- Girl, Interrupted
- The Virgin Suicides
- Once Upon a Time in the West
A western about westerns shot in Cinemascope. From the (longest ever) opening credit sequence right through to the end you want to watch this film with its nod to everything that has gone before it but that still manages to bend some conventions. Who else might begin a film by killing the established Western actors and then cast Henry Fonda as a villain. Once upon a time, there was The West and who said there had to be a fairy tale ending? Perhaps the railroadman, crippled by bone cancer, in his quest to reach the Pacific Ocean and particularly when he is crawling towards the pool of water as he dies is reminiscent of Kane trying to regain all that “Rosebud” meant to him at his death in Citizen Kane.
- Final Destination
The start isn't entirely promising. Teenagers are about to go on a school trip to Paris (the ‘,France’ is optional) and the appearance of Jack from Dawson's Creek (Kerr Smith) together with someone looking like a mini Gabriel Byrne and a teacher looking as though he could be the real-life dad of the other one from Dawson's Creek. The premonition of the plane exploding is fairly silly but once the seven get thrown off the plane it gets much better. Especially when the plane does explode shortly after take-off and the survivors begin to be killed one by one in interesting ways.
The main twist for this type of horror tale relies on the audience knowing that the people are scheduled to die (and in the order that they would have died on the plane, like the Scream 3 following the script idea) and the way in which they die. We don't have some masked villain using a knife but instead we have Death being inventive. Either people die in a way you couldn't have guessed or they get hit by everything you could imagine (as with the surviving teacher). Great fun making a thoroughly enjoyable piece of cinema.
- The Whole Nine Yards
Seemingly set in Canada purely for a “look at the Canadian Police and laugh” factor more than anything else. Starts off badly where you really get the feeling Matthew Perry couldn't carry a film by himself but once Bruce Willis appears everything starts to look up. The moment Oz (Matthew Perry) recognises that his new next door neighbour is a mob hitman named Jimmy the Tulip (Bruce Willis) we get a fairly clever flashing of the headlines concerning this hitman. Matthew Perry seems to do a very good line in more slapstick moments even if you (for some reason) seem to keep being reminded of Michael Madson (or maybe I've watched too much Vengeance Unlimited?).
When the son (Kevin Pollak speaking a slightly peculiar style of English) of the mobster the Tulip helped put away and friends enter Tulip's house with dialogue from Key Largo in the background, you wonder if it is going to remind you of Get Shorty but in the end everything happens a different way. At the end, we discover that everything we have seen was done for love (Aah!).
- Ridley Scott’s Gladiator
- Third World Cop
- Man on the Moon
![[BACK]](imgs/back.png)