time to time very late at night. Directed by Carpenter as well as Tobe Hooper (Director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Body Bags consists of three short horror tales ; The Gas Station, Hair and Eye, and features cameos from some horror legends including Sam Raimi and Wes Craven.

What’s great about this is that you can tell that it wasn’t made to make a particular audience happy. Instead it feels like a personal project that Hooper and Carpenter made to entertain themselves. It certainly explains why it never reached cinemas. Of course it’s also because of this that the movie never saw much in the way of critical acclaim. Not everyone sees things like a horror writer. Indeed, the movie might be somewhat lost on anyone but a true horror fan but I feel it’s worth your 90 odd minutes just to see if you like it. I certainly did.

That’s it for this time folks. Later!

The Descent (2005)

One of the finest horror movies of the last 10 years, The Descent follows a group of female cavers out on an expedition in a newly discovered cave system in an unnamed area of the English countryside. When the group find themselves cut off from their exit, the terror ensues as they soon discover they are being stalked by a strange, terrifying predator.

This is a movie that caught me totally by surprise. Critics compared it to Creep which, although I thought was good, didn’t blow me away. What I got though was a much tighter, well polished and more terrifying experience. Watch this one alone, in the dark and I promise you’ll shit yourself with fear.

Hard Candy (2005)

When people think of Ellen Page they immediately think of the surprise hit Juno. But for me the movie that sets the young Canadian actress apart is her 2005 film Hard Candy. The story follows Hayley (Page), a 14 year old girl who meets a charming 32 year old photographer played by Patrick Wilson over the Internet and arranges to meet in real life. Suspecting he is a paedophile, Hayley sets about a gruesome and violent plan to expose him.

Another film that blindsided me, Hard Candy is one of those films that will have you thinking for days and weeks after watching it. As the movie progresses your sympathy switches from one character to the other and as accusations become facts and layers of untruth are peeled away you find yourself questioning your own beliefs. It is gripping in a way that most other movies ony dream of being. In my opinion, Ellen Page’s best work to date.

Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)

If revenge is a dish best served cold, Shane Meadows‘ gritty tale of vengeance burns you like a shot of liquid nitrogen. Sitting firmly in my top three British movies of all time, Dead Man’s Shoes follows Richard played by the superb Paddy Considine as he returns to his home town after a stint in the army to exact bloody revenge on the gang of petty criminals who brutalised his mentally challenged brother.

Brutal, frightening and gritty with a killer twist ending, Dead Man’s Shoes will draw you in like Richard himself reached through the screen and grabbed you by the collar. Filmed in Matlock, Derbyshire just up the road from where I live, the setting is unusual for a movie like this but Meadows makes it nothing short of perfect. The remote, dreary town seems almost like another character in league with Richard as he avenges his brother. This is a must-see thriller.

Harsh Times (2005)

From the writer of Training Day, David Ayer, comes Harsh Times, the brutal, dark tale of a friendship torn apart by violence and mental illness. After serving in Iraq Jim (Christian Bale) is having a hard time adjusting to life as a civilian. Haunted by the killing he saw and did while in the gulf Jim’s money is running out and as he and lifetime friend Mike (Freddy Rodriguez) set out looking for work they end up falling back into the life of crime and drugs they so nearly turned their backs on completely.

This is not an easy film to watch. Nor is it happy. What you do get though is a gripping story, wonderfully shot and directed that takes you by surprise and doesn’t sugar coat anything. It portrays the disparity of the lead characters very well and is easily the best movie of its type… because it’s the only one.

Monster (2003)

My final recommendation this month is the true story of prostitute turned serial killer, Aileen Wuornos. Monster is an unflinching look at how Aileen (Charlize Theron) went from ageing prostitute to killing out of necessity to killing for money to being convicted and sentenced to death by the state of Florida and her odd friendship-come-love-affair with young runaway Selby played by Christina Ricci.

Brutal and honest, Monster is about as depressing as they come but the superb direction and Oscar winning performance from Theron simply steal the show. Very few true crime stories are as well done and hard-hitting as Monster. A true masterpiece.

A word of advice before I leave you; Don’t watch all these movies in one go. I don’t want your suicides on my conscience. Next time I think I’ll go for some comedies…

The Game (1997)

I remember being told about this movie by an old school friend and instantly making it my mission to seek it out and watch it. I’d simply never heard a more intriguing plot premise. The Game stars Michael Douglass as Nicholas Van Orton, a successful investment banker who is given a mysterious card for his birthday. After following the instructions on the card, Nicholas’ life is turned upside down. His business takes a dive, his home is ransacked and he is implicated in a sexual scandal that threatens to ruin his professional life forever. Who is responsible and what does the mysterious birthday present have to do with it all?

When it gets going, The Game is sure to have you hooked. The story is fast-paced and draws you in deeper and deeper until all is revealed in a twist ending that will more than satisfy. Not one you can watch too frequently but a great mystery thriller none the less.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

Many horror movies have dealt with the concept of Satan making his ascent up to earth at Armageddon but I don’t think any have handled it in a more interesting way than Prince of Darkness. The story follows a group of physics students and their professor sent into an abandoned LA church to investigate a strange cylinder of green liquid that has been discovered in the basement. The students soon discover that the liquid contains the essence of Satan himself who is seeking to manifest on Earth and awaken his father, an all-powerful Anti-God to bring about the end of time.

While not the most polished or well acted of movies, Prince of Darkness remains a truly original and entertaining horror flick. Combining religious folklore with shards of zombie horror and an odd appearance from Alice Cooper, it will hold your attention and, over all, leave you pretty impressed.

The Golden Child (1986)

Not one to be taken seriously, The Golden Child is a fantasy aventure comedy taken straight out of Eddie Murphy’s golden era (pardon the pun). Murphy plays Chandler Jarrell, a detective specialising in finding missing children who is given the task of locating “The Golden Child” a young boy who is believed to hold great power and importance. The Golden Child has been kidnapped my a mysterious evil sorcerer and the fate of the world relies on his rescue.

Although not a big box office hit on its release, The Golden Child gathered a cult following on home video. It’s a well executed, funny and entertaining family film that really shows what made Eddie Murphy so popular.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

I’m a huge Coen brothers fan. Pretty much everything they’ve made, I’ve enjoyed but I think one of their most overlooked films has to be The Hudsucker Proxy. When naive business graduate Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is installed as the president of Hudsucker Industries as part of a stock scam on the part of the board he is thrust into the public eye. It is then an ambitious news reporter played by Jeniffer Jason Leigh goes undercover to get to the bottom of the scam. Not all goes to plan for the board, though and soon Barnes begins to succeed where he is required to fail.

A quirky, unique comedy that only the Coen Brothers can deliver, The Hudsucker Proxy will have you hooked from the start with its witty dialogue and great direction. Great performances all round, including the late great Paul Newman really drive the movie home and will have you wanting to watch it again and again.

Brick (2005)

Easily one of the most imaginative Indy movies of the last 10 years, Brick brings film noir detective drama to the modern schoolyard. Investigating the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Emily, Brendan (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is thrown into the world of drug dealing and street crime behind a mask of deception and double-speak until he encounters a mysterious crime kingpin known only in urban legend as “Pin” and discovers that Emily had become involved with an all together more dangerous group of people than he ever imagined.

This isn’t just another teen movie, Brick demands your full attention from start to finish but boy is it rewarded! Though little known, this movie is the single best performance yet from Levitt and the complex plot is enhanced by unusual characters and even more unusual story-telling. Never mind Donnie Darko, Brick is the most thought provoking teen drama you will ever see.

So yeah, like, go watch them and junk.

James Cameron returns to the fore after a 12 year hiatus with his $3oo million game-changer, Avatar. This simple story of man’s ruthless desire to take anything he wants has been brought to life in stunning 3D. Paralysed ex-marine Jake Sully is the last hope of a peaceful arrangement with the native population of the planet Pandora, the Na’vi. Using a remote controlled Na’vi body called an Avatar, Sully must gain the trust of the native population and urge them to move away from their home, an area of great interest to the human invaders. As patience runs out, Sully finds that he may have been on the wrong side of the fight all along.

Not many films get hyped as much as this one. First of all, it’s the director’s last movie since 1997, and that was the highest grossing movie of all time. Secondly it’s been delayed so long because we were assured by the director that the technology he was using would be worth the wait. So high hopes all round. But does the movie deliver? Well, yes. Yes it does. But not in the way that you might expect from a sci-fi epic written by one of the most revered sci-fi writer/directors working today. You see, Terminator and Terminator 2 were shooty, explodey eye-candy movies but they had quite a complex underlying plot that raised a lot of questions about time travel that were very very original. Aliens had great special effects, sure but it was also a very well written sequel, devoid of plot holes and other nasties and despite being a sequel was, again very original. Avatar is a bit of a curve ball. The plot is very basic, sure there are some complex ideas and some very well thought out intricacies, but on the whole it’s essentially the plot of FernGully: The Last Rainforest. What Cameron has chosen to focus on here is the visual experience of a new, alien world and it’s many inhabitants.

This is where the movie knocks the shit out of pretty much everything else ever released. Cameron’s new 3D camera technology has produced quite simply the most beautiful film ever to hit the big screen. From the word go you are immersed into a lush and vibrant world unlike anything that has ever been seen before. The new style of 3D cinema brings this to life even more. Cameron has done the seemingly impossible; truly integrated special effects into a movie so well that they become like another character, in fact more influential than a character. The importance of the world to the natives is not told through emotional character exchanges, although there are some in there, it is told through the visuals. Because of this, Avatar can transcend the age range. There is a dark indictment of the cruelty of mankind and cool-as-fuck military hardware for the adults but because of the elemental way the story is conveyed through visuals, nothing will be lost on the younger generation.

Avatar is simply spellbinding. The only thing that I recommend more than going to see it is that you go and pay the extra to see the full 3D version. The added depth isn’t just a gimmick, it completes James Cameron’s vision and gives you the full intended journey. District 9 taught us that originality is what we make of it. That movie took pretty much all of it’s concepts from other sci-fi movies such as The Fly and Alien Nation but it remained truly original in the way that it delivered those concepts. The same applies here. We may have seen this story before but nothing can prepare you for Avatar.

Verdict:

Richard Kelly once again squeezes our mind-grapes in his trademark style. The Box follows a couple played by Diaz and Marsden who are offered the opportunity to make a million dollars to push a button and be responsible for the death of one person, somewhere in the world, they don’t know. Unbeknown to the pair, this choice is just the beginning of a mind-bending series of events that will tear the family and even the human race apart.

Let me be clear about one thing. This is not the movie that is advertised in the trailer. What we saw in the trailer was a glimpse of a rather boring mediocre chase thriller. Only fleetingly do we get a sense of the hard core attention-hungry sci-fi that The Box turns out to be. I, for one, was very happy that this was the case. The surprise of being given a thinky, head-scratchy sci-fi that has been given the Donnie Darko treatment by Kelly was a pleasant one.

Lead performances were admirable, if not out-standing and Frank Langella provided the best of the bunch as the malevolent Arlington Steward. Supporting performances did, however leave a deal to be desired. But the acting of the cast played second fiddle to Kelly’s strange, love-it-or-hate-it style of direction. It was his intense close-ups and dramatic long zooms that almost provided an additional character that turned an easily forgettable sci-fi mindfuck into something more. This coupled with an eerie, mis-matched score certainly kept me on my toes throughout the film’s two-hour running time. Another aspect of this Donnie Darko treatment is the fact that Kelly has very deliberately chosen a time period other than the present to provide the perfect setting for the movie. Setting The Box in the 1970’s means he not only has great stylistic components to work with but it also allows him extra credibility when working with his characters’ placement in NASA’s golden age. That’s not mentioning the fact that there is no Internet and there are no mobile phones, two things that could have blown planet sized holes in the plot had it been set in the present.

The weakest part of the movie, sadly, is the ending. It seems rather abrupt and leaves you asking more questions than it ultimately answers but you also get the feeling that this is exactly how Kelly wanted it. Donnie Darko did the same thing and many people believe it to be the key to that film’s success. The Box’s ending, however lacked a lot of the finesse of Donnie Darko and depending on how much you enjoyed the preceding 90 minutes you will either find this a mild annoyance or a nail in the coffin.

All of these factors are subjective. They won’t be for everybody. Certainly if you didn’t enjoy Donnie Darko, there’s a good chance that The Box won’t do anything for you either. Still, if you like classical sci-fi that doesn’t insult your intelligence then it could well be worth checking out when it somes out on DVD.

Verdict:

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Very British and very tongue-in-cheek, Dog Soldiers follows a squad of English army soldiers on a training exercise in the highlands of Scotland. The squad soon find themselves facing a more terrifying foe than they could have ever expected after finding another team of soldiers, special forces trained, torn to pieces in what looks like an animal attack. The squad make it to a remote house where they must make their last stand if they have any chance of seeing the sun rise.

Refreshing and very entertaining, Dog Soldiers took many people, myself included, completely by surprise. It’s fast paced, violent, funny and gory all rolled into a 90 minute gem wrapped in a big bow. This is one you’ll watch again and again just for the hell of it. And why not? This is grade A horror comedy.

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

While on the subject of horror comedy, I couldn’t ignore this little beauty I saw only the other week. The most recent movie I’ve recommended so far, Drag Me to Hell sees writer/director Sam Raimi’s triumphant return to the genre that made him famous. Christine Brown is a successful loan officer in a local bank with a nice life and loving boyfriend but when she denies an elderly woman an extension on her mortgage to get ahead at work she is cursed. Now Christine has 3 days to escape an evil demon before she is dragged down to hell.

This is a true back to basics triumph for Sam Raimi. The cast is understated, the effects are few and the plot is simple but the way the story is told and the way it is filmed make it massively fun! Check out Evil Dead 2, if you haven’t seen it, and you’ll see that Raimi’s formula is one of the simplest, yet most effective in Hollywood.

The Jerk (1979)

Last time I talked about Steve Martin’s prime. Well this time I’m recommending what I believe to be the creme de la creme of his acting career, The Jerk. Incredibly silly, yet wonderfully executed, The Jerk follows Navin Johnson (Martin), a not-so-smart redneck, as he leaves his family home in search of wealth and happiness. Amazingly, despite his stupidity, Johnson becomes a gradual success, progressing from one job to another until an unassuming invention of his makes him a millionaire. But no one can stay on top forever…

This is another movie you’ll watch over and over. Steve Martin makes what could have been a dreadful slapstick farce and makes it a true classic. You’ll be rewinding and re-playing classic scenes and quoting this one to your friends in no time. This is flawless comedy.

Taken (2008)

From comedy to action thriller and what I believe to be one of the best, and most under rated movies of 2008, Taken. As revenge movies go, Taken hits the bulls eye, following dd (Liam Neeson), an ex-government “problem solver” turned professional security guard, as he tears a path through Paris to find his kidnapped daughter and make her kidnappers pay the ultimate price. He has just over 90 hours to find her before the trail turns cold and she’s lost forever.

Empire, well the Empire writer Dan Jolin, gave Taken just one star but if you read the review and check out the reader comments you’ll see how poorly judged that was. One thing makes this movie so good; Neeson. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time but never have I seen him play such a bad ass! With every punch he lands against his enemy, you will find yourself more and more drawn into the movie and when it’s done, you’ll want to take the ride all over again.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

We’ll end this mixed bag with a taste of the really bizarre. Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich is about as kooky as they come. floundering puppeteer Craig Schwartz gets a job on the 7 and 1/2th floor of an office building as a filer. Between dealing with his elderly boss and lusting after one of his female colleagues, Craig discovers a small door behind one of the filing cabinets. This door leads into the mind of John Malkovich (Himself). At first Schwartz can only see through Malkovich’s eyes but when he learns that he can take control of the great actor he embarks on the greatest and most perverse journey of escapism ever seen.

As well as a being delightfully strange, Being John Malkovich has a pretty touching story at its core. Performances are wonderful all round and possibly the most impressive is given by Malkovich himself. Not to give anything away but just watch the scene where he enters his own mind through the tunnel. Weird and wonderful!

So there we have it. That’s all the movie recommendations for this year. Don’t be too sad though. I’ll be back in the new year with a load more for you. Until then, Merry Christmas!