CRASH *

 For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like as Miss Jean Brodie might have said and "Crash" certainly has its fans. There's no denying it's brilliantly done for what it is and there's the rub since what it is is a thoroughly unpleasant picture of thoroughly unpleasant people doing thoroughly unpleasant things. I've never liked the film but I certainly wouldn't advocate censoring it or banning it as happened at the time of its release.

Based on J. G. Ballard's novel, David Cronenberg's film is about people maimed in car accidents who get their rocks off simply from that very fact; it's their wounds and the pain that provide the pleasure, the ultimate S&M trip, the ultimate body horror movie. Sex predominates and a brilliant cast, (James Spader, who just happens to be playing a character called J. G. Ballard, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette), throw themselves into it like there's no tomorrow which for some of them there might not be. It's also superbly photographed by Peter Suschitzky though you might feel like averting your eyes from the screen every now and then. Far from pleasant, then, but undeniably erotic and often quite brilliant.

SISU *

 "Sisu" is an ultra-violent Finnish action flic set during the closing days of WW2 in which grizzled old warrior Jorma Tommila slaughters hordes of Nazis as he tries to hold onto the gold he has found. Dialogue is kept to a bare minimum, (Tommila doesn't speak until the last minute, literally); blood and spilled guts are the order of the day and if it's about as nonsensical as any of the John Wick movies at least it's terrifically well done like an X-rated Roadrunner cartoon brought to gory life.

Whether director Jalmari Helander could handle a rom-com is another matter but with this kind of thing there are probably very few who can touch him. You might even say this is a brilliant example of its kind though I'm amazed that something this violent got away with a 15 certificate while "Poor Things" was slapped with an 18 certificate because of the sex scenes. Go figure.

POOR THINGS ****

 I can virtually guarantee you've never seen a mainstream movie like "Poor Things" nor are you likely to ever see anything like it again. Adapted, (brilliantly), by Tony McNamara from Alasdair Gray's novel this is a cinematic tour-de-force from director Yorgis Lanthimos, (his masterpiece and is he likely ever to surpass it), with a career-defining performance by Emma Stone.

She's Bella Baxter, the 'creation' of Dr. Godwin Baxter, (a never better Willem Dafoe), who likes people to call him God, in the same way that 'the monster' was created by Dr. Frankenstein, (Godwin resembles Karloff's 'monster' rather than Colin Clive's doctor); a cadaver brought back from the dead with the brain of her own unborn baby planted in her head.

This is, however, far from any conventional horror film. Rather it's a work of pure imagination; a vast, darkly comic epic, (and a very funny one), that blends past, future and pure fantasy in one glorious X-rated mix, (think a porn version of "The Bride of Frankenstein"). It's a movie that never quite goes where you expect it to and in ways that at times seem revolutionary.

Stone commands the screen, (she's seldom off it), for its two hours and 20 minutes running time backed by a brilliant supporting cast. As her creator Willem Dafoe gives us the most sympathetic mad scientist in movie history. Mark Ruffalo, brilliantly cast against type, is the roue who doesn't so much seduce Bella as take her on a mad sexual adventure. Ramy Youssef is Dafoe's kindly assistant who loves her while both Hanna Schygulla and Kathryn Hunter are remarkable as women who befriend her for good or ill. By the time Bella becomes the mistress of her own future and domain you may just feel like standing up and cheering her on and if you do the kudos will lie with both Stone and Lanthimos, an actor/director team made in heaven.

ONE FINE MORNING ****

 With a Mia Hansen-Love film you know precisely what you are going to get; love stories filled with passion yet passion so artfully disguised you might even mistake it for indifference. No such chance of that happening in "One Fine Morning", however. The passion in Hansen-Love's new movie is almost tangible. Sandra, (a never better Lea Seydoux), is a single mother who also looks after her elderly father, (Pascal Greggory), while working as a translator. One fine morning she meets Clement, (Melvil Poupaud), an old friend and embarks on an affair with him despite his being married.

The passion here isn't just sexual. Hansen-Love gives us a sometimes angry but always passionate account of the ageing process, of illness and of a daughter's love for her father and it's certainly one of her finest and most moving films and every performance is superb down to the smallest part. The director has great affinity, not just with the professional actors but also with the non-professionals she casts as well and that affinity allows her to turn her characters into real people that we, too, can relate to as clearly as Hansen-Love does. Funny and at times painfully sad, just like life, this is a truly wonderful film.

THE DAM BUSTERS ***

 Stiff upper lips seldom came quite so stiff as they did in "The Dam Busters", Michael Anderson's really rather splendid tribute to British wartime heroism and British wartime ingenuity. It's the story of how Barnes Wallis, (Michael Redgrave, excellent), designed a bouncing bomb for the precise job of blowing up German dams and of how Guy Gibson, (Richard Todd, also very good), and his squadron carried out Wallis' plans to the letter.

Anderson directs with a documentary-like fidelity, R. C. Sherriff provides a surprisingly engaging and intelligent screenplay and a whole host of British actors do their best in ensuring those upper lips remain stiff throughout. The superb cinematography, both on the ground and in the air, was handled by the great Erwin Hillier and, all in all, this is one of the best of British war films.

THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR ***

 An early John Cassavetes performance, (it was his first credited film role), isn't the only reason to see this excellent B-Movie thriller from director Andrew Stone, (he also wrote and produced it). Cassavetes is one of three hoodlums, (the others are Vince Edwards and David Cross), who hijack Jack Kelly on the road and then hold him and his family hostage hence the title "The Night Holds Terror". Stone may have been no auteur but he certainly knew how to make a good suspense movie and this is one of his very best, a first-rate police procedural done in an almost documentary fashion.

Based, we are told. On a true story and shot largely in the locations where the events portrayed actually happened this is a movie that deserves to be a lot better known that it is. The performances may not be Oscar material but they are more than competent, (Cassavetes and Edwards are the stand-outs) and it's very nicely shot by Fred Jackman Jr. See it.

CROSS OF IRON ****

 Despite the odd casting, (James Coburn, James Mason and David Warner as German soldiers), "Cross of Iron" remains one of Sam Peckinpah's masterpieces, one of the greatest of war films and one of the most important and most undervalued American films of the seventies. Based on Willi Heinrich's novel it deals with one particular platoon of German soldiers fighting and losing on the Russian Front during World War Two and for the most part all anti-Nazi, fighting a war they don't believe they can win.

Peckinpah handles the battle scenes superbly but at the heart of the film is the battle of wills between Maximilian Schell's cowardly officer who will do anything to get the Iron Cross and Coburn's sergeant who hates the very uniform he wears and which places the film in the same ballpark as Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" and Aldrich's "Attack". Terrific performances, too, from Coburn, Schell and Mason. Now if last year's German remake of "All Quiet on the Western Front" were only a tenth as good as this...