Billson Film Database

By Anne Billson

Anne Billson has collected short reviews of over 4000 films into one ebook. You won't find reviews of every film ever made, or of the latest blockbuster, but you will have fun browsing (and perhaps disagreeing with) the personal and often unorthodox opinions of a widely published and respected film writer. Find out which films made her laugh, which made her cry, which have the best music, and which have cats in them!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Billson
• Release date: Mar 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311471826

Anne Billson

Anne Billson is a film critic, novelist, photographer, screenwriter, film festival programmer, style icon, wicked spinster, evil feminist, and international cat-sitter. She has lived in London, Cambridge, Tokyo, Paris and Croydon, and now lives in Antwerp. She likes frites, beer and chocolate.Her books include horror novels Suckers, Stiff Lips, The Ex, The Coming Thing and The Half Man; Blood Pearl, Volume 1 of The Camillography; monographs on the films The Thing and Let the Right One In; Breast Man: A Conversation with Russ Meyer; Billson Film Database, a collection of more than 4000 film reviews; and Cats on Film, the definitive work of feline film scholarship.In 1993 she was named by Granta as one of their Best Young British Novelists. In 2012 she wrote a segment for the portmanteau play The Halloween Sessions, performed in London's West End. In 2015 she was named by the British Film Institute as one of 25 Female Film Critics Worth Celebrating.

Book preview

BILLSON FILM DATABASE

reviews of more than 4000 films

by

ANNE BILLSON

Copyright 2013 Anne Billson

Revised Edition 2018

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

By the same author:

Novels

Dream Demon

Suckers

Stiff Lips

The Ex

The Coming Thing

The Half Man

Blood Pearl

Non-Fiction

Screen Lovers

My Name is Michael Caine

The Thing (BFI Modern Classics)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BFI TV Classics)

Let The Right One In (Devil's Advocates)

Cats on Film

e-books

Billson Film Database

Spoilers Part 1

Spoilers Part 2

Breast Man: A Conversation with Russ Meyer

Copyright © 2013 Anne Billson

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble

Author's Preface to the 2018 Edition

A Word About Ratings

A Guide to My Ratings System

The Database

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

About the Author

More Books by Anne Billson

PREAMBLE

This is my personal film database consisting of more than 4100 short film reviews. Most of these were written for the TV pages of the Sunday Telegraph between 2002 and 2013, though a few reviews from other publications have crept in too.

Style, content and length of each review have been dictated by editorial requirements, space restrictions, print deadlines, changing layouts, and the vagaries of television scheduling, hence apparent eccentricities such as Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid getting twice as much space as Citizen Kane.

Since these reviews were written to tie in with broadcasts on British television, you will not find reviews of every film ever made. For the same reason, you won't find reviews of the most recent releases.

The reviews are not written for film buffs, but for the literate albeit non-specialist readership of a national newspaper - read by all ages, hence the occasional gentle caution about language, sex or gore.

They have been lightly edited to remove topical references, to correct obvious mistakes, and to reflect personal changes of opinion. However, because they were published not all at once, but in weekly increments over the course of a decade, sharp-eyed readers will spot a great many self-plagiarisms, repetitions and other evidence of limited vocabulary.

For example, I seem to have been particularly fond of the cliché no cliché left unturned. Every great performance is a tour de force, people's lives are continually being turned upside down, and poor Yuen Woo-ping, a man with decades of directing under his belt, will forever be referred to as the bloke who choreographed the fight scenes in The Matrix.

In other words, anyone reading more than a couple of reviews at a single sitting should therefore be prepared to experience feelings of déjà vu - another term I trot out so often you will almost certainly keep getting the feeling you've seen it before.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE 2018 EDITION

I took advantage of this new print edition of the Billson Film Database to correct typos that slipped unnoticed through previous proof readings, add or subtract stars to reflect changes of opinion, delete topical comments that are now outdated or irrelevant, and generally regularise spelling and punctuation, particularly with regard to numerals and the anglicisation of Korean proper names.

I have also tried to moderate what can only be described as an addiction to hyphens. Give me a space between two vaguely associated words and I'll stick a hyphen in there, whether or not it's required. At one point I googled the term anal-retentive to see if it really needed that hyphen, and found that Number Three in Top 5 Signs You Are Anal-Retentive was You look up anal-retentive to see whether it needs a hyphen.

It has now been five years since I first published the Billson Film Database as an ebook, and another thing that caught my attention was how drastically social attitudes have changed in that period, mostly (in my opinion) for the better.

For example, the MeToo movement that gained momentum in 2017 has made me re-examine throwaway comments which I clearly once thought were amusing, but which now strike me as crass. I have accordingly cut several references to actresses getting naked in films, as though this were a choice they made themselves and not, in most cases, an obligation imposed on them by male film-makers. Kate Hardie quite rightly called me out on this after reading several such mentions of her on my blog, and I owe her thanks, as well as an apology.

Finally, apologies for the small typeface, which will undoubtedly require the use of reading glasses for some readers (though myopics, like me, can probably manage without them, provided the light isn't too dim). Due to POD requirements and restrictions, a larger typeface would have made this book impossible to issue in print form.

A WORD ABOUT RATINGS

Like most film writers, I find star ratings systems absurdly reductive. I have nevertheless provided one here, in a possibly misguided attempt to make the database more accessible and, I hope, to forestall such questions as, "But did you actually like the film?"

Please bear in mind, however, that like all such ratings, these are subjective. I have made no attempt to reflect a film's historical worth, popularity or critical standing. All the star rating does is reflect my own preferences, which are unlikely to correspond with yours, or indeed anyone else's, except perhaps by accident.

In other words, my ratings reflect the illogical prejudices, arbitrary whims and frequently wrong-headed opinions I have accumulated during a lifetime of watching films.

If you strongly disagree with any of the ratings, or indeed with anything I have written here (as you most certainly will), please be advised that it really would be a waste of time telling me so. Just bask in the knowledge that you are right, and I am wrong - just as I am basking in the knowledge that I am right, and you are wrong.

On the other hand, should you happen across any typos, factual errors or spelling mistakes, please don't hesitate to point them out, so I can implement corrections at a later date. I can be contacted via Twitter and Facebook, or via my blog (multiglom.com).

All reviews are ©Anne Billson. You are welcome to quote from them provided you give me a credit. If you end up quoting them at vast length and make a huge amount of money from doing so, I expect to share in that income.

I reserve the right to rewrite a review, or change my opinion whenever I feel like it.

A GUIDE TO MY RATINGS SYSTEM

* Intolerable. I would rather stick needles in my eyes, pull my own intestines out, and knit them into a hat than watch this film again.

** Tolerable, just - if there's nothing better on another channel, if the pub is closed, if you've read all the books and magazines in your house, and have nothing better to do.

*** Watchable. Most films fall into this category. It is an honourable category, and not to be sneezed at. It is also a bit of a dumping-ground for when I can't make up my mind, or for films I don't particularly like but that I recognise have some sort of merit.

**** Good. Definitely worth my time, if not yours. There is something about these films that, for me, raises them above the merely watchable.

***** Brilliant. These are my favourite films. My life would be the poorer for not having seen them. For better or worse, they have made me the person I am today.

I have also introduced five supplementary symbols:

A personal favourite. Not all these will be five nor even four-star films, but each has a special place in my heart, whether for sentimental, nostalgic, aesthetic or intellectual reasons.

Preposterous tosh I couldn't possibly recommend in an orthodox fashion, but that I nevertheless found diverting in some crazy, wacked-out way, possibly not entirely unconnected to consumption of beer. Warning: these films may induce eyeball-rolling, Italian footballer-style gesticulating, derisive snorting, and shouting at the screen in disbelief.

A film that made me cry.

A soundtrack to which I am partial, or that I consider distinctive, unusual or memorable in some way, even if the film itself is below par.

A Major Cat Movie - a film in which a cat plays a leading role, or a film featuring at least one memorable cat-related moment. This category is dedicated to my cat Tiger (1988-2003), who once watched a Krzysztof Kieslowski film because it had pigeons in it. For more information, see my book Cats on Film.

THE DATABASE

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) See Artificial Intelligence: AI.

A-TEAM, THE (2010) ** The TV series of the same name was already pumping out Standard Action Plot Number One - special ops heroes are framed and go rogue to prove their innocence - long before just about every other action movie started rehashing the same premise. There's a MacGuffin here about stolen printing plates, but it's basically just an excuse for wall-to-wall bloodless violence peppered with half-baked quips as our boys hop from Mexico to Iraq to Germany amid CGI-assisted mayhem, explosions and hurtling hardware. Liam Neeson chomps cigars as George Peppard, Bradley Cooper is Faceman, Quinton Rampage Jackson plays B.A. Baracus and Jessica Biel pops up as a token chick, but it's District 9's Sharlto Copley, as the mad one, who runs away with the film. It's passably diverting, if you can switch off your brain.

À BOUT DE SOUFFLE (1959, b/w) **** Let's hear it for the jump cut, Jean Seberg selling the New York Herald Tribune on the Champs Elysées and the gospel according to Jean-Luc Godard (from a story by François Truffaut) in one of the films that kick-started the Nouvelle Vague. It's a zippy little homage to pulpy American gangster movies with an iconic performance from Jean-Paul Belmondo as the petty crook who kills a cop and goes on the run in Paris (not the best place in which to go on the run, it must be said) with his American girlfriend. My favourite bit is when she interviews a French philosopher, played by the great film director Jean-Pierre Melville, and asks him all sorts of daft questions. Q: What is your greatest ambition? A: To become immortal, and then die.

À LA FOLIE... PAS DU TOUT (2002) See He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not.

À MA SOEUR! (2001) *** Catherine Breillat, the controversial French film-maker who raised eyebrows with Romance, continues her exploration of female sexuality with this coming-of-age tale that couldn't be more different from its cheerful American counterparts. On holiday on the Côte d'Azur, pudgy 12-year-old Anaïs watches unhappily while her 15-year-old sister Elena loses her virginity to an Italian student. Sibling rivalry, mixed-up adolescent emotions and explicit sexual encounters get naturalistic in-depth treatment until it's all blown wide apart in a frankly rather upsetting ending.

ABANDON (2002) ** Katie Holmes stars in this daft but mildly diverting psychological thriller set on a college campus, as well as in one of those big old houses with a lake in the basement (seen more often in thrillers than in real-life real estate). The former Mrs. Cruise plays a brilliant but messed-up student who suspects she is being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, composer of a thigh-slappingly pretentious piece called Trip-Hop Inferno. The rather creepy Benjamin Bratt plays a detective who is trying to find out where this ex has been hiding for the past two years. The plot unfolds at a snail's pace and thriller addicts will be able to spot the Big Twist a mile off; in fact, they'll probably be able to figure it out from this mini-review. Watch out for Melanie Lynskey from Heavenly Creatures, making the most of her minor role.

ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES, THE (1971) **** Vincent Price plays Dr. Anton Phibes, who speaks through an electronic gadget in the side of his neck in this camp horror movie directed by Avengers alumnus Robert Fuest. The mad genius wreaks vengeance on a team of surgeons, whom he blames for the death of his wife, by doling out ingenious variations on the plagues of Egypt; Joseph Cotten heads the dwindling team of medics who are bitten by bats, throttled by frog masks, pelted by hail and so on. Phibes plays the organ and waltzes with his mute but lovely assistant Vulnavia in lavish Art Deco sets (it's set in a very 1970s version of the 1920s) while bungling British cops fail dismally to spot the recurring biblical motif that links the crimes.

ABOUT A BOY (2002) *** The creators of the gross-out teen comedy American Pie weren’t the most obvious choice to bring Nick Hornby’s second novel to the screen, but New Yorkers Paul and Chris Weitz do such a good job you’d have thought they were born and bred in North London, where the story takes place. Hugh Grant is in his element as a wilfully shallow, commitment-shy bachelor whose self-absorption is punctured when he inadvertently bonds with Marcus (the excellent Nicholas Hoult), a troubled 12-year-old with a suicidal mother (Toni Collette, good as ever) who has saddled him with terminally unhip clothes and a tragic pudding-basin haircut. Grant, as usual, seems to be playing himself - which inevitably means he never gets the credit he deserves as an accomplished light comedian.

ABOUT SCHMIDT (2002) *** Jack Nicholson followed up his stonking great performance in The Pledge with this less anguished but still compelling portrayal of a man struggling to come to terms with retirement in between firing off confessional letters to the African orphan he is sponsoring from afar. After the death of his wife he takes off in his mobile home from Nebraska to Colorado to talk his daughter out of marrying a waterbed salesman. The film meanders all over the place, but is just about anchored by Nicholson, hair tufting out at all angles and face invariably a study in pent-up rage, and a flamboyant turn from Kathy Bates as a sex-mad hippy mom. And if you've ever wanted to see Bates naked, here's your chance.

ABOVE US THE WAVES (1955, b/w) *** You've got to hand it to the British. What other nation has made so many films celebrating its military failures? Brace yourself for another dose of stiff upper lips as Johnny Mills, Donny Sinden and the boys cram into midget submarines and fail to sink the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord. Not as gripping as, say, We Dive at Dawn, but plenty of social stereotyping and rib-tickling dialogue like, Just because you've volunteered for special service it doesn't mean you can dress up in fancy clothes like a bunch of fighter pilots! (This to a bloke wearing a pullover.) But there's no denying the heroism of the men involved.

ABRE LOS OJOS (1997) See Open Your Eyes.

ABSOLUTE POWER (1997) ** A complete stranger once came up to me in a restaurant and said, I just loved you in that movie you did with Clint Eastwood. It was tough convincing him that I wasn't Judy Davis, but I can't help wondering what would have happened if I'd humoured my admirer, who turned out to be an American theatre producer. Heck, I might have ended up playing Hedda Gabler on Broadway. Anyway, this is the movie, a lightweight but enjoyable thriller in which Clint directs himself as an ageing jewel thief who is an inadvertent witness when President Gene Hackman's extra-marital rumpy-pumpy goes horribly wrong. I play the White House Chief of Staff who suggests we pin blame for the murder on Clint. Not my best work by any means, but Ed Harris is a hoot as the cop hot on our hero's trail.

ABYSS, THE (1989 ) **** Even before Titanic went down, James Cameron was dunking actors and crew in the drink with this spectacular adventure set at the bottom of the ocean, where oil rig workers are exploring a nuclear submarine stranded on the edge of a deep-sea trough. The director is not so hot at the relationship stuff between the estranged married couple played by Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and the Close Encounters-type ending is just dumb, but he almost makes up for it with some brilliant underwater action. There's an unmissable set-piece here involving a hurricane and a collapsing crane that will have you gnawing your nails.

ACCEPTED (2006) *** Dorky Justin Long, rejected by every college to which he applies, hoodwinks his disappointed parents into believing he has been accepted at a fake college called the South Harmon Institute of Technology (cue for many an acrostic-related gag) in this likeable teen comedy in the tradition of Revenge of the Nerds. He and similarly rejected buddies create a website, fix up an abandoned psychiatric institute and find themselves inundated with assorted losers, mental cases and underdogs who just want to be... accepted. The courses, proposed by the students themselves, include Skateboarding, The History of Beer and Walking Down the Road Thinking About Stuff, and the charade works until the Dean of a nearby legit establishment plays spoilsport. The irony, of course, is that the fakers exhibit more organisational and creative skills than the real students, and some smart points are made, not too heavily, about education in general.

ACCIDENTAL HUSBAND, THE (2008) * Please can we start a petition to stop Uma Thurman doing comedy. Her overacting kills this rom-com stone dead. She plays a high-flying Manhattan talk radio host called The Love Doctor who advises a caller to dump her fiancé. He's a fireman from Queens who gets his revenge by forging online paperwork attesting to his and Uma's marriage, which puts a spoke in her forthcoming nuptials to smooth publisher Colin Firth. Hilarity ensues (or rather, doesn't) when the fake husband has to pretend to be Firth for reasons too contrived to explain. The film's one bright spot is Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian from Watchmen) who has a Clooney-ish charm as the fireman, though the film-makers evidently feel that's not enough, so he gets all-singing, all-dancing Bollywood neighbours as well.

ACCUSED, THE (1988) *** Good old-fashioned trashy exploitation meets serious issue movie and poses the sort of questions to which we all know the answers. If a woman gets tipsy, shows cleavage and wiggles her hips provocatively, is it her fault when she gets raped? Of course it isn't, but especially when the victim is played by the perennially high-minded Jodie Foster, here doing her ciggie-smoking working-class act. Kelly McGillis plays the lawyer who decides to prosecute the bystanders who did nothing, and Jonathan Kaplan, director of classic 1970s exploitation fare like Night Call Nurses, makes sure that even if it's sometimes vulgar, it's never ever boring.

ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS (1995) *** Prolonged exposure to early Jim Carrey may pose the biggest threat to the human brain-cell since Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but you have to admit he’s still one of the few actors capable of upstaging an entire filmful of scene-stealing animals. The second of the Pet Detective films is very much like the first, but set in Africa, where Ace is on the trail of the sacred white bat of the Wachati tribe. Highlights include a great send-up of the opening of Sylvester Stallone’s Cliffhanger, a spot of crocodile wrestling and an inspired sequence which ends with Ace emerging from the rear end of a rhinoceros. As Ace himself would say, All rightee then.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007) ** Third movie from renowned theatre director Julie Taymor is a real oddity, playing like a series of pop videos set to cover versions of Beatles songs. The musical set-pieces are linked by an undernourished love story (written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who don't seem to have stretched themselves unduly) between a blue-collar Liverpudlian and a pampered WASP princess, against a perfunctory backdrop of 1960s America - Vietnam, hippies, protest marches. Think Moulin Rouge by way of Hair. Characters, inevitably, are named Jude, Lucy or Sadie, and there are amusing singing cameos from Joe Cocker and Bono. As for the songs, the more hallucinatory Taymor's visualisation, the better; I Want You (She's So Heavy) set to a Busby Berkeley-style military call-up is one of the most delirious.

ACTOR'S REVENGE, AN (1963) **** Stylised, exotic and frankly rather camp film about an onnagata (a female impersonator in the all-male Kabuki theatre) seeking vengeance on the three noblemen who drove his parents to suicide. Kon Ichikawa directs with a vengeance too, turning a creaky melodrama into a visual tour de force that makes dazzling use of the widescreen format, even if it does sometimes remind you of a Japanese panto. Popular matinee idol Kazuo Hasegawa is extraordinary in the dual roles of the onnagata and a Robin Hood-style thief. What looks like a bad complexion is actually scarring from a razor attack after he quit one studio to join another. A cutthroat business, the Japanese film industry.

ADAM (2009) ** If you're allergic to films in which differently-abled characters transform the lives of everyone around them with their loveable candour, you may want to avoid this indie romantic drama which won a prize at Sundance, though it's saved by a mostly low-key but personable central performance from Hugh Dancy. He plays a 29-year-old New Yorker with Asperger's Syndrome. His father dies, leaving him alone in their apartment, and he gets fired from his job as electrical engineer at a toy design company, but makes friends with new neighbour Rose Byrne, a primary schoolteacher with ambitions to write children's books. She is also a daddy's girl who seems to have as much of an empathy problem as he does, though when their relationship gets physical you can't shake off the uneasy feeling that she is exploiting him.

ADAPTATION (2002) *** After Being John Malkovich, director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman teamed up again on a film so self-referential it's in danger of disappearing up its own bottom. Nicolas Cage plays a balding, paunchy screenwriter called Charlie Kaufman who is struggling to adapt the non-fiction bestseller The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep). Meanwhile his twin brother Donald (also Cage) is writing a preposterous psychothriller. Both screenplays merge, as do Orleans's adventures with dentally-challenged renegade plant dealer John Laroche (Oscar-winning Chris Cooper). It's a clever deconstruction of the screenwriting process, but honestly, who - apart from screenwriters and wannabe screenwriters - gives a fig?

ADDAMS FAMILY, THE (1991) *** I spent years trying to perfect my finger-snapping so I could snap along to the theme tune, only to find when the film came out they’d replaced it with a rap version. Never mind - Charles Addams’s New Yorker cartoons are brought to the screen in gleefully macabre comic style by first-time director Barry Sonnenfeld, who wisely allows plot to take second place to a stream of morbid sight-gags and punchlines. Angelica Huston and Raul Julia are just great as Morticia and Gomez with their amorous chat about rotting corpses.

ADDICTED TO LOVE (1997) *** Years before In the Cut, Meg Ryan was already exploring her dark side in this unusual rom-com in which she plays a photographer who can't accept that her boyfriend has dumped her for a schoolteacher. She is not alone; the teacher's ex (Matthew Broderick) is squatting in the dilapidated flat across the street from the happy couple, dreaming up far-fetched ways to spoil their idyll. Yes, it's a screwball comedy about stalking! Of course the two rejects are made for each other, but naturally it takes them the entire film and a lot of misfired vengeance for them to realise this. Audiences never warmed to this romantic comedy, probably because it was too dark and mean-spirited, but since dark and mean-spirited are my middle names, it's one of my favourites. It's also one of the few films in which I can tolerate Ryan; she still has that inimitable pout - it's just that here, it's a bit scary.

ADDICTION, THE (1995, b/w) *** Abel Ferrara's vampire movie is everything we've come to expect and love from this wacky New York director who refuses to play by the commercial rules. It's boring, pretentious and challenging, but, as always, Ferrara ventures into places where other film-makers fear to tread. Lili Taylor plays a philosophy student who gets bitten in a dark NYC alley one night. Not only is she soon stalking her own victims, she's also babbling about free will, determinism and Nietzsche. Christopher Walken plays a more experienced vampire who tells her, quite rightly, that she knows nothing.

ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, THE (2010) *** New York congressman Matt Damon falls for a dancer (Emily Blunt, so adorable you'll wish she were playing something meatier than mere love interest) and rebels when he's informed that their relationship was never meant to happen. Because men in hats are watching our every move, making sure everything happens on schedule and wiping our brains if we deviate from the predestined path. Yet another Philip K. Dick story gets flattened out into a sci-fi action thriller which ends with too much exposition and everyone running around, but it's hustled over the finishing line by some unexpected film noir styling, surreal touches (hats! doors!) and a leading couple you actually feel like rooting for.

ADULTHOOD (2008) * Noel Clarke, who wrote and starred in the West London teen pic Kidulthood, makes his directing debut with this sequel which takes up six years later, after his character has served time in jail for killing a guy in a fight. Now he must track down people from his past to find out who is threatening to kill his family. At least, that's what I think is going on. There's lots of stabbings and kickings and drug dealing, plus one assault by hair-straightening tongs, but I must have spent too much time out of London, because I found the dialogue incomprehensible apart from the F-words. Clarke's directing, with lots of pointless split-screen and prison flashbacks, does his screenplay no favours, and the acting is straight out of a bad TV soap. I think there's a redemption theme in there, but it's hard to care.

ADVENTURELAND (2009) *** Greg Mottola, whose feature debut was indie hit The Daytrippers, directed the overrated Superbad but returns to lower-key observational comedy with this coming-of-age yarn set in Pennsylvania in 1987 and drawing on the writer-director's own experiences. Jesse Eisenberg, who along with Michael Cera seems to be cornering the market in ingenuous nerds, plays a college grad whose plans to tour Europe go awry, so he ends up working in a low-rent amusement park alongside mixed-up Kristen Stewart, suave repairman Ryan Reynolds and geeky Martin Starr. The episodic narrative has a sprinkling of crude Superbad-style humour, but the apparently stereotypical characters turn out to be deeper than you'd expect and, up till the formulaic ending, Eisenberg's emotional journey has the ring of truth.

ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING (1987) See A Night on the Town.

ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, THE (1989) *** Terry Gilliam's anything-goes fantasy about the notorious tall storyteller is more famous for its troubled production history than for the uneven results, but there are some amazing episodes, and you could certainly never accuse the ex-Python of playing it safe. John Neville plays the title character, who sets sail with a young Sarah Polley in a hot-air balloon to seek help for a city besieged by Turks. An uncredited Robin Williams is terrific as the King of the Moon, whose head and body lead independent lives, and 17-year-old Uma Thurman makes an eye-popping impression as the goddess Venus.

ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, THE (1938) ***** Michael Curtiz's classic swashbuckler has brilliantly stood the test of time and still knocks spots off later, lesser Robin Hood movies (this means you, Kevin Costner). Raise your glasses to Errol Flynn, an actor who can wear tights, diamante-studded suede jerkin and curly-girly hairdo - and yet still look the picture of virility as he roisters with his merry men. And let's also hear it for Claude Rains, combining beastliness and bitchiness as King John, Olivia de Havilland's feminine yet feisty Maid Marion and - last but not least - Basil Rathbone's suave and deadly Guy of Gisborne, whose duel to the death against Flynn still stands up as one of the all-time-great screen swordfights.

ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN, THE (2011) *** Steven Spielberg, working with producer Peter Jackson, returns to the popcorn thrills of Raiders of the Lost Ark with this adaptation drawing from three of Hergé's classic comic books, only this time he does it in motion capture animation. The intrepid boy reporter (based on Jamie Bell) teams up with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) on a treasure hunt that takes them via train, boat and plane from Brussels to Morocco. The action and chase scenes are brilliantly choreographed, though the film doesn't surmount the Uncanny Valley problem - the creepiness of mo-cap characters that don't quite replicate real faces.

AEON FLUX (2005) ** Aeon Flux was a character in a series of MTV animated shorts. This live action version, set in 2415, tries to impose a dull, déjà vu plot about cloning on what is basically a string of stylised action set-pieces. Charlize Theron, proving she can still do glam after dressing down for Monster and North Country, wears clingy catsuits and asymmetric hairdos as a freedom fighter who can't seem to go two yards without doing half a dozen somersaults and a bungee jump. After years of sci-fi movies featuring grungy dystopias, it's kind of refreshing to return to a Logan's Run-type vision of the future as a sort of litter-free Centre Park. If it's short on big ideas, at least some of the little ones (security grass that turns into razor-sharp mini-spears, explosive ball-bearings that come when you whistle) echo the inventiveness of the original animations.

AFRICAN CATS (2011) *** A pride of lions is threatened by a rival pride from the north, and a lone cheetah struggles to raise her cubs in this Disney nature documentary filmed in Kenya's Maasai Mara National Reserve, and co-directed by Alastair Fothergill who won Emmys for Planet Earth and Frozen Planet. The music is over-emphatic and the narration by Samuel L. Jackson flirts with cute anthropomorphism (To Mara, he's the best dad ever!), imposing a Lion King-style narrative on what is basically just footage of wild animals going about their business, but what astonishing footage! From a cheetah pursuing a gazelle to an elderly lion facing off against a crocodile, this is awe-inspiring stuff.

AFTER HOURS (1985) *****  "All I wanted was to meet a nice girl. Do I have to die for it? When Martin Scorsese directs a comedy you can be sure it's going to be humour of the darkest hue. So it is with this yuppie nightmare" in which mild-mannered New York computer programmer Griffin Dunne ventures into downtown SoHo to keep a date with cute-but-flaky boho chick Rosanna Arquette. He ends up penniless and half-scalped on the unfamiliar streets, fleeing for his life from vigilante mobs, a vengeful waitress and a psychotic ice-cream lady. The thinness of the borderline between scary thriller and hilarious farce has never been so astutely illustrated, but there's a truthfulness to the absurd situations that will have you wincing with recognition.

AFTER LIFE (1999) ***** Exquisite Japanese film in which the newly dead arrive at what looks like a posthumous branch of the Civil Service, where they’re processed by clerks and told they have just three days to select the one single memory that will remain with them for all eternity. But it’s easier said than done (just try it ) and some of the newly deceased need a lot of help from the endlessly patient staff. Hirokazu Kore-eda’s masterpiece (and that’s a word I don’t bandy around very often) mixes professional acting with real people recounting real memories, and the result is a moving and unpretentious meditation on the meaning of life and the nature of happiness. Not to be missed.

AFTER.LIFE (2009) *** You were pronounced dead eight hours ago, says kindly but sinister mortician Liam Neeson to Christina Ricci, the young teacher who is lying on his slab after a car accident. Your body is already decomposing. But is Neeson really talking to a dead person who's in denial about her own demise, or is he preparing to bury her alive? Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo's elegant debut feature keeps things ambiguous (maybe too much so for literal-minded viewers) in an arty American giallo-type horror movie which trades on eerie atmosphere, heavy symbolism and Ricci running around in a skimpy red petticoat - or less. Meanwhile, boyfriend Justin Long frantically tries to rescue her, while one of her young pupils takes an unhealthy interest in Neeson's trade. Bobbleheads have never seemed so ominous.

AFTER THE FOX (1966) ** Vittorio de Sica, best known for the neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves, directs Neil Simon's first screenplay in this caper comedy. It doesn't live up to the promise of its smashing animated opening credits, set to Burt Bacharach and sung by The Hollies and Peter Sellers, but is required viewing for fans of Sellers, who plays an escaped Italian convict with a penchant for wacky disguises. The best of these is a Fellini-esque film director called Federico Fabrizi, part of a scam to smuggle stolen gold into Italy by way of a fake movie production starring Victor Mature, rather touching as an ageing Hollywood star. Sellers's then wife, Britt Ekland, is also on hand, also pretending to be Italian. The wildly gesticulating stereotypes wear out their welcome, but there are a couple of brilliant comic set-pieces.

AFTER THE SUNSET (2004) ** Where most caper movies end with the caper, this one kicks off with it, before following jewel thieves Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek into retirement in the Bahamas. Woody Harrelson plays the FBI agent who won't give up the chase. The plot's so laid-back it may well send you to sleep, but one should never underestimate the appeal of Salma in a swimsuit.

AGAINST THE ROPES (2004) * Could we be witnessing the twilight of Meg Ryan's career? Her attempt to change her perky image flopped with In the Cut, she was surly on Parkinson and now we get to see her in this naff boxing film about the rise and fall of a female boxing manager inspired by the life of Jackie Kallan. All I can say is that if the real Kallan is anything like the self-seeking bitch Meg plays here, she's not a very nice person. Ryan struts around in futuristic hooker gear, but I was mesmerised by her strangely swollen upper lip, which doesn't seem to move along with the rest of her mouth when she speaks.

AGE OF CONSENT, THE (1969) *** James Mason, looking remarkably fit in his late fifties, plays a jaded artist who retreats to an island on the Great Barrier Reef, where he finds his muse in the form of young beachcomber Helen Mirren. Michael Powell's last feature, adapted from the semi-biographical novel by Norman Lindsay, may not be the director's best work, but there's plenty to enjoy here: a lovely relaxed performance from Mason (though his Australian accent keeps going walkabout), young Mirren's naturalness and frequent unabashed nudity, fabulous scenery, a clever dog called Godfrey, and a story that manages to sidestep creepy voyeurism by treating the girl as just as important a character as the painter.

AGE OF INNOCENCE, THE (1993) *** Daniel Day-Lewis lusts after Michelle Pfeiffer, but politely and with no F-words, in Martin Scorsese's sumptuous adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel of highbrow society in 1870s New York, a world even more hermetic and hidebound than the Mafia in the same director's Goodfellas. Day-Lewis is suitably bland as Newland Archer, a rather dull man-about-town engaged to be married to sweet, innocent Winona Ryder (obviously this was before the shoplifting charge) but excited by the idea of a scandalous liaison with worldly Pfeiffer. In fact both women are far more interesting than the hero, with Ryder not nearly as naïve as she looks and Pfeiffer hitting such exquisite notes of tremulous defiance that you can almost overlook her disastrous poodle hairdo.

AGORA (2009) ***** Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, the fourth century philosopher and astronomer, in this terrifying historical epic from Alejandro Amenábar. Alexandria is in religious and political turmoil; science and reason are under threat from bigotry and mob violence, and the odds are stacked against Hypatia since she is not just female, but an atheist. An emotional triangle between heroine, student and slave doesn’t really coalesce, but the famous lighthouse and library, and some striking cosmic points of view, are handsomely rendered in CGI and the film burns with fierce intelligence. The villains here are Christians, but (as hinted at by their beards and black garments) it’s not so much their religion as any sort of dogmatic extremism which is being condemned. Classical scholars will already be aware it ends upsettingly.

AGUIRRE, DER ZORN GOTTES (1972) See Aguirre: The Wrath of God.

AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD (1972) ***** Hard to say who's the maddest participant in this semi-hallucinogenic voyage into the heart of darkness, something of a missing link between Joseph Conrad and Apocalypse Now. Is it director Werner Herzog, who evidently has a penchant for extreme location shooting? Or lead actor Klaus Kinski, in the first of five stormy collaborations with the visionary German film-maker? Or Kinski's character, a 16th century Spanish conquistador leading an expedition through the Peruvian jungle on a quest to find El Dorado, which he intends to populate by procreating with his own daughter? There's a memorable scene with a severed head, pioneering electronic band Popol Vuh complements the surreal mood with a suitably eerie score, and the opening and closing sequences, in particular, are dreamy and unforgettable. 

AI NO CORRIDA (1976) ***** Only a brilliant Japanese film-maker like Nagisa Oshima could get away with making an explicitly hardcore art movie about an obsessive sexual relationship between a maidservant and her employer that ends with the woman strangling her lover (with his consent) and cutting off his wedding tackle. And only a masterly film-maker could make all this seem rather beautiful and inevitable, not to mention metaphorical (the year is 1936) though for heavens sake don't ask me what the metaphor's supposed to be - I was too busy gawping at the non-stop full-frontal sex.

AIR BUD (1997) *** Lonely, fatherless Josh befriends a Golden Retriever on the run from its cruel circus owner, and what do you know? The dog's an ace basketball player and helps Josh make friends and win the championship with his team of no-hopers. The title role is played by Buddy, who found fame shooting hoops with his snout on David Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks on TV, and this Disney film has everything a dog movie aficionado could possibly want: slapstick, sad bits, an evil clown and an adorable Retriever doing clever things with its balls.

AIR FORCE ONE (1997) *** Nowadays one looks back with nostalgia to the day when Hollywood's bad guys du jour were Russian. How predictable and comforting it seems to us now as we watch action-packed wish-fulfilment scenarios like this one, ably directed by Wolfgang Petersen, in which Gary Oldman, as a Filthistan terrorist with Gorky accent and old-style Commie agenda, provokes an international crisis by hi-jacking the presidential plane. It's up to President Harrison Ford to fight back, not by diplomacy, but with one-liners and John Wayne-style fisticuffs. Of course, as we're now all too aware, hi-jacked plane stories don't always end happily, while fisticuffs just lead to... yet more fisticuffs.

AIRPLANE! (1980) ***** The first and funniest of the genre spoofs takes the mickey out of the Airport series but is virtually a comic remake of a 1950s movie called Zero Hour. It also introduced audiences to the joys of straight actors skewering their own po-faced personae when Peter Graves's entire flight-crew is struck down with food poisoning, leaving cab driver Robert Hays to fly the plane. But can he overcome post-combat stress and the break-up of his relationship with stewardess Julie Hagerty? Leslie Nielsen plays the doctor who says, Don't call me Shirley, Robert Stack the captain who karate-chops his way through an airport lounge full of people asking for donations, and Lloyd Bridges the flight controller who chooses the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. It sometimes worries me that I can quote more dialogue from something like this than from acknowledged masterpieces such as Citizen Kane. It's Lieutenant Hurwitz. Severe shell-shock. Thinks he's Ethel Merman.

AKAI TENSHI (1966) See Red Angel.

AKIRA (1988) ***** I thought Japanese anime were a waste of time until I belatedly caught up with Katsuhiro Otomo's amazing sci-fi fantasy, the first film to show the west what anime could do. It's so full of complicated subplots, inventive imagery and surreal violence that even the best Hollywood animation seems tame by comparison. The setting is a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where a secret military project turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psionic blob, but that's just the bare bones of a convoluted story that embraces spooky children with elderly faces and paranormal powers, menacing giant teddy-bears, and characters being crushed to death by other people's internal organs. Weird doesn't even begin to describe it. It might have helped that I was zonked out of my skull at the time.

ALEXANDER (2004) ** The problem with Alexander the Great is that he's a mini-series, not a film. If I have trouble packing my review into this tiny space, how on earth can Oliver Stone squeeze all that pathological conquering into a mere three hours? His answer is to reduce much of it to voice-over from the reminiscing of Old Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins), or the letter-writing of Alexander's mum (Angelina Jolie channelling Livia Soprano, plus snakes). A bizarrely blond Colin Farrell bombards his army with cod-Shakespeare speeches and enjoys a slappy, growly wedding night with his Afghan bride, though he clearly prefers snogging ladyboys. It's messy and unfocused, but there are a couple of thrilling battle scenes featuring eagle's eye-view and killer elephants.

ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938, b/w) ***** The Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein wrote the book on film-making (literally - it's called The Film Sense). This chunk of anti-German propaganda may seem crude - not to mention just the teensiest bit camp with its manly peasant bonding - but the tale of the 13th century hero who fought off baby-burning Teutonic invaders (faces hidden beneath Darth Vader helmets) still carries quite a charge. The Battle on the Ice is one of the all-time great battle sequences while Sergei Prokofiev's music is one of the most rousing scores ever composed. I can particularly recommend Arise, ye Russian People as inspiring accompaniment for dreary household tasks.

ALEXANDRA (2007) ** Aleksandr Sokurov's films are the epitome of the contemplative Russian art movie - anathema to fans of Hollywood-style action, but catnip to serious-minded cinephiles weaned on the likes of slow-moving Tarkovsky. The big drawing-card here is the presence of legendary opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya as an ailing octogenarian who makes the gruelling journey to hot and dusty Chechnya to see her grandson, an officer in the occupying Russian army. She also visits the local market and bonds with a Chechnyan woman. The young soldiers are unfeasibly well-behaved and polite to this elderly woman wandering around in their midst, but the film is clearly intended as poetry rather than realism. If political points are being made, it's not clear what they are, but Vishnevskaya has one of those faces you could watch all day.

ALFIE (1966) *** This study of a low-rent Lothario on the loose in not-so-swinging London (drab flats, backstreet abortions, TB) began life as a radio play by Bill Naughton. It's no great shakes as a movie, but it is a terrific showcase for Michael Caine, oozing star quality from every pore in one of his earliest leading performances as the cut-price Casanova who says it instead of she and proving himself a dab hand at the tricky art of delivering straight-to-camera patter, not forgetting the vital question, What's it all about? Shelley Winters, Jane Asher and Shirley Anne Field are among the birds he pulls.

ALFIE (2004) ** Jude Law provides jaunty straight-to-camera patter in a shallow but stylish updating of the overrated 1966 filmed radio-play starring Michael Caine. Our studly chauffeur fails to find happiness by pulling a cross-section of Manhattan womanhood, including Susan Sarandon as a sexy older bird and Sienna Miller, unexpectedly good as a groovy bipolar chick. I suspect Law (like Matthew McConaughey and, when he was younger, Alec Baldwin) is a character actor trapped in a matinee idol's body and needs to let it all hang out in more challenging roles, but I can think of worse things than having to stare at his pretty face for a couple of hours.

ALFRED THE GREAT (1969) *** David Hemmings plays the Saxon prince torn between priesthood and bludgeoning Danes in this would-be epic in which the recurring fashion motif is studs with everything. We are the sons of Odin! yell the invaders as they set about raping nuns, setting fire to sheep and other naughty pagan pursuits. Alfred fights back with lashings of mediocre dialogue and cunning guerrilla tactics, but he’s a brute in bed, so his Mercian princess doesn’t mind too much when she is taken hostage by Michael York as a shaggy Dane who knows what wenches want and how to give it to them.

ALI (2001) *** From Cassius Clay's involvement with the Nation of Islam (which renames him Mohammed Ali) to his refusal to be drafted and the stripping of his title, to his comeback and the match against George Foreman in Zaire, this respectful biopic of the heavyweight boxing champ, directed and co-written by Michael Mann, is easy to admire, harder to like, and virtually impossible to become emotionally involved with. It's a visually impressive piece of work, nonetheless, and a tour de force for Will Smith, who bulked up to play the title role. Alas, judging by his subsequent appearance in Men in Black 2, it also ruined his lanky good looks, just as De Niro ruined his doing something similar for Raging Bull.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010) * A teenaged Alice (Mia Wasikowska, so good in The Kids are All Right) is on the verge of getting engaged to an unworthy suitor when she has second thoughts and tumbles down the rabbit hole into a new set of adventures. Tim Burton's fantasy extravaganza, inspired by rather than adapted from Lewis Carroll's books, conjures a world of amazing CGI imagery, but lacks charm, and the story devolves into rather a dull series of chases, rescues and showdowns as the heroine seeks to liberate Wonderland from the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter, with digitally enlarged head). Stephen Fry provides the voice of the Cheshire Cat and Timothy Spall has some nice moments as a bloodhound, but Johnny Depp gives his most tiresome performance to date as the annoying and tedious Mad Hatter.

ALIEN (1979) **** There's an alien monster aboard the spaceship. No-one's safe. Excuse me, I'm just going into this dark room by myself. This was how John Landis summed up the plot of Ridley Scott's groundbreaking monster movie, which is nothing less than a deep space variation on The Old Dark House formula, but served up with a visual panache so alluring it set the standard by which all designer sci-fi of the 1980s would be judged. A mere plot outline could never convey the awe-inspiring interior of the abandoned alien spaceship, or the shock of the horrible phallic thingy bursting out of John Hurt's stomach, or Sigourney Weaver's mind-bending discovery that there's more to her science officer than meets the eye. Best seen on a big screen, but at least in your own living-room no-one can hear you scream.

ALIEN 3 (1992) ** Before he hit the spot with Seven, David Fincher made his directing debut with the third instalment of Sigourney Weaver's continuing duel against the jabberwockys from outer space. The action eventually degenerates into a lot of running around in tunnels, but the setting, a distant prison planet populated by indistinguishable psychotic baldies, drips with atmosphere and angst, and Weaver, only human survivor of her crashed spaceship, gives a sensational performance as the shaven-headed Ripley, delving into her alien-battered soul and radiating passion like a sci-fi Joan of Arc. Pursued from planet to planet by unstoppable killer creatures - what a life!

ALIEN NATION (1988) *** In this intriguing sci-fi variation on the 1980s mismatched buddy-cop formula, the extra-terrestrials are not invaders but accidental immigrants, known as Newcomers, who are struggling to be assimilated into a human society that despises them for their offensive odour, probably brought on by a predilection for sour milk and raw beaver meat. James Caan is his usual splendidly gruff self as the Los Angeles detective whose views about his new partner - Mandy Patinkin with mottled dome-head - pass through the obligatory racist antagonism through grudging tolerance to - yes! - affectionate respect. The premise was expanded into a TV series that lasted for all of one season.

ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997) **** I always reckoned the fourth film in the sci-fi series was hugely underrated. (I know - you don't agree. Please don't bother to tell me.) It features a world-beating performance from Sigourney Weaver as a new model Ripley with more than a touch of alien DNA, a deep-space variation on a woman's right to choose and a dreamlike sequence of aliens swimming gracefully through a flooded kitchen. 

ALIEN VS PREDATOR (2004) * This double-sequel pulls off the not inconsiderable feat of nobbling two popular film franchises simultaneously. I ended up yelling at the screen in disbelief as one of the Predators forges a ludicrous warrior-bond with the annoying heroine, lone survivor of a bunch of stupid scientists who've been exploring a big pyramid buried in the Antarctic. As you do. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, emphatically not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson of Magnolia fame.

ALIENS (1986) ***** If Ridley Scott's Alien is a monster movie set in outer space, James Cameron's sequel is a rip-roaring war movie transposed to a distant planet, where a squad of Marines is pitted against the army of extra-terrestrials that has wiped out a colony there. After a slow but purposeful build-up, the action never lets up, but what's miraculous is that, in amongst the firefights and explosions, Cameron actually finds time for his characters, so deftly sketched you feel a pang of regret each time one of them bites the dust. Sigourney Weaver provides vital emotional underpinning as the weary survivor whose maternal instincts are kindled by a small girl (who mercifully is never allowed to get too cute), but there's also Lance Henriksen as an ambiguous android, Paul Reiser as a shifty company man and a full complement of grunting marines, of which Jenette Goldstein as a tough-as-nails female marine and Bill Paxton as a snivelling coward - Game over, man! - are among the most memorable.

ALIENS IN THE ATTIC (2009) ** As you'd expect from the title, there are small but belligerent aliens in the attic of the Pearson family's holiday home. Clever boy hero, his three cousins and two sisters find they're immune to alien mind control devices, unlike the older boyfriend (Robert Hoffman) of elder sister (High School Musical's Ashley Tisdale) who gets the lion's share of laughs when the aliens and their kiddy opponents take turns to play him like a puppet. Also, I learnt that if you drop a mint into a fizzy cola bottle it will explode. Mark Burton, erstwhile writer on Room 101 and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, had a hand in the screenplay of this unexceptional but undemanding kiddy action sci-fi comedy.

ALIENS VS PREDATOR - REQUIEM (2007) See AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem.

ALIVE (1993) *** Funny how those of us who don't like flying feel compelled to make lists of cinema's scariest-ever aeroplane crashes. This one is definitely up there in the top ten, but it's only the start of the ordeal faced by a team of Uruguayan rugby-players whose plane goes down in the Andes. Not only do they have to contend with the freezing cold climate and avalanches, but they run out of in-flight snacks and are forced to chow down on their dead companions. It's all very tastefully done, as it were, but don't let the pious religious elements fool you - this is a cannibal movie and no mistake.

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950, b/w) *** I've always found Joseph L. Mankiewicz's story of backstage bitching in the theatre world a little disappointing, partly because Bette Davis, who plays ageing actress Margo Channing, seems a little overawed by her dialogue, but mostly because it's so damn... talky. These people never stop wittering, and there are only so many bons mots I can take. Never mind - the most fascinating characters are Anne Baxter, as scheming upstart Eve, and George Sanders, on gloriously waspish form as theatre critic Addison DeWitt. You were an unforgettable Peter Pan, he purrs to Margo, You must play it again soon.

ALL ABOUT STEVE (2008) *** Sandra Bullock plays a socially challenged cruciverbalist (ie crossword puzzle compiler) whose only friend is her pet hamster in this off-kilter rom-com which was greeted in most quarters with vitriol, though I enjoyed the way it tweaks the genre and depicts that rarest of creatures in modern Hollywood - a female geek who doesn't get all her oddness ironed out in the final reel. Bullock mistakenly gets it into her head that TV cameraman Bradley Cooper is the man for her, and duly stalks him and his self-regarding reporter (Thomas Hayden Church) all over the country as they cover quirky human interest stories, leading to some offbeat, almost Pythonesque humour. Bullock's character, never seen without her red PVC boots, is awkward and embarrassing - but then she's supposed to be.

ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU (2001) ** A trailer full of lyrical rice paddies and pretty Debussy piano music hoodwinked me into thinking this Japanese youth movie might be worth a look, but after nearly two and a half hours of aimlessness even the Debussy began to get on my nerves. Fourteen-year-old Hasumi runs an internet chat-room for fans of a fictional singer called Lily Chou-Chou. He and his classmate Hoshino drift into petty delinquency, take a holiday in Okinawa, dabble in gang-rape and force a classmate into prostitution. But by this stage, you'll probably be too comatose to care.

ALL AT SEA (1958, b/w) ** Alec Guinness plays a ship’s captain whose chosen career is scuppered by a tendency towards violent seasickness in this late Ealing comedy that recycles the winning Passport to Pimlico formula. He commandeers a seaside pier and acts as though it’s a ship, and before you can say ahoy there! the place is packed with oddball fugitives from landlocked reality. Meanwhile, back on shore, the spoilsport authorities are doing their damnedest to put a stop to all the nonsense, and who can blame them.

ALL OF ME (1984) *** Steve Martin, in the last of four films he made with director Carl Reiner (nowadays better known as Rob's dad, or as a member of Ocean's Eleven), plays a lawyer who, due to some mystical hogwash involving a swami and a metal bowl, finds himself possessed by the querulous soul of deceased millionairess Lily Tomlin, who had been planning to transplant her spirit into young and comely Victoria Tennant. Once the story gets underway, Tomlin's appearances are largely restricted to reflections, which is a shame, but Martin pulls off some inspired physical comedy as the two different personalities battle for ascendency in the same body, resulting in a wide range of silly walks and a delirious courtroom scene in which he pretends to be a woman pretending to be a man. This is Martin at the top of his game, and I miss him.

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955) **** There was a time when Rock Hudson was every girl’s dream date, and this lushly photographed tearjerker directed by that master of melodrama, Douglas Sirk, shows you why. Hudson plays a Thoreau-quoting gardener who prefers plants to cocktail parties and looks pretty damn hunky in his lumberjack shirt, so it’s not surprising when widowed Jane Wyman falls for him, much to the horror of her yuppie children and snobby pals at the country-club. Maternal sacrifice, ungrateful offspring and romance against all odds are the evergreen ingredients, and if the TV Christmas scene doesn’t slay you, you’re not human. Forget the stilted pastiche of Far From Heaven - this is the Real McCoy.

ALL THAT JAZZ (1979) **** It’s showtime, folks! Legendary choreographer and film director Bob Fosse, who won an Oscar for Cabaret, transforms his own life and open heart surgery into a spectacular Fellini-esque musical number in this monumentally self-indulgent but fascinating semi-autobiographical ode to his self-destructive lifestyle, which in reality did indeed lead to the director's final - and fatal - heart attack six years later. Roy Scheider plays chain smoking Fosse surrogate Joe Gideon, who keeps himself fuelled by non-stop sex, drugs and ego as he simultaneously puts together a new stage show, edits his latest film and flirts with Jessica Lange as the Angel of Death while financial backers snap at his heels.

ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE (2006) *** Superior slasher pic showcasing a nicely calibrated performance by genre-star-in-the-making Amber Heard, since seen in John Carpenter's The Ward, Drive Angry and (most thrillingly for the tabloids) opposite Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary. Heard plays the eponymous blonde who spurns her misfit best friend to go to a party at a remote ranch in Texas, but refuses to participate in the tawdry sex and drug-taking of her peers. But of course, there's a psycho on hand to kill off the teenagers in Jonathan Levine's debut feature, which packs an interesting twist or two, and puts a credibly realist spin on the more lighthearted Scream-type scenario.

ALL THE KING'S MEN (2006) * How on earth has Sean Penn managed to hoodwink so many people into thinking he's a brilliant actor? As people's politician Willie Stark, whose ideals are corrupted after he is elected Governor of Louisiana, he splits the ear, saws the air and generally looks as though he has been frequenting David Lynch's hairdresser. Robert Penn Warren's roman à clef about demagogue Huey Long (previously filmed in 1949 with Broderick Crawford) is set during the Depression, but writer-director Steven Zaillian has ill-advisedly updated this clunky adaptation to the 1950s and populated it with actors wielding some of the dodgiest Southern accents since Cold Mountain. Jude Law, saddled with a voice-over as Stark's tame journalist, is the worst offender, but Anthony Hopkins and James Gandolfini don't do much better. Kate Winslet, perhaps wisely, doesn't even try.

ALL THE LITTLE ANIMALS (1998) ** The distinguished producer Jeremy Thomas makes a flawed but promising directing debut with this unusual thriller about a mentally challenged young man called Bobby (Christian Bale) whose mother's death leaves him at the mercy of his wicked stepfather, played by Daniel Benzali, the scary bald actor from Murder One. Bobby flees to Cornwall and takes refuge with reclusive John Hurt, but of course he hasn't seen the last of the hulking bald one, who is such a one-dimensional ogre that you keep expecting him to break into fee-fi-fo-fum at any second.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) ***** The definitive 1970s conspiracy thriller - and it's all