BORN TO KILL **

Excellent, now totally forgotten Robert Wise thriller. The plot may be on the preposterous side, (Claire Trevor is the divorcee who gets involved with a double-murderer who has an eye on her foster-sister's money). Lawrence Tierney is the killer and it's a nice, tough performance from an underrated actor but this is basically Trevor's film; she's as hard as nails and while she may appear to be 'the victim', she's really a rattlesnake with a nice touch in hats. There's also a very good supporting cast that includes Walter Slezak, Elisha Cook Jr., (do he and Tierney really share a bed!), Esther Howard and Philip Terry. Indeed, this is perfect noir terrirtory even when it goes off the rails and is full of characters rotten to the core. The source material was James Gunn's novel 'Deadlier than the Male' and the first-rate script is by Eve Green and Richard Macauley.

HALLOWEEN *

Yep, it's October 31st but 40 years later and Michael Meyers has escaped, (again).  Jamie Lee Curtis is now the grandmother and naturally she's mad, bad and dangerous to know, spouting cliches by the dozen, but this "Halloween" is more of a remake that a sequel to Carpenter's masterpiece so it's basically business as usual. For a film like this to work we don't really need surprises but we do need shocks and unfortunately David Gordon Greeen doesn't seem to be the man to deliver them.

Carpenter had the knack of scaring the living daylights out of us, mainly by a judicious use of the widescreen; Green just pours on the bloodletting. That said, this is still one of the better films in the franchise; a little bit of what we already know certainly comes in handy. Unfortunately, apart from Curtis no-one else makes much of an impact and it's sad to see Will Patton wasted as an over-the-hill policeman. What's even sadder is there's two more movies in the pipeline.

TWO SHOTS FIRED ***

Starting with a very unlikely premise, (16 year old Mariano finds a gun and for no apparent reason shoots himself twice but survives), Martin Rejtman's "Two Shots Fired" then proceeds off in all manner of different directions as the people in Mariano's orbit, (family, friends, acquaintances and people he doesn't know at all), come and go and communicate in short sentences as if to the beat of a metronome. You could say it's a movie about 'real life' but not as we know it, neither a comedy nor a tragedy but some strange hybrid of both with Rejtman cementing his reputation as the Argentinian Kaurismaki. The one-note performances are pitch-perfect though it is hard to feel anything for anyone just as it's almost impossible to identify with any of the characters. That said, it's totally unlike anything else; from shot to shot you're never quite sure where it's going to go next. Quite wonderful, in fact, if you're in the right mood.

NO DOWN PAYMENT **

It may not be Peyton Place but this tight-knit Californian community is still plagued by marital infidelity, heavy drinking, domestic abuse, rape and, of course, racial prejudice. Martin Ritt's "No Down Payment" benefits from being well-written, (Philip Yordan), nicely photographed in black-and-white Cinemascope, (Joseph LaShelle), and it features a good cast of up-and-coming Fox stars headed by Joanne Woodward, (very good), though it's Tony Randall and Pat Hingle who walk off with the picture. Considered very daring and adult in its day, it now seems pretty tame but it did pave the way for a number of 'grown-up' American movies in the late fifties and early sixties and is actually a very good example of its kind. Worth rediscovering.

STREET SMART *

"Street Smart" is a mostly mediocre movie, (most Globus and Golan productions were mediocre movies), directed by Jerry Schatzberg, (I expected more from the man who made "Scarecrow" and "The Panic in Needle Park"), that still managed to pick up a slew of acting prizes thanks to Morgan Freeman and Kathy Baker, both excellent as a murderous pimp and one of the women who works for him. Between them, they just about redeem an extremely far-fetched story about a journalist, (Christopher Reeves, far from his best), who makes up a story about a New York pimp that is taken to be true by the Establishment and in particular by the courts. There is something rather unpleasant about the stereotyping in a movie that, I gather, is really about the dismantling of stereotypes. It's Reeves' character who comes up with name 'Street Smart' for the title of his article; Street Stupid would have been more appropriate.

TICKET TO HEAVEN no stars

It's not terrible but it's not good either. "Ticket to Heaven" came out at a time when 'cults' were the new 'Big Thing' or maybe just the next Big Thing, a scary alternative to Hippiedom. It's the story of David, (handsome, vacant Nick Mancuso), who is sucked into one such cult but is then 'kidnapped' by his friends and family and deprogrammed. It's heart is obviously in the right place but the treatment is mediocre. As an 'anti-cult' movie it's no better than the kind of propoganda a cult itself might produce on the cheap, poorly written, directed and acted and in hindsight it's hard to believe that people actually took it seriously. These cultists are more like the Brady Bunch pretending to be the Adams Family.

KRAMER VS. KRAMER ***

It may not be the masterpiece many people claimed of it when it first opened but "Kramer vs. Kramer" is still one of the finest, grown-up American pictures of its decade. It could have been unbearably cute but writer/director Robert Benton, adapting Avery Corman's novel, approaches the subject with such a degree of honesty it is both unsentimental and very moving; he even manages to get a great performance from seven year old Justin Henry as the child caught in the middle of a bitter divorce, (he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor).

Of course, at its heart is a magnificent performance from Dustin Hoffman as the single father, doing a remarkable job of raising his son when his wife, (relative newcomer Meryl Streep), walks out on him in order to 'find herself'. The plot involves Streep's attempt to gain custody of young Henry a year after leaving him. This was Meryl's first Oscar winning performance, (in the supporting actress category), but I find her work here highly mannered. Much better is Jane Alexander as a friend and neighbour who comes to Hoffman's rescue; hers is a lovely, natural performance, totally without affectation.

A good deal of the film's strength lies in the little domestic details of Hoffman's relationship with his son and in the way Hoffman deals with the issues confronting him. Seldom has a Best Actor Oscar been more richly deserved. It's also a great New York picture; Nestor Almendros did the superb cinematography. Unfortunately Benton never lived up to the promise he showed here and in his earlier films, "The Late Show" and "Bad Company" and has done nothing comparable since. No masterpiece then but a good, strong American drama that is still well worth seeking out.

SWEET DREAMS ****

Perhaps only a director who has lived as long as Marco Bellocchio could tackle the subjects of death and grief with the degree of empathy that's shown here. A young boy, Massimo, is devastated by the sudden death of his mother; years later, as a man, he must try to come to terms with his grief. "Sweet Dreams" is, indeed, an old man's film; there is a lifetime of observation and affection on view. This isn't the kind of film the enfant terrible that Bellocchio once was might have made but a slow, measured, grown-up and deeply moving view of childhood and what lies beyond and as the very young Massimo, Nicolo Cabras is quite extraordinary, (as the adult Massimo, Valerio Mastandrea is also outstanding in what really is a superb ensemble). It's also a decidedly old-fashioned film; there is nothing ostentatious about it. It is a film full of memories but they aren't handled in the tricksy fashion of so many younger directors. Indeed, this is the equal of anything in the director's canon and if we are speaking of late masterpieces this is certainly one. It really shouldn't be missed.

THE MAGIC GLOVES **

A total delight. Martin Rejtman's "The Magic Gloves" is like an early Almodovar film on Prozac. Actually there's an awful lot of pill-popping in this off-the-wall comedy, most of them taken by Cecila, ex-girlfriend of our hero Alejandro, (a wonderfully deadpan Vicentico). She's been diagnosed with depression by her travel agent who's married to a musician known as Piranha who invites Alejandro home believing him to be an old school-friend of his porn star brother. Yes, it's a comedy of identity, mistaken or otherwise, that wouldn't disgrace Jarmusch or Kaurismaki or maybe even Albert Brooks whom Alejandro actually resembles. As for 'props', all you need are some dogs and a car or two and you've hit the jackpot. I loved it.

JUDY **

This year the Academy may as well just forget about nominating five actresses to compete for the Best Actress Oscar, (though when you think about it, there isn't much 'competition' involved), and just hand it over now to Renee Zellweger whose performance as Judy Garland in the film "Judy" is, what we tend to call, a shoo-in. Zellweger is simply magnificent in the part; a barn-storming, tour-de-force in an otherwise largely mediocre film. She may not look much like Garland nor does she particularly sound like her, (Zellweger does her own singing), but what she does do is 'act' Garland in a way that is totally transformative. You simply forget you are watching Renee Zellweger; you are really looking at Judy Garland.

Of course, this is not strictly a 'biopic'. It only covers the last few months of her life and the now infamous Talk of the Town concerts with the occasional flashbacks to "The Wizard of Oz" and how Louis B. Mayer and the studios mucked up her life. It's a film that proudly parades before us every cliche in the biopic book, ending with perhaps the cheesiest 'there's a lady on stage' scene in the history of movies but, of course, none of that matters much since Zellweger is seldom off the screen. I just kept wishing she had been given better material to work with, (it's based on the play 'End of the Rainbow' by Peter Quilter), but if anyone out there thinks Renee's hogging the screen and even, God forbid, going overboard, there's always Jesse Buckley who, as Judy's London 'minder', not only manages to hold her own but shows just what a damn fine actress she is in a totally thankless part.

Of course, no Judy Garland picture would be complete without some 'Friends of Dorothy', here reduced to a couple of London fans who go to see the show every night and hang around the stage door, a la "All About Eve". In one of those scenes that absolutely shouldn't work but does, they even manage to take her home for some badly scrambled eggs. Unfortunately they are also at the centre of that truly cheesy ending. Did it really happen like this? I pray to God not or Judy's life really was more like a movie than we could ever imagine.

FORT MASSACRE *

Surprisingly good and visually very attractive B-Movie Western from the mostly reliable Joseph Newman and shot in Cinemascope. A slightly over-the-hill Joel McCrea is the sergeant leading his Cavalry troop through hostile Indian territory and one savage attack after another. It's hardly John Ford but this is a much tougher picture than anything Ford might have given us; closer in tone to the cinema of Peckinpah with a decent script and good performances from its mostly male cast. It may not be a B-Movie classic but it's still a welcome addition to the Western genre.

NIGHT FLIGHT no stars

One of Clarence Brown's least known films. It may have one of the starriest of all-star casts yet practically no-one has heard of it and it is hardly ever revived. The plot is paper thin while the banal script reads like a pamphlet on aviation and the likes of Robert Montgomery, Clark Gabel, Myrna Loy, Helen Hayes and Barrymores Lionel and John are simply required to go through the motions, (and not very well at that), but it's well photographed and Brown handles the flying scenes with brio, (on the ground, however, it's a very different matter). Of course, Howard Hawks was to cover similiar material to much greater effect several years later in "Only Angels Have Wings" so while this curio can't be totally written off it is certainly no-one's finest hour.

SPOOR ***

One of Agneiszka Holland's best films, "Spoor" is a kind of ecological thriller-cum-message picture, magnificently shot by Jolanta Dylewska abd Rafal Paradowski in the Kotlina Klodzka region of Poland. Agnieszka Mandat is superb as the middle-aged teacher with a passion for animals and at loggerheads with her neighbours, hunters all; then her neighbours start turning up dead... It's certainly an unusual story, one might even say far-fetched and its ecological message is laid on a bit thick at times but Holland still manages to get considerable mileage out of it making spectacular use of her locations and giving the animals their dues. Perhaps the best thing about the film is that, while its message is clear from the start, it's never pedantic or over-stated and finally it's as a good old-fashioned whodunnit that it really works, helped no end by a superb score from Antoni Lazarkiewicz. Seek this one out.

THE GOLDFINCH ***

Firstly, I haven't read Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning novel so I can't say just how good or how bad John Crowley's screen version is in comparison but purely as an epic piece of cinema with a multi-layered plot and a host of characters, (the book has been described as 'Dickensian'), this film is very good indeed. For anyone still unfamiliar with the story, it's about a boy who survives a bombing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in which his mother is killed. The Goldfinch of the title is the painting they were looking at when the bomb went off.

The film covers a number of years. Two actors play the film's central character, Theo Decker; as a child he is played by the remarkably gifted Oakes Fegley and as an adult by Ansel Elgort. They are both superb, particularly young Fegley who gives an Oscar-worthy performance. After his mother's death he is initially taken in by the Barbour family in which the dominant figure is the mother, (a superb Nicole Kidman). This is at least until his up-to-now absent father, (Luke Wilson), and his mistress, (Sarah Paulson), drag him off to the very fringes of Las Vegas where his only friend is a young drug-taking, vodka-drinking Russian who might also be gay or at least bisexual. Then there is the 'alternate' story where he is also taken in by a not wholly legitimate antique dealer and furniture restorer, (Jeffrey Wright). I did say there was a lot of plot.

Much of the criticism levelled at the film is that Tartt's book was basically 'unfilmable' to begin with but if that was the case then let me say that screenwriter Peter Straughan has done a remarkable job of drawing all the plot strands together and in juggling the leaps back and forth in time. All the performances are excellent and Crowley shows great skill in handling the younger performers. Yes, it takes its time and yes, it does require a good deal of commitment from its audience but this is an adventure well worth taking particularly if, like me, you are unfamiliar with the book and can simply enjoy this marvellous film for what it is.

MORGAN; A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT *

The Kitchen Sink was drawing to a close when founding father Karl Reisz made "Morgan; A Suitable Case for Treatment" from David Mercer's screenplay. The time is 1966 and, to be honest, it's more Swinging London than Kitchen Sink as David Warner's Morgan goes off the rails as he tries to win back ex-wife Vanessa Redgrave. She's terrific, (and was Oscar-nominated, competing against her sister Lynn), and Warner is also very good as the increasingly unstable Morgan. They, and London, are the stars of the film. It's billed as a comedy but just because it's frequently surreal and off-the-wall doesn't mean it's funny and like a lot of films from this period it now feels very dated as do the blue-collar caricatures played by Irene Handl and Arthur Mullard. Best view it as a period piece and something of a curio.