Our beloved Maurice Moss (from Channel 4’s The IT Crowd) has only gone and made a film. Possibly jealous of Chris O’ Dowd’s (Roy’s) success in Hollywood films, such as Dinner for Schmucks and Katharine Parkinson’s (Jen’s)…um,  Malteasers ads, Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut, the coming-of-age comedy, Submarine, comes out this March. This is Ayoade’s first foray into directing a full-length feature, his previous directing experience seen in television series Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and in various music videos for the likes of Vampire Weekend (all of which have been rather excellent). The film was recently screened at Toronto International Film Festival as well as the Dublin International Film Festival, with much praise for the first-time film director. So how will Submarine fare? Well, all indications would suggest magnificently.

The film, based on Joe Dunthorne’s novel of the same name (touted as “the greatest coming-of age story since Catcher in the Rye”), deals with the trials and tribulations of misguided, Max Fischer-esque, fifteen year-old Welshman, Oliver Tate. The primary cast is made up of young newcomers: our hero, Oliver Tate is played by Craig Roberts and his first love, Jordana, portrayed by Yasmin Paige. Other more well known faces from the British film scene also star, including Paddy Considine (In America) as a hippy life coach, who tries to seduce our protagonist’s mother (portrayed by An Education’s Sally Hawkins), and Oliver’s dad is played by Noah Taylor, who not-so-long-ago played the father of Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The most well known faces tied to the film are behind the camera, with Ben Stiller acting as executive producer (apparently he’s a big Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace fan) and Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys writing a number of songs for the film. Though Stiller is apparently confused as to how he came to read the script of Submarine or, indeed, how he became involved at all, he is highly complimentary of Ayoade’s film, describing him as “annoyingly talented.” Alex Turner and Richard Ayoade were already an established collaborative duo, with Ayoade directing Arctic Monkey’s recent live DVD. Turner’s tracks, which happen to be his first solo effort proper, are quite lovely and tie with the whole ambience of the film well. Turner wrote five original tracks for the film, among them Hiding Tonight and Stuck on the Puzzle, all of which seem to match the leisurely, gentle pace of the film.

Recently released clips and trailers promise a pretty unique viewing experience. The trailer, back-dropped by some ambient French music, clearly introduces the core components of Oliver Tate’s world (as well as the offbeat comic nature of the film): a pyromaniac girlfriend, the ‘storm and stress’ of adolescence, the breakdown of his parents’ relationship, with a little aside reminding us of the dignity of the film industry (“It’s really rude to leave a film before its finished” “To who?” “The film makers” “How are they going to know?” “They just do…” “How?” “They do!”).

From what I have seen, promotion around the film has been limited, but has been greatly hyped nonetheless. Comparisons have been made between Ayoade and greats such as Wes Anderson and Jean- Luc Godard, because of his pace, style and attention to detail. It would seem that an air of delightful creepiness seems to come across from all of the promotional material for the film. Ayoade seems to have captured the awkward, humorous self-consciousness of the protagonist excellently.

All things considered, Submarine promises to be an extremely original piece of cinema. Ayoade is one of the most talented British comic writers and actors working today, so anyone who is familiar with his work is well aware of his capacity for brilliance. With any film hyped by the critics, as this film has been, there is some degree of caution among audiences, but I cannot help but be enthusiastic about this film. Considering it has not even got as far as cinema release, hopefully I’m not being premature in saying  Ayoade’s endearing new take on the coming-of-age tale is real reason for excitement.

Welcome to the final installment of the Ents section as presented by myself & Mssr. Murph – it’s been pretty awesome to run a full 6 (!) issues this academic year and it’s been especially awesome to write Ents. In honour of the occasion, and because I’m pretty cheesy, I thought it’d be pretty fitting to wrap up Motley’s Ents Section 2010/11 by recounting some of our favourite movie endings. Warning – this may get teary. Oh, and spoilers ahoy!

Amadeus

Milos Forman’s 1984 adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s play is probably one of the more beautiful, entertaining and generally good films of all time: it tells the (mostly fictionalised) story of how Mozart (here portrayed by Tom Hulce as childish, vulgar and incredibly talented – with a very annoying laugh) was (indirectly) murdered by a musical rival at the time, the scheming and insanely jealous Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). The final scene opens with the conclusion of Salieri’s story – he is now infirm and confined to an asylum long after Mozart’s death. The young priest to whom he confessed is visibly shaken, disturbed and clinging to his crucifix – as Salieri is wheeled out of the room, he pauses to speak to the priest. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor creeps into the background. “I will speak for you, Father,” he says. “I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.” The final shots are of the ancient Salieri, once a great composer, being wheeled down the corridor of the asylum, crying out to the madmen he’s surrounded with – “Mediocrities of the world – I absolve you!” – before leaning back. He closes his eyes, folds his hand, and opens his mouth. Mozart’s laugh emerges. Fade to black. The scene gave me goosebumps the first time I watched it – a disturbing end to an incredible film.

Midnight Cowboy

Midnight Cowboy is an odd one. It’s the story of Joe (Jon Voight), a young Texan who comes to New York to make it as a male prostitute. He meets Ratso (Dustin Hoffman), who initially scams him out of money before the two make friends in the face of extreme poverty, unemployment and a harsh winter. Ratso, while a shady character, is also sick: he wants to make it out of New York and with worsening health, the two attempt to hire Joe out as a stud. Increasingly desperate and after a string of disturbing sexual encounters, Joe beats and robs a customer, and the two depart for Miami on a bus. However, Ratso is incredibly ill, and just as Joe wonders aloud about their new life in Miami, he realises Ratso has died beside him. Joe alerts the bus driver, who replies there is nothing left to do but continue to Miami, and Joe sits beside his dead friend, watching the landscape change outside. Seriously sombre stuff after an hour and a half of gritty drama, but highly recommended.

Being There

“Life is a state of mind” are the last lines of this brilliant film, starring Peter Sellers as Chance the Gardener, a simple-minded middle-aged man who, after years of peaceful isolation tending the garden of a wealthy townhouse in Washington DC, is turned out on the streets when its owner dies. Chance, dressed well but old-fashioned, wanders aimlessly until he is hit by the car of Ben Rand, a wealthy businessman and close aide to the President. Mistaking Chance the Gardener for “Chauncey Gardiner” (a mispronunciation), Rand and his wife (Shirley Maclaine) also mistake Chance’s simple musings about gardening (“As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden”) for sage comments on the economy. He becomes an advisor to the President, appears on television and is offered book deals – all the while oblivious to what occurs around him. Finally, the terminally ill Rand dies: the final scene is his funeral. Chance wanders away once more, tends to a sapling and continues to stroll across the surface of a small lake. A few strides in, he pauses, pushes his umbrella down through the water as if to test its depth, and continues on his way. Is any interpretation sufficient? Roger Ebert says this of Being There: “The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image, it is not permitted to devise explanations for it. Since Ashby does not show a pier, there is no pier – a movie is exactly what it shows us, and nothing more.”

Kids

I don’t like Kids. I’m pretty hard to shock when it comes to movies, but there’s something really ugly about this one – also, the early 90s clothes and jargon make it a hard one to relate to, whatever your socioeconomic status. That said, however, its ending is really something -  it’s the story of Telly, a 17 year old skater from New York who really likes sex but only deflowers virgins on the premise that this will protect him from STDs. Telly’s friends are cinema’s stereotypical teenaged sex, booze and drug addicts: all except Jenny (Chloe Sevigny), who has only ever had sex with Telly and has just discovered that she has HIV. For the rest of the movie, she attempts to find the also-HIV positive Telly, who has since had sex with many young girls, eventually finding him at a house party, having sex with a 13 year old girl. Exhausted and under the influence of party drugs, she passes out only for Telly’s friend Casper (Justin Pierce) to rape her, thus exposing himself to HIV. The final shot opens on a naked Casper, who wakes up, looks around in disbelief and asks the camera, “Jesus Christ, what happened?” It’s shocking and a little viewer-exploitative, but it works.

Some Like it Hot

It’s hard not to love Some Like it Hot: if you’ve not seen it, get out and get it, now – even if you don’t like older movies, SLiH is a treat. Mostly because it’s aged extremely well – you’ll get every one of the jokes, all the laughs are still intact and man, Marilyn Monroe is very sexy here. It’s the story of two musicians, Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) who witness a gangster shooting and flee the scene, disguising themselves as Josephine (Curtis) and Daphne (Lemmon) and joining a woman’s touring band. There they meet Sugar Kane (Monroe), whom Curtis falls in love with. He proceeds to disguise himself as a millionaire to win her over, while Daphne is unwillingly romanced by Osgood, another millionaire. It’s very zany, very clever, wonderfully witty – and its final scene is its best. Joe reveals himself to Sugar, who loves him anyway, while Osgood and the still-disguised Jerry escape in a boat. Jerry reveals “herself” to Osgood -

Jerry: Osgood, I’m gonna level with you. We can’t get married at all.

Osgood: Why not?

Jerry: Well, in the first place, I’m not a natural blonde.

Osgood: Doesn’t matter.

Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!

Osgood: I don’t care.

Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I’ve been living with a saxophone player.

Osgood: I forgive you.

Jerry: [Tragically] I can never have children!

Osgood: We can adopt some.

Jerry: But you don’t understand, Osgood!

[Pulls off wig]

Jerry: I’m a man!

Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect!

And they ride off into the sunset. End scene. What a perfect close.

The best way to describe the reaction to the truly execrable film that is Inception is to compare it to a self fulfilling prophecy. When the Soviet Army crossed the Vistula in 1945, many ethnic Germans living in areas east of Germany desperately fled their homes in hopes of reaching mainland Germany before the Russians. Their desperate scramble was fuelled by their own fear of actual atrocities committed by the advancing Red Army, but also by their own Nazi government’s propaganda which was actually intended to stiffen these Germans’ resolve to resist the invasion. Alas, the horrific nature of these atrocities used as a propaganda tool merely induced panic and many of these retreating ethnic Germans became subject to these atrocities themselves when the fast moving Red Army units caught up with these refugees.

In this case the atrocity is merely a Hollywood film. The groundwork for this self fulfilling prophecy was laid months before the film’s release, with a trailer that genuinely suggested something intelligent and challenging would be forthcoming from the director of Memento and The Prestige. Instead, we got a monumentally simple and dull film which looked as though it had been directed by Michael Bay. The teaser trailer was specifically designed to echo or evoke the complex and labyrinthine structure of both Memento and The Prestige. This theory was re-enforced by a visit to the film’s official website in search of more information which only showed a constantly spinning top. This provocative and mysterious approach could easily be construed as pretentious or hollow unless the film itself delivered on its rather arch notions.

Another trope employed by the director/film executives was to ‘keep the plot secret’ and reveal as little as possible in the trailer. It would seem film goers’ expectations for summer releases has reached an all time low if they are receptive to equating secrecy with brilliant film-making. Proof that substantiates this theory is steeped in the aforementioned marketing tactics of the film, whereby they convinced most people that showing little amounted to a lot even though the actual film turned out to be the trailer itself; it was an inspired if insidious marketing strategy.

By constantly re-enforcing the idea that this film is special and unlike 90% of movies, which are merely their trailers, the audience believed Inception was a great film before entering the cinema. How else could a film get away with a few cheap looking action set pieces glued together with insipid dialogue such as ‘this is my last job’ or ‘we must stop Cillian Murphy before he or his company becomes an energy super-power’ or some other such drivel?

Above all this trash, above the mind numbingly boring and simple storyline, the laughable dialogue, Ellen Page, and prosaic action set pieces, spins that incessant top – like some over-wound toy ballerina tossed atop the flotsam of some wrecked garbage scow with the goddamn seagulls following close behind in the hope of some sardines.

Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter is an understated film about a delicate topic. In fact, it is so understated that it risks misleading much of the audience as to its intentions and implications, and frustrating the rest of us in the process. The central theme, unsurprisingly, is that of the eponymous afterlife. Eastwood threads a set of stories based around the primal desire for the great beyond and the human longing to communicate with those who have passed away. Everything we see is wholly suggestive and ambiguous, never committing to the reality (or lack thereof) of the characters’ observations, instead assuming that it is enough for us not to know or care whether an underlying truth is to be found in the characters’ shared sufferings and experiences.

Following in the vein of multi-stranded movies such as 2004’s Crash, the disparate subplots in Hereafter are brought together by a combination of chance and necessity (read: destiny?). Marie (Cecile de France) is a French television journalist who suffers a near-death experience as she almost drowns during a devastating tsunami, before being resuscitated; George (Matt Damon) is a middle-aged man who, so far as we can tell, genuinely considers himself able to communicate with the dead; and Marcus (Frankie McLaren) loses his twin brother Jason (George McLaren) to a car accident. Despite what we might expect given the overarching theme, there are hardly any remarkable events depicted for which we would have to lose our preconceptions. Near death experiences commonly result in reports of white light and a sense of peacefulness, and presumably there are at least some psychics who sincerely believe in their claims. We don’t have to accept anything out of the ordinary to buy into this story.

Equally, there is no major plot resolution to which we are led; the characters move slowly and inexorably towards one another without any real drama or event beyond the mundane reality of having to deal with the consequences of human mortality. Nothing is forced upon us, it is enough that the characters have genuine motivations and emotions. Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplay, has stated that he does not believe in life after death. He didn’t need to in order to pen this story, because it’s irrelevant. The film doesn’t purport to demonstrate the otherworldly; instead impressing the view that the here-and-now is remarkable in its own right. In this sense Eastwood has made a subtly intelligent—if deceiving—picture. But in its lack of definite rhyme or reason, it fails to captivate us by committing itself, and it fails to excite us with a narrative that poses few questions and delivers even fewer answers. There is such a thing as too subtle.

Like every kid of the ’90s, my childhood comprised three things: Pokémon, penny sweets and Disney. While the former two are still decidedly awesome, the latter has declined so far into sheer crappiness that I just have to ask: what the hell happened?

The Lion King (1994) was the first film I ever saw in the cinema. I had just turned 5, and, although I was too much of a youngling to understand what was going on, I still recall being mesmerised by the whole thing. Looking back, all I can really remember are the bright colours and the fact that my sister was bawling. But damn, that movie was amazing.

The Lion King was my first foray into the Disney empire and succeeded in cementing my love for the studio forever more. It had everything Disney is famous for: an epic story, fully realised characters, comedy, horror, and sentiment. Not to mention a killer soundtrack, much of which today resides in my iTunes collection.

The aforementioned film is part of what is now termed The Disney Renaissance, a period of time when Disney could do no wrong. Running from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, releases included classics like Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995). Every one of these films are widely regarded as Disney’s finest. In particular, Beauty and the Beast, which many believe to be the best thing Disney has ever done, was the first animated film ever to be nominated the Best Picture at the Oscars.

The Disney Renaissance came to an end in 1999 with the release of Tarzan. This was the moment when Disney began its long-lasting decline; when it turned from sacred to shit. Sure, Tarzan was great, but nothing beyond this has really wowed me since. Well, one has, but we’ll get to that later.

The 2000s, as far as I’m concerned, is when Disney lost the respect it took all those years to instil. Atlantis: The Lost Empire? Crap. Treasure Planet? Crap. Home on the Range? Crap! To add insult to injury, the company tried to save its own ass in 2006 by buying the perpetually awesome Pixar. When I learned of the acquisition I was terrified: how could Pixar, a studio with a perfect track record, allow itself to be tainted by Disney, a studio that hadn’t released anything worth watching since ten years before? Alas, it was ok: while Disney would oversee all projects, creative control would remain in the hands of Pixar.

For the last few years I had entirely forgotten about Disney. An endless string of disappointment had left me with little faith in the company, and I moved on to bigger and better things, namely the studio mentioned five or six times in the previous paragraph.

And then 2011 came. And with it, a movie so brilliant it has undone much of the irritation brought on in the noughties: Tangled. Based on Rapunzel, Tangled retells the classic tale in a witty and exciting way. But it’s not just that. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but Tangled has succeeded in recapturing the magic classic Disney features boast. That may be down to the fact that the movie cost a staggering $260 million to make, but perhaps the people at Disney have rediscovered something they had for such a long time lost. Maybe, just maybe, the Disney we all know and once loved is back. Hopefully, the studio’s next release doesn’t prove Tangled to be nothing more than a diamond in the roughest of the rough.

The somewhat abstract subject of “awkward moments” in film could encompass a wide range of examples; from the ‘special’ hair mousse used by Cameron Diaz in ‘There’s Something About Mary’ to Joe Pesci’s excruciating grilling of Ray Liotta concerning the nature of his comedy in ‘Goodfellas’, to the verbal torture of an elderly shop-owner by the psychopath Anton Chigurh in ‘No Country for Old Men’, you have a veritable cavalcade of cringe-worthy moments in recent film history.

However the one “awkward moment” that towers above the rest is not an actual moment. Rather, it is an entire film – and that film is ‘Fight Club’. ‘We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off’.

‘Fight Club’ was a commercial flop and received mixed reviews from critics upon its release; its popularity was gained retroactively via massive DVD sales and a burgeoning cult following.  The reason behind its financial failure and its dubious critical reception, where some reviewers accused it of being right wing and malicious, is steeped in an awkward yet tacit admission by viewers and critics alike that the film is attacking the convention of cinema going and the nature of celebrity that feeds it.

With the exception of Funny Games, and probably some films I am unaware of, Fight Club was the first film, certainly the first mainstream film, to openly question and attack the fantasy land we all enter when we go to the cinema as a microcosm of problems on a social, political and economic scale that exist in Western society. ‘Why are you watching this?!’ ‘Don’t you have better things to do with your time and energy?!’ can easily be interpreted in Tyler Durden’s insidious introspection: ‘We’re consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear’.

The etymology of the word economics is the Greek term ‘oikon nomos’ which means household rules and therefore implies a responsibility to be borne by everyone in their own economic home in order that an economy itself can exist and prosper. ‘Fight Club’ attacks this generation’s abdication of this responsibility with zeal and posits the theory that the only way forward is for everything we’ve built to be destroyed: ‘I see all this potential, and I see squandering… an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.’

To say that this philosophical/political outlook was met with awkwardness or unease by the people watching in the cinema would be an understatement; nobody wants to be told that they are not a superstar, let alone will never become one. The fact that in the 10 or so years that have passed since ‘Fight Club’ the likes of Facebook, Youtube and the X Factor have become household names and institutions that more directly feed this slavish need to feel that we are important ‘snowflakes’ and are on the cusp of stardom merely reinforces the aforementioned theory that Fight Club was an uber-awkward moment for cinema goers in Western society; Facebook is no more a communication tool than Fight Club is right wing. The cusp of stardom is merely their precipice of no surprise.

When Albert (Colin Firth), Duke of York and son of King George V (Michael Gambon), is asked to speak at the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley Stadium, the crowd of listeners are sympathetic to the speaker and disappointed with his performance – Albert has a stammer which causes him pronounced humiliation (if you’ll pardon the pun). The increased speeches via radio required of monarchs result in his father, the King, pressurising him further to address the problem: as his father explains, monarchs must ingratiate themselves in people’s homes through the “devilish device”. They have been reduced to the “lowest, basest of all creatures” – actors.

Elizabeth (Helena Bonham-Carter) has tried several ‘specialists’ to aid her husband’s stutter, and she eventually finds Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) in the “classifieds – next to ‘French model, Shepherd’s Market’” (go figure). Enlisting his help, she hopes that Albert will overcome his fear-induced stammer and, when required, reach his full potential as the heir of the British throne.

Approaching this film with high hopes, I didn’t want to be disappointed. Was the appraisal from critics just hype? Would Colin Firth deliver a good performance?  Would it be a boring historical film? Could it just be two hours of underwhelming cinema? Not a chance!

So, was the acting up to scratch? Put simply, Firth, Rush, and Bonham-Carter each offer one of their best performances to date. Guy Pearce as the, erm, ‘controversial’ successor to George V’s throne gave the impression of being younger than Albert, which, unfortunately, detracted from his position as an older brother – a fact that becomes prevalent when his father has died, and a later scene when he childishly ridicules Albert’s stammer. Michael Gambon as King George V was, unsurprisingly, the perfect actor for the role, and Timothy Spall’s appearance as Winston Churchill was a strange treat, adapting effortlessly to the role and, oddly enough, reminding me of Alfred Hitchcock…

One scene of the film which deserves a mention is when the full implication of the stammer is revealed – not during a publicspeech, but at his home. He shows great discomfort when asked for a bedtime story by his children, but his wife and children listen patiently until his tale has ended. It is a poignant scene of Albert’s love for his family, and an effective demonstration of his perseverance throughout his life. The title itself is another point of interest in that it is ambiguous: the King’s Speech relates to both Albert’s speech impediment and the ultimate speech he is to address to the British people at the end of the film.

There are many ways in which this could have gone wrong, but an incredible cast and an engaging script, combined with a harmonious soundtrack, proved this film to be a deserver of high praise (and perhaps a ‘hot-tip’ for some Oscar nominations?).

And remember, “I am a thistle-sifter. I have a sieve of sifted thistles and a sieve of unsifted thistles, because I am a thistle sifter”.

Tron: Legacy, the long awaited sequel to the kitschy 80s classic, has been met with some mixed reviews and a negative buzz from people. I suspended my absolute loathing for 3D and donned the plastic specs to go and see if what I’d heard was true. Did I just witness the worst film of the last year?

No. Unequivocally not.  It is by no means a great film but the negative vibe is hard to understand. For the most part Tron: Legacy is fairly mindless, action-filled, theme park ride of a movie. It zips along at a lovely little pace taking us from one neon visual extravaganza to the next, and features (for my money) some of the best 3D effects in any film I’ve seen. Unlike the blurry, snorefest of Avatar or the downright mess of Alice in Wonderland, the 3D in T:L is cleverly used for effect, kicking in only when our hero Sam enters the digitalised world of the Grid. This Wizard of Oz trick genuinely works as it really makes the other word stand out, if you’ll pardon the phrase. Unlike Avatar, T:L has no pretensions about being anything more than a glitzy popcorn flick.

T:L borrows heavily from Chris Nolan’s Batman films, minus the heaviness. The action scenes are a joy: Jeff Bridges is always watchable in his chilled-out, free-thinking, cyber-dude persona, and the music by Daft Punk lends the film an evocative 80s feel, blending their own singular style with Zimmer-like orchestration. The only thing that downright doesn’t work is the creepy de-aged version of Bridges, which never convinces and always unnerves.

The plot is wafer thin, the characters are a bit unmemorable (though the players give it their all), and I was bored by the third act, as there are only so many Lightcycle chases one can stand – but how does this separate T:L from pretty much every other big 3D action film out there? Why does it attract so much ire when it is by no means the worst offender in any of the categories where it falls down?

The main problem is just this; Tron: Legacy is not the long awaited sequel to Tron because, genuinely, it was not long awaited. No one ached to see the story continued. The only people leaving the cinema disappointed will be the people who bought into the cleverly manufactured nostalgia that the film’s promotion managed to create. They whipped up hype by making us nostalgic over a film that the majority of us haven’t seen.

Other than that the film is exactly what I expected, it’s a dazzling, exciting light-show that’s light on plot and heavy on fun. Sure the dialogue clunks along and you never really care for anyone who isn’t Jeff Bridges, but, honestly, what were you expecting? It was never going to reinvent the wheel. It’s a simple, fun, effects-filled piece of fluff that doesn’t really warrant further analysis, exactly like the original.

So lower your expectations grab the popcorn and enjoy. If you’d prefer something more psychologically engaging I hear Black Swan has a Natalie Portman/Mila Kunis sex scene…

“One of the greatest films of all-time that’s been imitated but never duplicated, The Godfather (1972), based on Mario Puzo’s novel, is one of the greatest crime stories ever told.” It would be difficult to coin a more appropriate phrase when discussing The Godfather. I recently watched this film for the first time, and it is easy to say that watching it is one of the best cinematic experiences one could encounter. The rise of the gangster film began in the early 1900s with films such as The Black Hand (1906), a silent film which tells the story of a “good immigrant”/”bad immigrant” collision. Since this, the gangster film has been vital in the rise of American cinema.

The gangster genre has taken off in many directions and mainly focuses on immigrant mafia gangs or families, such as the Corleone family as seen in The Godfather. Walsh’s 1915 film Regeneration represents Irish immigrant gangs in New York, where a young orphaned boy, Owen, grows up and joins the violent gang. His reasons for joining the gang are a direct result of the oppressive conditions he is exposed to in his childhood. The Corleone family are a far cry from the oppressed orphan, as they have become very wealthy from their mob life. The Godfather is also very focused on family values and, as a result, the family has become as “important as the government” in New York.

The opening scenes of the film introduce the power of the Corleones, as family members call on favours they need from the Don. He has the ability to make his family’s wishes come true, as seen in his godson’s request to land a role in a film which, he believes, will start his acting career. When the film producer finds the head of his $600,000 racehorse in his bed after initially refusing to give the part, the film brings to light the “actions speak louder than words” rule which the mafia strongly live by. Refusal to the request of Don Vito results in a violent confrontation that will quickly lead to a resolution.

Despite the violent actions the family takes in the film, there are many aspects which make the family very likeable. Don Vito is a man who sends people to do terrible things, yet he fondly plays with his grandson in his garden as an old man. His family are always his priority, and Brando superbly portrays Don Vito as a proud father on his daughter’s wedding day – a marriage which takes a disturbing turn as Connie is subjected to domestic abuse from the hand of her new husband. Michael (Al Pacino) eventually avenges this abuse, and once again the audience learns that nobody will get away with the mistreatment of the Corleone family. Michael becomes a full member of the family business and becomes the head of the family after the death of his father. He was not involved in the family business for many years, but, in compliance with the values of his family, he defends the Corleone name after the attempted assassination of his father – thus proving that the mafia blood runs in his veins, he cannot deny who he is.

Having not seen The Godfather was a sin I had been guilty of for too long.  From the opening scenes to the end credits, I was fascinated with every aspect of this film. You experience every emotion possible while watching it: fear, happiness, sadness, anxiety and many more as you watch the family rise and fall and rise again to become the most revered family in New York.

Cinema can be an uncertain place. “Nothing is as it seems,” muses John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) in Nicolas Roeg’s dark and dreamlike Don’t Look Now (1973), while, two years later, Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert) quotes Edgar Allan Poe in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock: “What we see and what we seem are but a dream.” There’s more to scary movies than gallons of blood – stormy nights – calls coming from inside the house. In fact, some scary movies provoke a feeling that’s a lot more subtle than that touted by so many recent slasher flicks: subtle, pervasive, wrongness. There’s nothing like a film that makes you feel as though you’ve just stepped into The Twilight Zone, and the quiet freakiness of Don’t Look Now does it superbly – and, what is very odd, quite beautifully.

The Baxters (Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland) have just suffered the death of their first child: early scenes show us a blur of red raincoat against grey water – she drowns, and the grieving couple make their way to Venice, where John is contracted to complete some architectural work. What follows is a stunning, atmospheric tour de force – the canals of Venice are here grotty, dark places, full of murky water and rotting wood. The couple befriends a blind psychic; visit dark, foreboding cathedrals; make love in a sex scene oddly tender for a quasi-horror movie; John has visions of his wife on a funeral boat and finally begins to see flashes of a red raincoat disappearing down side-alleys. The entire film is quiet, unobtrusive, strangely English and very 70s – but the clothes, the crackly film, the muted colours (except for the odd streak of red) all add to the feel of the film. The end is incredible, incredulous and a shock after two hours of quiet tension – the entire film got under my skin in a way I’ve not felt since.

But let’s return to my opening paragraph for a second. Overuse of fake blood may push a movie from “scary” to “gross” (Sam Raimi, we’re looking at you), but can that creepy, elusive wrong feeling incorporate both? I humbly submit Dario Argento’s giallo classic Suspiria (1977) for your approval. Suspiria suffers from a bad dubbing (German to English) but is gorgeous in a way that is wholly unsettling – a portrait of ballet, witches and murder all painted in the most garish of primary colours and polished with a sheen of fake blood. My favourite part has a young woman fall from her room, tormented by a disembodied hand, only to stumble down a hallway and into a room filled entirely with razor wire. Another scene sees a blind man’s throat ripped out by his guard dog in a town square painted entirely red. A feast for the senses – even the soundtrack, with its guttural, near subliminal utterances of “witch”, incites jumps galore.

Like Suspiria, Picnic at Hanging Rock focuses on a girls’ school – but here the supernatural forces are a lot less slash ‘n’ grab and more portal-into-another-dimension. Peter Weir’s film is just as dreamy as his blonde, Botticellian cast: English schoolgirls attending a boarding school in turn-of-the-century Australia go on a daytime outing to a rock formation in the outback where some of them defy their teachers and climb the rock – only to go missing without a trace. Man, this is spooky stuff, and with that beautiful, plaintive theme tune – who knew pan pipes could be so freaky? – and its unsettling final act, Picnic at Hanging Rock will give you some serious goose bumps.

You could be forgiven, if you’ve seen the awful remake with Nic Cage, in thinking that The Wicker Man (1973) does not belong in such a list as this. Hang back a second, though, and watch the original. View it from the perspective of our main character, Sgt. Howie, a devout Catholic (and a virgin at circa 40 years of age) who goes to investigate a disappearance on a pagan island off the coast of Scotland. This film is weird: sex in graveyards, fertility rituals, Britt Ekland, animals buried in children’s graves – and of course, the final scene. The folk ballads peppered throughout elevate The Wicker Man to a level of creepiness that stems from its authenticity and earthiness, aided – again – by that crackly, soft-focused film quality and by a stellar performance from Christopher Lee. Edward Woodward, playing the clueless Sgt. Howie, however, is the standout performance here. Here is a horror film in which there is no-one to root for, and a sustained surreal atmosphere which ends grimly and without consolation.

The 1970s, in my opinion, produced some of the best movies of all time, but what is really interesting about this decade is the strength and quality of the horrors it produced. The aforementioned films nail the detached, disturbed feeling you get from the most esoteric of Lynch films – but with a coherence, a strength of plot and a dreamlike quality that, eventually and without exception, descends to nightmarish levels.