This is a not-too-bad exploitation film about a girl who comes to America from Russia to variously kill the men and women who enslaved and then murdered her sister. The sister of course believed she was coming to the west to work as a cleaner.

When this movie begins the term “B Grade” sort of leaps into your mind, but taken purely as an action flick it was mildly entertaining. Shera Bechard is absolutely beautiful and a pleasure to watch, even if she does commit one or two rather grisly murders.

Oh poor sweet Natalie, if only you knew the misery you’re in for!

A brilliant film starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood, Splendour in the grass follows the teen romance of Beatty and Wood and its eventual breakdown with Natalie ending up in a mental hospital (Ok I did think that was a bit over the top, but if you accept that Natalie was maybe a bit disturbed to begin with it makes sense).

The film attacks the age-old question of teen girls “going to third base” and boys dumping them for girls who will. It offers few solutions and is probably summed up by the boys doctor who says “I can’t really advise you on that”.

My only criticism is probably that in contemporary times the film is somewhat confusing as it constantly alludes to people having sex, which is fine because the censorship of the time would have expected it to only allude, but it gets a bit difficult in 2013 to work out exactly who is and isn’t actually doing it in the film.  Lots of fades to black and subtle hints, possibly if I was a girl in the sixties some of the whisphery meanings might have been a bit more apparent!

With this very issue being of prime importance to the narrative, the confusion creeps in. The characters do make blunt statements about who did what eventually which helps, but along the way you are left guessing sometimes. Which leads me to wonder whether the director deliberately left such matters ambiguous to make us feel just like the confused teenagers the film portrays.

If you liked Rebel Without A Cause you’ll love this one.

You may recall that I said once before that Australian films are either very good, or very bad – Scorched is a very good Australian film..

It follows fires that engulf Sydney which rage out of control due to a dwindling water supply. Whilst not intended to exactly mirror actual events, the film draws heavily on the political problems of drought and desalination plants of the time.

Of most note was a very credible performance by Cameron Daddo, who has obviously been attending acting school since the earlier days of his career. Indeed all in all pretty much all of the performances were very memorable and maybe Australian actors and scriptwriters have finally found their niche in disaster films.

This movie is right up there with Silence of the Lambs on the disturbing scale! Two young girls are abducted by a mysterious campervan in the very street they live and one of the girls fathers (Hugh Jackman the Wolverine) races against time to find the girls alive.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the detective tasked with finding the girls and delivers a brilliant performance as a very convincing policeman. Rather than opting for your standard screen cop, Jake has obviously been studying the manner of real cops with their indifferent professionalism, and imitated it perfectly.

As the story unfolds we are dragged through a maze of sex offenders and various other low-lifes to the films ultimate conclusion. We realise that a lot of the main characters are prisoners in their own way.

Whilst not exactly a graphic film, don’t expect to sleep too soundly for a few days after you watch this one.

A very entertaining film about magicians staging a series of incredible feats of magic whilst robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. The film hosts an impressive cast with  Jesse Eisenberg (Didn’t he make facebook!), Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Mélanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman.

There are several very large scale scenes with very big and impressive magic performances which would not be out of place in any Las Vegas Casino. If you like to be stunned and tricked, this is the film for you. You are never really quite sure what is going on and just when you think you do, everything shifts around you.

Rest assured the film answers most of your questions by the time it ends, although I will warn you that the ending is a bit implausible!

A little gem of a film from the sixties starring an all-star cast of Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus and Gene Hackman, I can see now where Tom Hanks pinched the idea for Apollo 13 from, as it was clearly a direct remake of this film.

What gives this film a lot of character is that it was made the same year as the original moon landing and it paints a less than rosy view of the space program as a whole: What if things go wrong and Astronauts end up Marooned as the title suggests?

In terms of sets and costume the film maintains an authenticity a director could only achieve by making it at near to the time it is set (I suppose that’s why Apocalypse Now is such a superior Vietnam War film).

Despite seeming a bit dated by the old space technology, this film remains well worth a watch.

A very underrated film that is very funny, Mail order Wife use the style of Mockumentary made famous by This is Spinal Tap to tell the story of a man purchasing a wife from Burma out of a catalogue.

The documentary follows the man (a doorman at a local building) meeting her at the airport and settling her in to his house. You have to start thinking something is wrong when he shows her how to scrub the toilet bowl and then how to feed his pet python with live rats!

Of course it gets worse, but I won’t ruin the surprise for you,

Just like Spinal Tap, the comedy’s brilliance here is in its subtlety and the major characters never really letting on that anything is particularly wrong or comedic. This film will keep you laughing right up to its last moments.

Just released on DVD Love thy neighbour (1973) is a rather interesting piece of history.

If you are old enough to have watched the TV series as I did (this film was its pilot) you will perhaps realise that these days it would not be considered very politically correct! Even though you could argue that clearly the shows writers were parodying racial strife in seventies Britain and showing up racists like Eddie Booth.

The premise is that Eddie Booth and his wife live in a council house. Next Door is Bill who is of West-African descent. The two wives Barbie and Joan get along fine, but the two boys are a microsm of the racial strife that existed in Britain at the time always bickering and throwing racial expletives at each other. Into the mix Eddie is the local union representative and constantly trying to justify his ridiculous racial theories alongside class politics…

This was an absolutely brilliant film in the ilk of Red Dawn (the original of course) with yet another stunning performance from rising star Saoirse Ronan in the title role.

Taken from an award-winning teen fiction book the story follows a nuclear strike and war in mainland Britain between British Soldiers (the good guys)  and some very Arab-terrorist looking people in black (the bad guys).

Don’t be fooled by the films beginning which resembles The Railway Children, the film soon gets going and pulls no punches. I wondered actually at times whether it was really suitable for teens as it got fairly graphic, then again I suppose these days with the Internet they’ve seen it all…

Unlike Red Dawn the film concentrates more on the affect on the populous of a war and the hardships they endure going from ordinary lives to surviving the horrors of war. No Heroic “Wolverines” here I am afraid, just people running away from terrifying circumstances.

Sweet Selena playing the bad girl

This film was a very good fast-paced action thriller with excellent performances from both Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez.

Hawke, a former racing car driver, receives a phone call learning his wife has been kidnapped and will be harmed unless he drives a car according to instructions for some criminals. The car is fitted with camera’s so they can watch his every move. Along the way Gomez tries to Car jack him and ends up along for the ride.

The driving sequences in this film were literally breathtaking with hats off to the stunt team involved in the picture. In a lot of ways I was reminded of The Driver with Ryan O’Neal, but that’s hardly a bad thing!