2004

dir: Paul Greengrass
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Finally, a film made by crack addicted monkeys with ADD for crack addicted monkeys with ADD! Be careful. You could go into this film without any recognisable neurological condition, and come out of it having contracted the epilepsy shared by the director and editor of this here film, The Bourne Supremacy. Kinda like the manner in which watching Disney films eventually leads to diabetes. And, let's face it, arse cancer.

It's true I tell you. The Bourne Supremacy is the apotheosis, the crowning pinnacle of the cinematic movement that now graces our screens with spastic creations that possess nothing but momentum. You
don't so much watch these movies, in my case, as endure them. The editing here would fill the people responsible for Moulin Rouge with jealousy and murderous rage. For the majority of the movie's running
time, few shots actually went for more than 3 to 8 seconds. There were a handful of scenes that may have gone for 15 seconds, but they were in the distinct minority.

dir: Sam Raimi
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This is what big budget film making is all about. This is what sequels
are all about. Out of what I would call humble origins comes a story
writ large across the silver screen which makes most other examples of
high concept big budget type films look like the abject crap that they
are. There is no need to check one's heart, brain, balls or ovaries at
the door. Sam Raimi has made the absolute best film of his career, and
that's no small achievement when you've got an oeuvre that runs the
gamut from Evil Dead to A Simple Plan.

Where other, crapper producers, directors and screenwriters would have
been timid and delivered something safe and mindless, these people
banded together to make something that goes against the grain of
Hollywood's usual risk averse mentality, and it manages to deliver in
spades. There are so many great scenes ranging from elaborate action
set pieces to touching dramatic moments that singling them out does a
disservice to the whole. Not that that's going to stop me, but all the
same it is truly an example of something being substantially more than
the sum of its parts.

dir: Brad Anderson
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This is a film about a pretty strange guy. Trevor Reznik (Christian
Bale), no, not Trent Reznor, who is a strange guy anyway, is an
emaciated insomniac who works a blue collar job and seems to be losing
his marbles. He leaves himself messages which he doesn't understand,
his only meaningful relationship is with an understanding and
supportive prostitute called Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and the
world itself seems to be working against him in exciting and new ways.

Bale's transformation into this sickly creature has to be seen to be
believed. I'd heard much about the fact that Bale had lost a lot of
weight for the role, but I could not imagine the lengths the guy would
go to in order to be remembered. It's staggering, it really is.
It's one of the most amazing examples of self-mutilation I've ever
seen for a job. Sure, womenfolk do it all the time and it's
considered par for the course in Hollywood, but he makes himself look
so emaciated that I imagine had they shown a picture of Bale as this
Reznik character to concentration camp victims in 1945 the poor
survivors would have shrieked in horror, and wept tears of pity and woe
in his honour.

dir: Laurence Dunmore
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Talking directly to the camera, John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, tells us that we will not like him. We won’t like him because he is a thoroughly naughty chap, and he’s up for it all the time, with the ladies and the fellas. He tells us this, talking straight to the camera, forewarning us to be prepared for just how much of a libertine he truly is.

Oh, what a rascal. And he’s played by Johnny Depp. Wearing a wig recalling the heady days of hair metal bands from the 80s. Of course they don’t believe the opening pronouncement, and they don’t really expect us to believe it either.

Of course we’re meant to like him. He’s Johnny Depp, for Christ’s sake. He can make women from great-grandmothers to trembling girlie-girls weak in the knees and wet in the gusset. And he makes grown men question their sexuality. Whether he plays the swishy pirate in Pirates, or the cross-dressing director in Ed Wood, or kiddie-fiddler J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, he is respected for his choice in film roles, for the quality of his acting and is almost universally adored for his charming good looks and roguish ways.

It’s enough to make you vomit with rage and envy.