When it was announced last year that Hollywood was remaking The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo many of us let out a collective sigh. But as David Fincher was announced as the director, we retracted that sigh quicker than we let it out. Fincher has never made a film not worth seeing, and on the back of his success with last year’s The Social Network his take on this material was an intriguing invitation to say the least. But to re-adapt a story many of us are already familiar with, either through Stieg Larsson’s bestselling novels or the Swedish language movie adaptations, which themselves featured a central female performance many deemed untoppable, we have to wonder if Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is even necessary at all.

As before, the film follows disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) as he is hired by a haunted billionaire, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to plow through 40 years worth of investigative material, clues and conspiracy theories to uncover the truth about what happened to his great-niece Harriet who mysteriously vanished in 1968. It’s only when Blomkvist teams up with master hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a tattood, pierced, leather-clad researcher who may or may not be insane, that he starts to unravel the web of lies that has shrouded the Vanger family for decades.

Proving to be an exception to the “Hollywood dumbs and dilutes everything down” rule, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a tough film to watch, but refreshingly so. Never one to smooth over rough edges, Fincher does justice to the story’s darker elements with gut-wrenching scenes of rape, sexual abuse and ultra-violence. Many complained that Niels Arden Oplev’s original film was a little too hard-edged but for my money, Fincher’s take is even more extreme. Not necessarily more graphic but his eye for detail gives the scenes an unnerving specificity which makes them more disturbing. For such a mainstream production, it’s both shocking and comforting to see just how far Fincher was allowed to push his boundaries. I can’t remember the last time I saw a 100 million dollar movie be this dark and distressing. It’s about time Hollywood started making movies for adults again, and thank God this one is so well made and so well acted.

Since the casting announcement, one thing I’ve never doubted about the 2011 Dragon Tattoo is the success of it’s Blomkvist. I’ve always got the sense that Daniel Craig is an extremely meticulous actor in the same way that Fincher is meticulous as a director. He seems to choose his projects carefully, working only with the best and tackling material that is a little edgy and challenging. In the few duds he has appeared in, I imagine they didn’t start that way and Craig is usually the first to point out a film’s flaws if it has ended in disappointment. Perhaps all this is why no other James Bond has managed to separate himself from the 007 persona quite as well. Judging from the interviews surrounding Dragon Tattoo, Craig seems to have adored the grueling 40+ take process that comes with making a David Fincher movie and the two are like a match made in heaven.

As Blomkvist, Craig’s face and mannerisms soak up Fincher and Cronenweth’s lighting as if it was coming from light-bulbs at home. He looks and feels correct with this material. Clad in cardigans, hair unkempt and constantly thinking, he plods around his environments obsessing over details nobody else seems to care about but ultimately prove to be the key to success. He is sly in his methods but always polite and considerate and never too proud. All this could be said for Fincher himself for whom Blomkvist feels like an avatar more so than his previous protagonists. The way Craig repeatedly adjusts his reading glasses from his chin to his eyes scene to scene is a brilliant little tick I loved and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one he lifted from his director between takes. The relationship between Blomkvist and a cat is also a nice enhancement from both the original novel and movie. It’s a touch that may seem throwaway but it makes many of the film’s earlier scenes that much more interesting, at least until Blomkvist is joined by another feline.

As great a Blomkvist as Craig is, the talking point of this movie was always going to be it’s Lisbeth Salander. Salander is a character so great she has now launched the careers of two actresses. It’s a role that saw Hollywood’s hottest leading ladies feverishly battle it out only for them to be defeated by a fresh faced up and comer called Rooney Mara whom many only recognised as “that girl” from The Social Network. To put those thoughts to rest, Mara is a fantastic Lisbeth. She is tiny and waif-like but punctuated by spikes and hard edges. She sees the worst in people and when she looks at you, she doesn’t blink. If you lock eyes, you will look away before she does. She’s entrancing and strangely beautiful but not exactly desirable (as least not at first). You never know if she’s a psychotic demon or a misunderstood pixie in disguise. You can’t put your finger on her and even if you could it would probably bleed as a result. Mara is completely transformed and almost unrecognisable to the same degree that Heath Ledger got lost behind the madness of The Joker.  It’s the bravest performance of the year and one that cements Mara as Hollywood’s most daring new vixen, even if her breakthrough will always rest in another actresses shadow.

Mara plays the character differently to how Noomi Rapace did in 2009 (three times). They both latch on to different aspects of Salander’s character and each use their differing body types to their advantage. Rapace was more lizard-like, a reptile coiled and ready to strike at any second. There was no doubt watching Rapace that she could handle herself in any situation. Mara on the other hand is more feminine, but dangerously so. She’s like a wildcat. Feral but vulnerable. I feared for her more than I did Rapace and was taken on more of an emotional journey. She is not as physically threatening which makes her bravery all the more badass. While the original Swedish incarnation of Lisbeth left me impressed and in awe, Mara’s interpretation intimidated, terrified and seduced me, in that order. To say which is better is impossible as there is no right and wrong, Rapace will always undoubtedly, and deservedly, own the role but I think I prefer Mara. She played it closer to how I felt Lisbeth should be played, she was more fascinating. I want to know more about her, a feeling I never had from the original film.

If you’re going into the Dragon Tattoo story for the second, or even third time it’s impossible not to compare it to what has gone before. Perhaps the up side to this, however, is that as the familiar scenes tumble by one by one and go through your brain’s little compare and contrast process, it’s Fincher’s versions that are most satisfying. While not too distant from Oplev’s, his direction is more assured and his choices make more sense. In that sense the film is an improvement on the original film but it stays true to it’s narrative and that is part of the problem. Adapted by legendary screenwriter Steven Zaillian, this remake could have been a great opportunity to iron out some of the problems that befell this story the first time around. The main issue with both films, and indeed the novel, is that the story reaches it’s peak a good 30 minutes before the end credits roll. That peak is so surprising, scary and exhilarating that when the film settles back into the “Okay so what did happen to Harriet?” mystery we just don’t really care anymore.

It’s in the supporting elements that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo also shines. Christopher Plummer and Steven Berkoff are wonderful in their all-too-brief screen time and the who’s who of villainous Vanger family members and affiliates are brought to life by a host of interesting faces you’ll pull your hair out trying to navigate. Stellan Skarsgard shows up in a key role that, if you know your Stellan Skarsgard history, won’t be as surprising as I imagine the filmmakers wanted it to be but still, he’s there doing what he does best better than ever. I could go on at great length about the joys of the film’s moody cinematography courtesy of Jeff Cronenweth but it’s the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that threatens to steal the show right from under everybody’s noses. Beautifully chilling, it pulsates alongside the film like a cold heartbeat, it’s surprisingly restrained and moving. Subtle but never invisible. A more than satisfying follow up to their incredible work on The Social Network. It seems that Fincher has finally found his Danny Elfman or Bernard Herrmann and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

The main selling point of this movie for me was always going to be David Fincher. There’s something about him as a visual stylist that I’m completely in love with. He’s certainly my favourite contemporary filmmaker in that regard. His decisions with composition, cutting and camera movement are all so wonderfully precise and endlessly fascinating that anything Fincher churns out will always be a feast for the eyes. Dragon Tattoo is no different. He shoots it as a thriller first and foremost, his camera roams around adapting to character’s POV’s and is often looking down from great heights. He has fun with the dark material, injecting humour where you least expect but delivers visceral sucker punches in just the right places for full effect. The image of a twisted face frozen in desperation struggling for air inside a plastic bag is certainly one I won’t forget any time soon and I sure as hell won’t be able to hear Enya’s Sail Away in the same way ever again. You can almost feel the snow scratching your face as you take in the icy landscapes and the chilly atmosphere threatens to give you frostbite. He handles the film with such ease, however, that I started to wonder if this is Fincher pushing himself to top what has gone before or if it’s just him being comfortable working in familiar territory.

This is a movie that plays to all of Fincher’s strengths and it seems to have been culled from every corner of his shadowy psyche and indeed every corner of his pre-existing oeuvre. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before.  Lisbeth’s hacker world of fingers rat-a-tat-tating away on keyboards and faces ignited by computer screens was a big part of last year’s Social Network, the stomach-churning violence and bleak outlook of Se7en is back, the cat-and-mouse thrills of Panic Room come in handy during the final act and the unsolved murder at the film’s core is nothing compared to the obsessive investigation to end all obsessive investigations lying at the heart of Zodiac. Lest not forget that Salander’s anarchic punk-rock “fuck the world” attitude would certainly impress the imaginary pants off of a certain Tyler Durden. It’s not the career-catapult into an exciting new phase that his last movie was, instead it seems like he’s giving his final word on many themes he’s already mastered. There’s even an exhilarating James Bond-esque title sequence thrown in for good measure which is a nice treat for us fans who fondly remember the Fincher that gave us the opening title blitzkrieg’s of Se7en and Fight Club, but it feels like a step backwards that is a tad out of touch with the movie it’s introducing. This is Fincher on pause rather than fast-forward, but at least it’s still a Fincher movie through and through.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a film that we may not have needed but one I now realise I wanted to see. I was curious to see how Fincher would handle this story visually and it didn’t disappoint. It’s an inky chiller made of ice and stone, told with precision by the most precise of modern filmmakers. It neither massively improves on or undermines the Swedish original, but rather sits alongside it as an alternative companion piece. As an adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel it’s the more satisfying of the two with actors more fitting to Larsson’s descriptions but it still doesn’t quite get past some of the narrative hiccups that work better for page rather than screen. This is mainstream cinema at it’s most darkest and contains some of the hardest scenes 2011 had to offer, which is what it may end up being remembered for, as well as Rooney Mara’s ballsy performance ofcourse. Despite being on auto-pilot, Fincher’s hands are all over this movie and for that reason alone I imagine it will be the Dragon Tattoo I return to time and time again in the years to come. If this is to be Hollywood’s next big franchise, they’re off to a great start.

#1 Terms of Endearment (1983) Dir. James L. Brooks
#2 Ratcatcher (1999) Dir. Lynne Ramsay
#3 The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) Dir. Steven Spielberg
#4 The Way of the Gun (2000) Dir. Christopher McQuarrie
#5 Anything Else (2003) Dir. Woody Allen
#6 Broadcast News (1987) Dir. James L. Brooks
#7 Senna (2011) Dir. Asif Kapadia
#8 Rounders (1998) Dir. John Dahl
#9 Morvern Callar (2002) Dir. Lynne Ramsay
#10 Meek’s Cutoff (2011) Dir. Kelly Reichardt
#11 Love & Other Drugs (2010) Dir. Edward Zwick
#12 Play It Again, Sam (1972) Dir. Herbert Ross
#13 Gamer (2009) Dir. Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
#14 Killshot (2008) Dir. John Madden
#15 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) Dir. John Singleton
#16 Bridesmaids (2011) Dir. Paul Feig
#17 Horrible Bosses (2011) Dir. Seth Gordon
#18 Take Shelter (2011) Dir. Jeff Nichols
#19 Alice (1990) Dir. Woody Allen
#20 Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011) Dir. Robert B. Weide

Favourites from November:

Terms of Endearment (1983) Dir. James L. Brooks
This big Oscar winner from James L. Brooks is melodramatic, funny and big on emotion but it kept hold of me the whole time. The performances are infectious and Jack Nicholson is at the top of his game. Watching Nicholson hit it out of the park like he does here is one of the reasons I watch movies. There’s no-one like him. The more I see of Jeff Daniels earlier in his career the more I realise how great he is too. Brooks is a very gifted writer and a very adept filmmaker. A film that’s equally moving as it is hilarious.

The Way of the Gun (2000) Dir. Christopher McQuarrie
This is a very very bizarre film from Christopher McQuarrie. A crime movie full of philosophy and pondering thoughts on life. It’s ultra violent but not for the sake of being ultra violent. It seems to exist in it’s own post-Tarantino meta movie world. It’s definitely not perfect but I haven’t been able to forget it. Ryan Phillipe and Benicio Del Toro make a great on-screen team too. Seek it out if you fancy something a little bit different.

Morvern Callar (2002) Dir. Lynne Ramsay
On the strength of seeing the remarkable We Need to Talk About Kevin last month, I went back and caught up on Lynne Ramsay’s filmography starting with Ratcatcher (dreary, artistic, admirable but disappointing) and then Morvern Callar. This is a great film lead by a wonderful performance from Samantha Morton, one of my favourite actresses working today. Ramsay’s use of colour is one of her biggest strengths and this little moral tale about a good girl doing a bad thing but getting good things as a result is captivating from shot one.

Alice (1990) Dir. Woody Allen
This is a magical little movie that sees Woody at his lightest and most creative. Mia Farrow is a delight to watch here, a harmless and innocent woman taken on a fantastical journey. I had no idea what to expect going into this, maybe a domestic marriage drama, so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be such a gem that recalls and pays homage to the best of Fellini. Wonderful. Probably my favourite of the month. The 3 hour+ documentary on Woody I watched was also a great experience.

Contagion follows a mysterious and deadly virus as it spreads like wildfire taking the life of thousands worldwide in the process. We watch the chaos unfold through the eyes of various protagonists scattered around the globe. Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow are a husband and wife lying at the very inception of the virus, Paltrow being one of the first to catch it while Damon finds himself impervious to it’s effects. Jude Law is a sleazy conspiracy theorist who’s internet blog voices the fear and suspicions everyone feels while Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Elliott Gould and Marion Cotillard are professionals in varying positions of power tasked with the daunting job of finding a cure for the disease.

This is a film in which no-one is safe. One of the film’s biggest stars drops dead within ten minutes and many more go the same way as the running time ticks down. No matter how many precious and adored Oscar-nominees and Oscar-winners populate Contagion‘s poster, Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns aren’t afraid to knock them out of the game as soon as they aren’t needed. Alfred Hitchcock once famously compared actors to cattle and this is how Soderbergh’s cast are treated in this story. But don’t be mistaken, this is not a criticism, but one of the highest compliments I can give a movie like this.

Too often are we used to walking into a movie and knowing which characters will see the end just by the actor who is playing them.  The characters in Contagion are barely characters at all and they are not particularly likeable. There is no clear hero or moral compass. Marriages are on the rocks, relationships cracked and politeness is sacrificed. These are people. Flawed, boring, genuine people who have jobs to do but don’t necessarily enjoy doing them. The film doesn’t make the mistake of trying to make us fall in love with it’s characters by placing them in a perfect existence we see shattered, it understands that to truly care for them, we need to relate to their situation. It’s the mundane day-to-day drivel that makes Contagion‘s chills so chilling. It also helps that in Soderbergh’s hands, his cast aren’t afraid to look dishevelled and disease-ridden. We see beautiful stars like Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow at their absolute worst and in a strange way they are all the more beautiful because of it. They abandon image for our benefit. Paltrow’s twisted and contorted face may not be nice to look at, but it’s one of the most unforgettable images I’ve seen in a movie all year. If you come out of Contagion with nothing else, you will at least respect many of it’s cast members a lot more having seen it.

I found it odd at first that a movie so concerned with miniscule details and paranoia would rely on such a huge array of characters. Films with disease at it’s centre usually work on a small canvas, or at least the best ones do. But Soderbergh and Burns blow up their tiny story into an assortment of segments dotted around the world. No stranger to ensemble casts, Soderbergh takes what he’s learnt from Traffic and his sprawling Ocean’s series and applies it to a much tighter narrative. The kind of narrative any good thriller relies on for success. Despite it’s big reach, Contagion‘s grasp is thankfully small and controlled. We see the world’s population go from A-okay to apocalyptic squalor in a brisk 100 minutes. It’s a much more effective way of telling a disaster story than, say, the bloated bullshit pile-on found in Roland Emmerich’s 2012.

In terms of the plot itself, there’s nothing here that you wouldn’t find in any other film of this kind, but the way in which the story is told is different. At various points throughout, a scene would pop up and a little light would flash in my head causing me to sit up and pay attention. Was it because of a large bang on the soundtrack? A contrived plot twist? No, it was often down to Soderbergh’s framing and artistic decisions. The film’s opening act, in which we see the deadly virus slowly take hold around the world, is shot with deadly simplicity. All these opening beats are told from one angle, the camera moving slightly to focus on a door handle, a mobile phone, a glass – mundane objects now chillingly transformed into deadly weapons. These scenes are the work of a filmmaker who has tried everything and knows exactly what to leave out. He gets straight to the point without hitting it over the head with a hammer.

It’s no secret that Soderbergh seems to have had enough with movie-making. He has announced through various outlets his plans to retire once his current slate of projects is cleared. The seriousness of these claims varies from interview to interview of-course, but I suspect it’s this boredom with his trade that actually makes Contagion a better movie. There is no nonsense here, no bells or whistles. It is a sleek movie that feels natural through and through, from the performances right on down to the simple red titles and cinematography. It is clean and direct, unspoiled by unnecessary edits. Icy when it needs be icy and warm when it needs to be warm. This shifting between hot and cold may sound like a simple act but it’s one many filmmakers struggle with but Soderbergh apparently manages it with ease. I wondered why it had never occurred to other filmmakers to shoot these tired, seen-it-a-hundred times-before scenes like this.  Soderbergh’s style isn’t going to alter the form of cinema but it may encourage conventional filmmakers to think twice before they try to over-complicate things or fall back on music and harsh cuts.

Soderbergh’s skill is not limited to just the screen the film is projected on either. During my screening I could physically sense everyone’s body language tense up and their muscles tightening, trying to close in on themselves to reduce any chance of contact with anything other than their own skin. Any time somebody cleared their throat or – God forbid – coughed, it was as if someone had suddenly pulled out a live grenade and removed the pin in front of us. I’ve never seen that kind of power in the cinema. Movies are designed to bring everyone together yet Contagion managed isolate every member of the audience and make them enemies with whoever was sat closest. It’s a mischievous effect, one I loved being a part of.

The great irony of Contagion is that it is made by a filmmaker who has found himself in a new groove while in the middle of packing his bags and making for the exit. Much of my enjoyment of Contagion and indeed it’s brilliance lies in it’s execution. In the hands of another filmmaker it would be nothing more than forgettable theatre-fodder with an impressive cast. But again, I doubt half the names involved would have signed on if it weren’t for their director.

An intruiging trailer for another upcoming Soderbergh movie, Haywire, played before this one and I had to smile to myself with a certain sadness at the bittersweet situation us Soderbergh fans now find ourselves in. If he is indeed retiring, at least he’s going out on a high but at the same time, it is sad we may never see Soderbergh on a high ever again. Contagion may be one of the last opportunities for us to experience a new Soderbergh movie on the big screen, it is also one of the best films of the year. It will do for bowls of peanuts what Jaws did for swimming. I imagine sales of anti-bacterial hand-gel will increase in it’s wake.

#1 The Transporter 2 (2005) Dir. Louis Letterier
#2 The Machinist (2004) Dir. Brad Anderson
#3 Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) Dir. Scott Glosserman
#4 Pulse (2001) Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
#5 Cat People (1942) Dir. Jacques Tourneur
#6 I Walked with a Zombie (1943) Dir. Jacques Tourneur
#7 Twisted Nerve (1968) Dir. Roy Boulting
#8 Julia’s Eyes (2011) Dir. Guillem Morales
#9 Carnival of Souls (1962) Dir. Herk Harvey
#10 Cannibal Holocaust (1980) Dir. Ruggero Deodato
#11 The Dead (2010) Dir. Howard J. Ford & Jon Ford
#12 My Bloody Valentine (2009) Dir. Patrick Lussier
#13 Catfish (2010) Dir. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
#14 The Ward (2010) Dir. John Carpenter
#15 Trust (2011) Dir. David Schwimmer
#16 Vacancy (2007) Dir. Nimrod Antal
#17 Midnight in Paris (2011) Dir. Woody Allen
#18 Stop Making Sense (1984) Dir. Jonathan Demme
#19 The Descent Part 2 (2009) Dir. Jon Harris
#20 The Changeling (1980) Dir. Peter Medak
#21 The Woman (2011) Dir. Lucky McKee
#22 Contagion (2011) Dir. Steven Soderbergh
#23 Red (2008) Dir. Trygve Allister Diesen & Lucky McKee
#24 The Other Guys (2010) Dir. Adam McKay
#25 The Resident (2011) Dir. Antti Jokinen
#26 Final Destination 3 (2006) Dir. James Wong
#27 The Final Destination (2009) Dir. David R. Ellis
#28 Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) Dir. Henry Joose & Ariel Schulman
#29 We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Dir. Lynne Ramsay
#30 Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979) Dir. Werner Herzog
#31 Eyes Without a Face (1960) Dir. Georges Franju
#32 Mimic: Director’s Cut (1997) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro 

Favourites from October:

Cat People (1942) Dir. Jacques Tourneur
This is a beautiful and atmospheric film. I’ve heard about and seen clips from Cat People countless times via various interviews with Martin Scorsese. He loves this movie to death and I’m glad I’ve finally seen it for myself. Tourneur’s shadowy photography is still effective to this day. A B-Movie on the outside but an unrivaled piece of art on the inside.

Carnival of Souls (1962) Dir. Herk Harvey
Out of all the vintage horror movies I saw in October this was my favourite. It’s ultra-low budget really adds to the rickety and dilapidated world. I loved the rough edges and cheap corners. Watching this movie was like being taken in Lynch-land by a filmmaker other than David Lynch which suggests this had a huge impact on Lynch at one point in his life, it’s techniques and mood live on in his work. Really terrifying at times but constantly with a sly wink. A terrific ride.

Stop Making Sense (1984) Dir. Jonathan Demme
I can’t even begin to put into words how much of a mark this movie left on me. I wasn’t much of a Talking Heads before Stop Making Sense beyond the Remain in Light album but it made me an obsessive. This is a film, through and through. From the moment David Byrne strolls onto stage, the camera following his feet, and plops a boom box down and jumps into Psycho Killer, some sort of strange narrative is at work here with the band as it’s protagonists and Byrne as the ringleader. There are cuts that are just as powerful as Kubrick’s split second leap from falling bone to floating space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There is no bullshit MTV editing either. Shots linger on Byrne for almost entire songs, his face distorted by surreal under-lighting transforming him into a howling boogeyman. It’s an expressionistic and exhilarating portrait of a band doing what they do best and loving every second of it. As transcendent as the best gigs I’ve been to. May very well be Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece and one of the best films I’ve seen in my life.

The Woman (2011) Dir. Lucky McKee
I really dig Lucky McKee. He’s a filmmaker I’m relatively new to after discovering his movies back in June but he’s certainly someone who has the right grasp on horror and knows how to make horror interesting and intellectual. The Woman has stirred up a lot of controversy this year on the festival circuit so I’ve been anticipating it for a while and it really shook me up. It’s very well made and expertly put together with a great sound design. The best thing about it though is that it has a head on it’s shoulders and isn’t just nasty and grim for the sake of it. It has a point, and that point is actually really enlightening. Very impressed.

Red (2008) Dir. Trygve Allister Diesen & Lucky McKee
One of the most unexpected movies I watched last month. On the strength of The Woman I went to Red to finish of McKee’s filmography (even though, as I later found out, McKee was actually fired from the film halfway through). This is a really tight little thriller told with refreshing simplicity. Kind of like Gran Torino in the country. Brian Cox gives what I think is his finest performance and I wish this movie had more recognition for that alone. A nice surprise.

Halloween is my favourite horror movie and one of my ten favourite movies of all time. It’s a film I saw at a very young age and one I’m always returning to, wether it be shoving the DVD on for the unpteenth time or just sitting back and revisiting scenes in my head. Needless to say it’s one of those films that has scarred me for life and shaped a lot of my tastes. I imagine if I get to make a movie one day there will be a lot of Halloween to be found in it. So anyway…

While a great deal of Halloween‘s effectiveness comes from John Carpenter’s eerie wide compositions and chilling score, a lot of people forget just how fluid and bold Carpenter’s camerawork was for it’s time. It’s bravura is none more evident than in the movie’s classic opening scene, an extended POV shot that puts us in the shoes of an unknown presence as we stalk and ultimately murder a young girl in her house. The real sucker punch arrives when we realise just who’s shoes we’ve been standing in all along…

Taking his cues from visionary filmmakers such as Orson Welles, Carpenter’s opening shot throws down a cinematic ganutlet that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. I love the roughness of the whole sequence, Halloween was shot on an ultra-low B-movie budget and it shows in the tiny imperfections – the way the focus goes off slightly every now and again, the shudders and jerks as the cameraman clearly steps over wires or avoids hidden crew members. Even the tiny continuity errors that crop up during the hidden cuts add to it’s jittery and demented point-of-view. There’s a wonderful moment during the actual murder as the camera looks from the girl being stabbed and screaming to the hand thrusting the knife through the air. When you picture this situation from the outside – a killer looking bewildered at his own hand mid-stab as if it has a mind of it’s own – it makes it all that little bit more disturbing. It also doubles up as a great little cue to inner-workings of Michael Myers’ mind that will come into play later in the picture. Intentional? Probably not, but it sure is effective.

As a self-contained sequence, it has everything. A mysterious opening in the shape of the eerie halloween chant heard over a black screen, the second-act stalk and finally the bloodbath and rug-pull at the end. It’s as if the whole film’s structure has been dictated to us in the first five minutes. As part of a whole though, it’s undoubtedly one of the strongest and most perfectly executed opening sequences in cinema history and one that still to this day hasn’t been topped, at least not in the horror genre.

There’s not much left to be said about The Godfather. It’s one of cinema’s timeless masterpieces that will surely outlive us all. It’s hard to pick a favourite moment from a movie so rife with memorable sequences but the one I’m about to talk about is perhaps the most important, not only for the movie itself but for the people involved in making it.

Shot during the first week of principal photography, tensions were high on The Godfather set during the making of the Sollozzo sequence. Whispers were circulating the crew that Coppola was to be fired and/or his lead actor, a then unknown Al Pacino, would be replaced. All Coppola could do was hold tight and carry on. Thankfully, once the execs saw the dailies, all those whispers disappeared and Coppola and Pacino had 100% support. From the finished scene it’s not hard to see why.

One of the most breathtaking things about the Sollozzo murder sequence is how Coppola is always ratcheting up the tension. He sacrifices music for silence, puts emphasis on sound effects and is constantly testing the audience’s stamina with tiny gasp-inducing beats and flourishes. There’s the unnerving way Sollozzo and Michael simply sit and stare at each other as the waiter pours the wine. Michael’s eyes darting around desperately while trying to sustain a cool exterior. The great moment when our heart jumps into our throat as Michael cannot find the gun, then it returns to our chest as he gets his hands on it a second later. Rules laid out in a previous scene are casually broken one at a time. Michael is supposed to come out of the bathroom blazing, but instead he returns to his seat. WHY? Even the way Coppola chose to keep all the speech between Michael and Sollozzo in UNSUBTITLED sicilian is an audacious display of filmmaking confidence. At first glance it all looks very simple and straight-forward but it’s constructed with an unbelievable amount of care. Coppola’s greatest tool though, is Pacino himself.

In terms of screen acting, nothing really comes close to Al Pacino in the first two Godfather movies. At this point in his career I honestly feel that he was the greatest actor in the world. There is a fire in his eyes I have never seen in any another performance. An electric intensity captured within a human face. Watching both movies back to back you can genuinely see an innocent young man being corrupted into an evil and soulless tyrant. Pacino’s work in this scene (and also in Part II as Kay reveals what happened to his child) is screen-acting at it’s most chilling and simplistic. It looks like he’s doing nothing at all but somehow you can see the cogs frantically pumping into overdrive behind his eyes. I’m not sure that he ever blinks once or Pacino was even acting at all. Maybe he just projects a killer blank canvas for the audience to paint on. Either way, it’s mesmerizing and hypnotic and the birth of a movie star. Powerhouse performing at it’s most powerful and cinema at it’s most exhilarating. Utter perfection.

#1 Hatchet 2 (2010) Dir. Adam Green
#2 Thirst (2009) Dir. Park Chan-wook
#3 Kill List (2011) Dir. Ben Wheatley
#4 Red State (2011) Dir. Kevin Smith
#5 Wrecked (2011) Dir. Michael Greenspan
#6 Fanboys (2008) Dir. Kyle Newman
#7 Shoot ‘Em Up (2007) Dir. Michael Davis
#8 Risky Business (1983) Dir. Paul Brickman
#9 Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) Dir. Rupert Wyatt
#10 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) Dir. Rob Cohen
#11 The Grifters (1990) Dir. Stephen Frears
#12 Cruel Intentions (1999) Dir. Roger Kumble
#13 Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) Dir. Ted Post
#14 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) Dir. Adam Mckay
#15 Insidious (2011) Dir. James Wan
#16 Waltz With Bashir (2008) Dir. Ari Folman
#17 Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) Dir. Don Taylor
#18 Subway (1985) Dir. Luc Besson
#19 13 Assassins (2010) Dir. Takashi Miike
#20 State of Play (2009) Dir. Kevin Macdonald
#21 Mad Max (1979) Dir. George Miller
#22 Monster’s Ball (2001) Dir. Marc Forster
#23 Dangerous Liaisons (1988) Dir. Stephen Frears
#24 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Dir. Elia Kazan
#25 The Hit (1984) Dir. Stephen Frears
#26 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) Dir. Tomas Alfredson
#27 Finding Neverland (2004) Dir. Marc Forster
#28 Johnny Guitar (1954) Dir. Nicholas Ray
#29 Bullitt (1968) Dir. Peter Yates
#30 Rogue (2007) Dir. Greg Mclean
#31 Let Me In (2010) Dir. Matt Reeves
#32 30 Minutes or Less (2011) Dir. Ruben Fleischer
#33 To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) Dir. William Friedkin
#34 Hoop Dreams (1994) Dir. Steve James
#35 The Brood (1979) Dir. David Cronenberg
#36 Attack the Block (2011) Dir. Joe Cornish
#37 Drive (2011) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
#38 Fear X (2003) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
#39 Stuck (2007) Dir. Stuart Gordon
#40 The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009) Dir. Tom Six
#41 Melancholia (2011) Dir. Lars von Trier
#42 Hancock (2008) Dir. Peter Berg
#43 Le Doulos (1962) Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
#44 The Transporter (2002) Dir. Corey Yuen
#45 Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2011) Dir. Eli Craig
#46 Bleeder (1999) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
#47 Le deuxieme souffle (1966) Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville 

Favourites from September

The Grifters (1990) Dir. Stephen Frears
It took a few days for me to realise how great this ultra-cool slice of neo-noir actually was.  I really dig the cast headed by John Cusack, Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening as well as the retro 40s style. The thing that set me back most about The Grifters is just how cold-blooded it can be. I mean this movie can get really fucking dark really fucking fast and it’s disturbing but pleasurable in the way that only great movies can get away with. Stephen Frears has a fantastic and varied body of work under his belt (I also really loved The Hit) and this is one of his most accomplished films. Definitely one I can see myself returning to again and again.

Cruel Intentions (1999) Dir. Roger Kumble /Dangerous Liaisons (1988) Dir. Stephen Frears
Essentially the same movie told in completely different ways but I loved them both too much to pick a favourite. Cruel Intentions is one of the few “modern re-telling” movies that actually works. The characters and performances are brutal, cold and well, very very cruel. The 90s cast are all really wonderful with Sarah Michelle Gellar especially stealing the limelight as seductive vixen Catherine. Dangerous Liaisons is subtler but no less naughty featuring a star-making performance from John Malkovich. There’s a sexiness about both these movies that is really infectious.  Basically I just thought this was a really great story and enjoyed it in both incarnations.

Monster’s Ball (2001) Dir. Marc Forster
I’d strayed away from Monster’s Ball for a long time and I don’t quite know why. I’ve sat down and started watching it about three times before finally making it through the whole thing. I guess it’s just the type of film you need to be in the mood for.  Anyway, it turned out to be an unpredictable and emotionally epic beast that constantly left me surprised and rewarded. Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton play out one of the oddest and most tragic movie romances of all time but their amazing performances make it all completely believable. Heath Ledger’s brief role is also unforgettable. A film with a lot of things to say but never rams the point home too hard.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Dir. Elia Kazan
Marlon Brando is so good in this movie, in fact he’s almost too good. I’ve seen a lot of great performances in my time, I see a lot of great performances every week (if it’s been a good one movie-wise) but it’s very rare that I see a performance that literally shakes the foundations of my love of movies and brings into question everything I knew, scratch that, everything I thought I knew about acting. I can count on my hand maybe three or four of these performances, the ones that are just totally fucking mindblowing. Well Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Brando’s performance made me get as excited about acting as Scorsese makes me about directing or editing. It’s as if the screen can’t even hold him. He’s just so primal, raw, violent and magnetic. Take his performance and put it in a movie today and it would still wipe the floor with every other performance around it. This is the kind of stuff that De Niro and Daniel Day-Lewis would struggle to capture. That’s how good it was. So visceral. Brando just became a little bit of a God in my eyes. Brando wasn’t the only thing great about this movie though, everything about it just bitchslapped me across the head. It really is an amazing movie so full of life, pain and emotion. To say its 60 years old I’m in awe of how modern it feels today. It still packs one hell of a punch. God knows how people handled it in the 50s, it would have probably put me in a coma. It really is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing on my TV screen and one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. One of those classics that the word masterpiece was invented for.

Le Doulos (1962) Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Before there was Tarantino, Michael Mann and John Woo there was Jean-Pierre Melville. Cinema of cool’s ultimate grand master. I’ve seen a handful of Melville movies before and loved them all and Le Doulos was no different. A stripped down, hard boiled, tough-as-nails little thriller that oozes style and uses a great less-is-more aesthetic. Jean-Paul Belmondo is too cool for words in this film. He plays a great character that you are never quite sure of and seeing him play off against all the other characters is rivetting. The pulpy and movie-aware world of Melville’s work is so infectious too. Some days I’d like to get a fedora and a trench-coat and go and live shoulder to shoulder with some of these characters. The way Melville uses the hat as a recurring motif also reminded me a lot of the Coen brothers’ great Miller’s Crossing. A mini masterpiece.

Bleeder (1999) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
It’s been a very very long time since a filmmaker managed to shoot into my heroes in such a short space of time. This time last year I was only aware of Nicolas Winding Refn through Bronson and a vague awareness of his other works. Cut to now and thanks to Drive and a much-needed re-assessment of all his movies  I’m in love with everything he’s made. Bleeder was the last of his movies I saw and I thought it was a harrowing, tense and powerful piece of work. A great stepping stone between the gritty realism of his Pusher movies to the cerebral style of his later work. I particularly loved Mads Mikkelsen’s character Lenny, a video-store clerk who can only bond with people through conversations about movies. He’s a wonderful character who I felt a very strong connection with and seems like an especially vivid avatar for Refn himself. A hellish tour-de-force that hints at great things to come.

Michael Mann’s 2004 movie Collateral is a fantastic little thriller and one I find myself returning to time and time again. I love the set-up and the two lead performances by Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise as well as Mann’s gorgeous aesthetic. It’s a movie that’s always moving forward and constantly rewarding the audience for keeping up. The balance between character and action is so perfectly pitched that a scene of two characters talking can be just as exhilirating as two of them shooting at each other.

The big set-piece of Collateral unfolds in a thumping LA nightclub as cold-blooded hitman Vincent (Tom Cruise) expertly navigates himself and cab-driver Max (Jamie Foxx) through a dancing crowd while stealthily taking out a mob of gunmen and avoiding detection from the LAPD while trying to assassinate a witness. The sequence’s heartbeat is provided by a korean version of Paul Oakenfield’s pumping dance-track Ready Steady Go which makes the whole thing that little bit cooler. What’s so great about this entire scene is how Mann keeps so many separate strands running simultaneously and conveys a sense of total hysteria without ever causing any confusion about who’s who and where they are. It’s really the film’s turning point as all the characters converge and we get to see just how ruthless and skilled a killer Vincent really is.

I love all the little touches Mann and Cruise add into the bone-crunching violence like how Vincent cooly blends right back into the crowd after achieving his goal. The way Mann contrasts the steely drive of Cruise with the panic of Jamie Foxx is also really effective. The design of the nightclub itself is classic Mann, with sleek TV screens flashing vibrant neon imagery while people are murdered left right and centre. It’s a fantastic combination of sound and image and one of Collateral‘s many highlights while also being one of Michael Mann’s most accomplished action sequences.

So far, 2011 has been a pretty lackluster year for movies in my opinion. The summer blockbusters came and went and none of them left much of a lasting impression on me. Plenty of films gained by admiration (The Tree of Life, Super 8, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and plenty kept me entertained and satisfied (Submarine, Scream 4 pretty much all the Marvel movies) but for the past nine months I have been without the one. No Inception’s or Social Network‘s and not an Inglourious Basterd or Coen brothers movie to be found. Not only that but the number of movies I’m genuinely looking forward to, desperately biting my nails and nervously tapping my feet for has shriveled down to single digits. Basically, I was starting to worry that I would walk away from 2011 without a new movie to watch and enjoy for the rest of my life. All I want is one a year. That’s it. Give me one movie to cherish and I’m happy. Well, I saw a little movie called Drive this week and I thank the movie-Gods because this is the movie I’ve been waiting for all year.

Every now and again a film comes out of nowhere and surprises the hell out of you. You have no idea where it came from or how it came to be but like a flashlight in the dark it’s something you embrace and are ridiculously thankful for. When Nicolas Winding Refn won Best Director at Cannes this year (beating out the likes of Terrence Malick and Lars von Trier in the process) for this stylish and violent little thriller, many heads turned in bemusement, and indeed almost everything about Drive is unexpected. As soon as the neon-pink titles splash across the screen you realise this isn’t quite the movie everyone expected it to be.

The film follows the mysterious Driver (Ryan Gosling) a stuntman by day, getaway driver by night. He doesn’t carry a gun, he only gives you 5 minutes and you never know his name. He has no life and no real friends beyond middle-man Shannon (Bryan Cranston). His job is who he is. He drives. Irene (Carey Mulligan) is his neighbor and when Driver strikes up a relationship with her and her son he suddenly finds something new to live for. But when Irene’s husband (Oscar Isaac) is released from prison, Driver is thrown into a violent web of deception with a psychotic pair of hoods (Albert Brooks & Ron Perlman) and a slippery femme fatale (Christina Hendricks).

A few reviews I’ve read have called Drive a cold movie but they’re wrong. Much like the film itself, Driver at first seems like a man made of ice. Within minutes Bryan Cranston observes “You look like a zombie, kid” but the story of Drive is about how this walking void of emotion has his heart melted. The film’s style may evoke the steely shine of Michael Mann’s L.A. noirs, but it too has a beating heart that gets de-frosted. While being extremely violent, Drive is also the most romantic movie I have seen in years. Not lovey-dovey cotton-candy romance, but genuine un-diluted and primal.

One of film’s most talked-about sequences unfolds in an elevator and follows a romantic kiss with an instance of ultra-violence. For the kiss, director Refn dims the lights and lets it unfold in slow-motion. You can feel it. The flutter of butterflies in your stomach. Pure romance. Then the lights fade back up and the violence kicks in. Many find it disturbing but I found it extremely touching in a twisted sort of way. It is a physical representation of Driver’s complete and utter devotion to Irene and an example of his commitment to seeing that no harm ever falls upon her head. It reminded me of a scene in True Romance when Patricia Arquette responds to Christian Slater’s brutal murder of her pimp with a teary eyed “That’s so….romantic”. Like it or not so is Drive.

A lot of the film’s heart and indeed it’s coldness is down to it’s fantastic cast. Carey Mulligan turns in yet another wonderful piece of work as Irene playing both vulnerable and independent. Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman are brilliant together as the movie’s villains. Who knew Brooks would be so good as playing evil? And Perlman never ceases to impress with what is surely one of the most interesting faces in cinema history. Christina Hendricks and Bryan Cranston are also spot-on in their brief roles (very weird to see these two titans of the small-screen dominate the big one for a change). And what about the film’s hero? I think Ryan Gosling is a marvellous actor due to a little movie he made called Half Nelson. His performance in that movie is one of the four of five most powerful performances I have ever seen and it rightly earned him an Oscar nomination. He carries Drive with an almost silent performance. Rightly compared to Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name or Alain Delon’s work in Le Samourai, we know exactly what Driver is thinking from the way his eyes move or when he clenches his jaw. Clad in a silver jacket sporting a large scorpion emblem on the back, Gosling’s Driver is sure to go down as an icon of cult-cinema But the real star of Drive isn’t Gosling. It’s the director.

Drive is a jaw-dropping (or jaw-breaking if we want to play with puns) leap in Nicolas Winding Refn’s career. Up until now he has enjoyed critical success with his gritty Pusher trilogy, the theatrical Bronson (which is better remembered for Tom Hardy’s performance) and his bizarre medieval/sci-fi viking movie Valhalla Rising but until now he hasn’t quite caught on with mass-audiences. Essentially working as a director-for-hire (he was brought onto the project by Gosling), here Refn transforms the potentially bland subject matter into a vibrant and infectious slice of pop-cinema.  What could have been a “seen it all before” is now a “I’ve never seen anything like this”. This is the same kind of star-making turn that saw Jonathan Demme launch to Oscar glory with The Silence of the Lambs or Brian De Palma escape his low-budget B-movie confines with Scarface. When you watch Drive you are watching a filmmaker enter an exciting new phase in his career while being in total control of his craft.

The filmmaking in Drive is beautiful. The opening prologue in which we watch Driver do his thing is an almost wordless display of cinematic technique. The way Refn creates tension from the simplest of ingredients – a ticking watch on the steering wheel, the squeak of Gosling’s leather gloves, his eyes moving in the rear-view mirror – is incredible. All set to a simple pulsating score, he knows exactly when to cut and exactly how to move the camera. It’s the kind of sequence that reminds me why I fell in love with movies in the first place. It’s tense, oozes style and seems completely effortless. But while Refn certainly knows when to pull out the trusty bag of movie-tricks, he also knows when to take everything away.

Drive is full of silences but they are the kind of silences that say more than dialogue ever could. Some of the film’s most memorable moments are when Driver and Irene simply stand in each other’s presence and struggle to find any words to convey what they are feeling. It’s awkward, genuine and the kind of subtle character-building that would usually have no place in this type of movie. But while Refn is interested in those quiet moments before the storm, he isn’t afraid to use silence as a weapon once the storm hits. Similar to how the Coen brothers kept No Country for Old Men rumbling in the lower registers of a sound mix, Drive‘s quiet moments are usually punctuated by glorious explosions of unexpected violence.

What I love about Refn’s work is that he is clearly a product of genre cinema. The violence in Drive is so vibrant and visceral because Refn takes his cues from the splashy blood-letting usually found in shlocky exploitation and horror movies (for further proof check out the interview with him on the Fear X dvd where he sits surrounded by framed posters of Cannibal Holocaust and Dario Argento movies). But by using this kind of violence in a polished and stylish thriller, it goes from feeling gratuitious and exploitational to realistic. Sure enough, the moments when Driver wields a hammer in a strip-club or dons a rubber mask in the finale wouldn’t at all seem out of place in a slasher movie. From his work on the Pusher trilogy, Bronson, Valhalla Rising and now Drive it’s quite clear that Refn is cinema’s current master of movie-violence. I don’t think anybody else could make skull-crushing seem like an art-form.

Drive is the kind of film that comes along all too rarely. It is a movie. A potent reminder of what it is that sets film apart from every other art form. It’s the kind of film that isn’t for everyone but nevertheless it’s one I think everybody should see.  It may be risky to say this with Lars von Trier’s Melancholia right around the corner and Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo arriving at Christmas but a little voice inside tells me Drive is the movie I will walk away from 2011 treasuring the most. I’ve got a new film to fall in love with and a new favourite filmmaker.

The film is just full of sequences that play with the power of cinema. Sequences that just feel like they have been executed in the best possible way. It’s trashy and arty in equal doses and pairs a beautiful romance story with a bloody and brutal undercurrent. From his stylistic choices to the inspired casting, Refn never puts a foot wrong with Drive, it cannot be improved in any way. For my money, it is perfect.

5/5

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is the third and final part of Robert Rodriguez’s Mariachi trilogy that began in 1992 with his explosive and ultra low-budget debut El Mariachi which was then followed by the kinetic Desperado in 1995. While I think all three movies are extremely entertaining, it’s the star-studded finale that gets my pick for best of the bunch.

It’s a very unconventional trilogy when compared to things like Star Wars or The Godfather. In fact it’s true soul-mate would probably be Raimi’s Evil Dead series. Like the first two ED movies, El Mariachi and Desperado are essentially the same film made twice – one with a low budget and the other with a bigger one. But there are enough differences and plot-continuations to ensure that they don’t just cancel each other out. Unlike Raimi’s trilogy though, Rodriguez saves the best for last.

Rodriguez set out to make a Sergio Leone style operatic send off for his mysterious Mariachi and what he achieves is a great condensed B-movie equivalent of Leone’s spaghetti epics. One thing I always enjoy about the movie is the amount of characters and story-lines it keeps up in the air, especially considering it’s brief 90 minute running time. The film never falters in pace and is constantly storming forward to it’s conclusion. Rodriguez goes all Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the Mariachi mythology and introduces a plethora of sidekicks and big bads while also bringing back most of the faces from the previous films. He also assembled a shockingly good cast to bring these characters to life with. Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek (who has never looked sexier by the way), Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo return along with newcomers Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes and Enrique Iglesias. It’s a wonderful ensemble for an action movie and everyone gets their two minutes of coolness. One person in-particular, however, gets a little more than that.

Despite the tough competition, Johnny Depp steals this movie right from under everybody’s noses. Mexico came out at an amazing point in Depp’s career, in the same year he hit the zenith of his popularity with Pirates of the Carribbean which saw planet earth finally embrace the quirky and leftfield acting style that he had been perfecting since Edward Scissorhands. Instead of being just “that weird guy” Depp became a sex-symbol and a bona-fide movie star. But while Jack Sparrow is the role he may always be remembered for, it’s his turn as Agent Sands that rightfully secured him as the king of cool in my mind.

Sands is a character who is almost too good for a movie like this, but it’s his presence that elevates it from a potential bland and forgettable romp to something of a cult classic. Right from the Tarantino-esque opening scene (indeed, Tarantino’s influence on Rodriuez can be felt quite vividly in this movie) Sands just jumps out of the screen at you. He’s the kind of character who deserves his own movie but should never get one.  I don’t know how much of Sands was Rodriguez and how much was Depp but something tells me it was the latter. None of the other characters are as entertaining or as fresh as Sands. Not to say that the characters are weak, but Rodriguez tends to write typical genre-archetypes who are capable of spewing out some enjoyable banter but are usually only there to serve the story instead of the other way around. Sands, on the other hand, is a force of nature.

I love the way he saunters through the movie, donning different disguises and props while trying to cope with the hopeless underworld numbskulls he’s constantly up against. His dialogue is so rich and sharp you could put it on a t-shirt (“Are you a Mexican or a Mexican’t?” “Can you dig it?” “Fucking bells!”) he’s unpredictable, gleefully sadistic and sly but never once loses our attention. Sands is one of those characters who is just pure nirvana to watch and another memorable gem in Depp’s extremely impressive body of work. I like to think that in 20 or 30 years time when young Depp fans look back on his work and start to dig a little deeper than the Jack Sparrow’s and Raoul Duke’s they’ll come across Once Upon a Time in Mexico and find something new to get excited about.

This is also one of Rodriguez’s most accomplished efforts. He’s a difficult filmmaker to pin down, always shifting genres and unafraid to divert expectations while experimenting with new techniques (Mexico was one of the first major movies to be shot on digital and in the same year he released the third Spy Kids movie in 3D) he lacks the consistency of some of his contemporaries to truly be labelled as great, but when he hits the mark like he does here, he’s unrivaled in the corner of the sandbox he occupies.

Once Upon a Time In Mexico may not be destined to be mentioned in the same breath as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but it’s relentless pace, attractive ensemble cast and star-making turn from Johnny Depp make it the perfect companion on a rainy Friday night.