next bunch of films!

Haack: King of Techno 2/5 - no. no he's not. a great musician, yes.. an innovator of electronic music, yes. a fascinating man, yes. worthy of a better documentary, yes. this film is not bad as such, it's just not good enough
Hang 'Em High 3/5
Hannibal 2/5
Hannibal Rising 2/5
Happiness of the Katakuris 3.5/5
Happy Gilmore 3.5/5 - i still maintain and always will that this and "tommy boy" (two films very close to my wife's heart) are among the best comedies of the last twenty or so years. yes adam sandler has made countless crappy films. but he's also made this



Harlequin 3/5
Haunted House of Horror 2/5
Hellboy 3/5
Hercules Unchained (MST3K) 3/5
Hex 3.5/5 - weird little western/ ghost story. not great in any way, but has something really haunting and memorable about it...
High Plains Drifter 4/5
Hour of the Wolf 3.5/5
House (1977) 4/5 - i don't use this phrase lightly, but this is possibly the most batshit crazy film i have seen all year. totally and utterly bonkers. and brilliantly so...
House of Mortal Sin 4.5/5
House of Whipchord 4/5
House With Laughing Windows 3.5/5
Hukkle 3.5/5
I Saw the Devil 3.5/5
Idaho Transfer 3.5/5 - fonda's follow up to "the hired hand" (with which it shares a similarly interesting but not quite as good bruce langhorne soundtrack). it's a sci fi/ time travel film which although suffering occasionally from flower child hippy cliche nonsense actually succeeds in doing something different with the genre. apart from the ending which is bloody ridiculous. but hilariously so



Iguana With a Tongue of Fire 2/5
I'm Not There 4/5 - fantastic and, much as i hate to admit it, everyone was right - cate blanchett was the best bob. but david cross is my favourite thing in it
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 3.5/5
Inferno 3/5 - reputation will tell you that this is one of argento's best... but it left me oddly cold. i was surprisingly disappointed by it
Inglorious Basterds 3/5
Iron Sky 1.5/5 - nazis! on the moon! do you see?! and with that, the film makers gave up. they had their fool proof lol-making idea and then forgot to make an actual film to match it
Isle of the Dead 3.5/5
It's a Wonderful Life 5/5
Juan of the Dead 3.5/5 - this film should show the makers of "iron sky" how it's done: let's loosely remake "shaun of the dead" but with cuban slackers is the general point of the thing, but they then pepper it with satire and pathos and some half decent ideas and some good sight gags. which is why it's a lot better than "iron sky" was
Keep My Grave Open 2/5
Kiss Me Deadly 5/5
La Donk & Skor-Say-Zee 2/5
Lady Frankenstein 3.5/5
Lady of Burlesque 3.5/5
Lathe of Heaven 3.5/5
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 2/5
Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural 3/5 - not half as clever as it thinks it is, which i suspect is very clever indeed. there are some really startling moments in this, but there are also lots of bits where you can tell everyone involved just sort of stood back and went "by golly, we're a clever bunch"
Leprechaun in the Hood 2.5/5 - not half as stupid as it thinks it is. i mean don't get me wrong, it's a ridiculous film and full of really cringeworthy moments but it's also a lot more fun than it really deserves to be...
Let's Scare Jessica To Death 4/5 - this was far closer to what i was expecting from "lemora". a really odd, dreamlike film with very little narrative sense but some extraordinarily striking ideas rattling around in it. tonally it's quite unlike anything else i've seen all year and some of the images - especially towards the end - will really stick with me for ages. almost a masterpiece



London Can Take It! 4/5
London to Brighton 2/5 - everyone seemed to love this when it came out, but watching it next to a bunch of shane meadows films shows it for what it really is: a slightly better than average british gangster film, but still full of cliches and hollow nonsense. great performance from the girl though
Lucifer Rising 2/5
Manhunter 3/5
Maniac (1934) 3/5 - bloody hell this is... a thing. a complete mess of a film, hardly any budget at all, massive gaps of logic and some incredibly weird performances. and yet... somehow all this mess makes something truly incredible. certainly you won't find anything quite like it out there. it's a properly illogical, dream like thing which doesn't seem to have been made... it just seems to have happened. such a strange, strange film. terrible, but so unusual it makes it worth while all the craziness



Maniac 2/5
Manos, the Hands of Fate (MST3K) 4/5
Marathon Man 3.5/5
Martin 4/5
Matinee 4/5
McCabe and Mrs Miller 3.5/5
Merlin's Mystical Shop of Wonders (MST3K) 4/5
Mouse Hunt 3/5
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. 4/5
Murder at 3AM 2/5 - ultra cheap british film starring dennis price, which seems to have been filmed on the edge of other, better films or in the middle of central london when they thought there weren't many people watching. this is also probably why during all the dialogue scenes seem to be so incredibly quiet, so as not to disturb the other people milling about just out of shot. it's bad but kind of joyously so. i loved it
My Name is Nobody 3/5
My Winnipeg 2/5
Natural Enemies 0/5 - the worst film of the year. a selfish, self indulgent, whine of a film in which hal halbrook defends his asshatishness of wanting to kill himself, his wife and his kids for an hour and a half by talking to various people with "problems". somehow even a chat with a holocaust survivor or his severely depressed wife isn't enough to stop him. just lazy and ugly and shallow and anger inducing. the fact that "revenge of the nerds" was made by the same person and that ISN'T the nadir of his film making history says a lot about how utterly dismal this film is
Neighbours Under Fire 3/5
Night of the Comet 3.5/5 - people will tell you this is a not very good film. and those people are wrong. a hugely enjoyable post apocalypse film with a bunch of endearing teenagers as the heroes. it's a great romp, massively entertaining and just completely and utterly FUN. i can't recommend this enough



Night of the Juggler 3.5/5 - actually this is the really good james brolin film. "80 blocks" was an equally good documentary and i am a fool for confusing them
No Country For Old Men 4/5
Nosferatu the Vampyre 4/5
Oasis of the Zombies 2/5 - hi! we're zombies! from the war! and we're in an oasis! in a desert! basically that for an hour and a half
Once Upon a Time in the West 4/5
Orcs 2.5/5 - ridiculous, terrible, badly made, badly acted and... massively fun. really enjoyed this
Ordinary People 3/5
Out 3/5 - an hour and a half of weird experimental theatre turned into a film. the most entertaining thing about this is the many, many ways the studio have tried to make this into an exciting thriller with all manner of new covers and plot descriptions. instead, what it is is ten actors wandering around muttering cryptic things to each other cryptically. does it mean anything? i have no idea. does it not mean anything? i have no idea. do you mean anything? I HAVE NO IDEA!
Out of the Past 4.5/5
Paranormal Activity 3/5 - there is no paranormal activity in this film which cannot be explained away by the presence of a cat...
Party Girl 3/5
Penda's Fen 5/5 - one of the most extraordinary things i have ever, ever seen. a beautiful paean to growing up, to sexuality, to music, to the landscape, to art... just an overwhelmingly moving piece of work. one of the best things ever to be put on british television. you owe it to yourself to see this, you really do



Pin 3.5/5 - the best film this to star a talking dummy. bar none. one of those completely ridiculous things that you genuinely have to see to believe even exist. it's also surprisingly good considering the... er... somewhat demented plot line



Planet of the Vampires 3/5
Pledge Night 1.5/5 - terrible, terrible slasher film with one incredibly unhinged performance which for ten minutes makes you believe the movie will transcend the terribleness. but it doesn't. it soon returns to crazy badness (which will entertain any anthrax fans out there at least)
Police Academy 3: Back in Training 1/5
Ponyo 3.5/5
Popcorn 3/5
Possession 4/5 - i have no idea what anyone who expected this to be a slasher film must have thought when they finally tracked it down. famously added to the banned list, what it in actual fact is is a crazy psychotic drama about a dissolving relationship. incredibly powerful and with the kind of unhinged performances most actors never quite fully give, it reaches the parts other films never really reach. not something you'll watch regularly, but my god! what a thing it is...
Premonition 3/5
Prince of Darkness 4/5 - incredible. a far from perfect late period john carpenter film (because the cast ad characters are mostly a little dull) but there's something about the tone of the film, something about the weirder details of what happens especially towards the end which are quite unlike anything else i've ever seen. and it's those moments that have haunted me for the whole year. incredible
Princess Mononoke 4/5
Profondo Rosso 4/5
Psychomania 3.5/5 - best frog cult zombie biker film ever made! OH YES!
Pulp 4/5
Punishment Park 4/5