Jackie Brown (1997)

Low key compared to some of his other films but this is one of Quentin Tarantino's best.

Jackie (Pam Grier) is an ageing flight attendant working for a budget airline, she's augmenting her salary with some less legal work on the side. She smuggles money for Ordell (Samuel L Jackson) but gets caught by the Feds in the form of Nicolette (Michael Keaton). He tries to get her to turn on Ordell.

Jackie meanwhile has a plan to get her hands on Ordell's ill-gotten gains and get the Feds to get rid of Ordell for her. She will also need the help of her bail bondman Max (Robert Forester)...

Influenced by blaxploitation movies and with an amazing soundtrack of mostly 1970s soul this is a very cool movie. Not as fast moving or violent as some of Tarantino's other films though has loads of cool dialogue and a great involving story. It also has a great cast also including Robert De Niro and Bridget Fonda.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

A glorious mockney romp.

Geezah mockney Eddy (Nick Moran) enters a high stakes poker game with gangland boss Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty), his stake raised by his three other geezah mockney mates (Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng and Jason Statham). Although Eddy is a top card shark, Harry has a hidden edge... he cheats. Eddy loses his mates' money and ends up having to owe Harry half a million which is a lot of bread. Unfortunately for Eddy and his geezah mates, the money will be collected by Harry's hard men: Barry the Baptist (Lenny McLean) and Big Chris (Vinnie Jones).

Meanwhile a plot to get Harry some antique shotguns and a plan by Eddy and his geezah mates to steal money and cannabis results in a huge and bloody showdown...

None of it really makes sense, Eddy and his geezah mates act so naive and foolishly its a wonder they weren't brown bread years ago. The characters are ridiculous, one dimensional cartoon characters. But thats probably the point. This is a swagging and stylish and very violent film with cool scenes and cool music throughout.

Split Second (1992)

A complete mess of a film, which somehow works.

It is the future (well 2008 anyway) and London is semi-submerged due to the melting ice caps. Stone (Rutger Hauer) is a maverick cop with the London police who investigates a brutal killing in a club. It seems the murderer is someone who killed his partner years before and has a liking for tearing out human hearts. 

Stone is teamed up with eager young (and book learned) detective Dirkin (Alastair Duncan) to catch this serial killer. However, Stone doesn't believe the killer is human. Soon Stone and his girlfriend Michelle (Kim Cattrall) are being targeted by the killer, who seems impervious to their guns. So they obviously need bigger guns!

A complete car crash of a film with bizarre scenes, even more bizarre plot and even even more bizarre acting at times though Hauer, Duncan and Cattrall are great throughout. The film is utter nonsense but also utterly compelling and terrific fun. A film doesn't always need to make sense to be worth a watch as long as you can suspect believe long enough and enjoy the (soggy) ride.

Night Vision (1997)

Violent, exploitative and quite odd. Yes its a pretty good film.

A deranged serial killer is slaughtering young women, his crimes videoed in excruciating detail and the videos then sold on the black market. Washed up cop Dak Smith (Fred Williamson) gets a break when he stumbles across the van of the killer, though when whoever is driving the van unleashes the heavy firepower Dak is lucky to survive.

Paired up with another cop under a cloud, O'Connor (Cynthia Rothrock) by the police chief (Frank Pesce) who hates him, Dak continues to look for the serial killer. The killer (Robert Prentiss) begins to target Dak and O'Connor with the help of his goons...

A violent film with plenty of gratuitous female nudity. The film certainly doesn't lack for thrills, the plot moving a pace and isn't very complicated in any case. Low budget but decent fun, it won't win any prizes but who cares?

Bruce Lee : Martial Arts Master (1994)

An interesting if limited biopic of Bruce Lee, this one concentrating more on his movie career.

The film tells the story of Bruce, moving to the US after a troublesome upbringing in HK. Soon he was making waves with his brand of kung fu and coming to the attention of Hollywood. Bruce's first forays on screen were in TV series like the Green Hornet but when he returned to HK his film career took up in a short but incredibly bright career...

Talking heads such as James Coburn, Jackie Chan and Bolo Yeung share anecdotes and memories of working with Bruce. Plenty of classic clips from his films (though not his TV shows) are fitted in throughout. This is a decent documentary however, if you are a fan of Bruce it really won't tell you anything new.

Firehead (1991)

A Russian cyborg with super powers is running amok but (plot twist!) he isn't the bad guy!

Ivan (Brett Porter) is a Russian cyborg with special powers who defects to the West, however after a couple of years he is blowing things up in the good old US of A instead. Vaughn (Christopher Plummer), the head of a secret US government lab, sends the scientist Hart (Chris Lemmon) and special agent Meila (Gretchen Becker) to stop Ivan. However, Ivan is really the good guy and it is Vaughn who is secretly head of a mysterious secret society which is using Ivan's attacks to bring about World War 3...

It is complete nonsense of course, and rather inept in execution. Hilarious for all the wrong reasons (of course). It's probably better not to wonder what exactly the relationship of super smart tweenager Smith (Lauren Levy Neustadter) is to Hart, or quite why no one can shoot straight. Why does the secret society have pictures of Mussolini on the walls of their lair? Also wonder why did Plummer and Martin Landau agreed to appear in this cheap madness. Just enjoy the fact they did and helped create an incredibly inane but enjoyable film.

Yesterday's Target (1996)

Incoherent, cheap and shabby. Perfect trash movie then.

It is the dark far future (well 2025 anyway) and three people are sent into the past to perform a secret mission. Unfortunately when they arrive back in the mid-1990s they have no memory of who they are or what they are supposed to be up to. Thus Paul (Daniel Baldwin) only has a vague idea of who he is, and doesn't know he has special powers. Holden (Malcolm McDowell) does have some idea about it, thanks to Winstrom (LeVar Burton) and his powers of clairvoyance. 

Paul finds his two comrades, Jessica (Stacy Haiduk) - who can see into the near future and thus uses her skills to rip off casinos, and Carter (TK Carter) who can set fire to things and works as a cook (handy). Holden and Winstrom's goons are out to capture them, or kill them. Paul discovers that they were sent back into the past to change the future and facilitate the next development in humanity. Or something.

What does this film mean? Who really knows? There probably was a reasonable science fiction story somewhere but it seemed to get discarded fairly early. LeVar Burton tries his best to be a bad guy, but some people are just too nice for it to be convincing!

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Some men want the world, but for some women the world is not enough.

James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is tasked to protect oil heiress Electra (Sophie Marceau) after her father (David Calder) was killed in a terrorist attack at MI6. Bond discovers that Renard (Robert Carlyle) - who has a bullet in his brain - is planning to destroy an oil pipeline with an atomic bomb by stealing ex-Soviet plutonium. With the help of nuclear scientist Dr Jones (Denise Richards), James foils that plan but the real plot is far more deadly, and the true mastermind behind the plot highly unexpected...

This is a good Bond film (but can't be said to be amongst the very best) though when he is fighting Renard inside a live nuclear reactor you might consider that Bond (even by his prior standards) has jumped the shark! Despite that the action mostly stays the right side of plausibility and the various set pieces are pretty spectacular.

GoldenEye (1995)

A new Bond and a good reboot with Pierce Brosnan now in possession of the Walther PPK.

Years before 007 and 006 raid and destroy a Soviet secret weapon factory, though 006 (Sean Bean) doesn't make it out alive. Now the Soviet Union has collapsed, but the top secret space weapon system GoldenEye is still in operation... until it is stolen by Ourumov (Gottfried John) and the rather psychotic Xenia (Famke Janssen). GoldenEye can destroy electronic systems. Now the GoldenEye is being readied to attack London and destroy the world financial system.

Along with Natalya (Izabella Scorupco), the only survivor of the raid on the GoldenEye base, Bond must discover who is really behind the plot to steal the weapon. The identity of whom is a surprise even to James...

A slightly harder and more serious Bond than the films of the 1980s, a very good return to form. The action scenes, especially the tank car chase in St Petersburg are pretty spectacular, but Bond still has his quips.

Bullet to Beijing (1995)

It is the end of the Cold War, and Harry Palmer is out of a job!

Retired by MI5, Palmer (Michael Caine) is recruited by a Russian called Alexei (Michael Gambon) to stop the North Koreans getting ahold of a biological weapon that could kill millions. Palmer is helped by Nikolai (Jason Connery) in a rather confusing mix involving former operatives (from both sides) and the Russian mafia.

Much of the film takes place on a Russian train to Beijing, though Palmer and Nikolai end up marooned in Siberia and have to get back to their train by various forms of transport in some kind of bizarre Top Gear-like sequence. There are various double crosses made, the trip to Beijing seems rather pointless in the end as they head straight back to Moscow by plane. By now, though, Palmer knows there is more to this than a weapon, and Alexei can't be trusted...

It doesn't make a huge amount of sense (and can't really be compared to real Harry Palmer films based on actual Len Deighton books) but makes the most of post-Soviet Russia for all sorts of crumbling Soviet nonsense including rusty old Aeroflot airliners and a car chase with Ladas! All highly enjoyable if you like that sort of thing!

Prison Heat (1993)

Shamelessly exploitative, sometimes unintentionally hilarious but ultimately rather repetitive and boring drivel.

Four American girls on holiday decide to travel to Turkey. They don't get very far, at the border they are framed for drug running and end up in the brutal prison run by Saladin (Uri Gavriel). He sells women to evil Arabs and also helps himself to female flesh, poor Bonnie (Lori Jo Hendrix) especially endures the vile warden's lusts. Colleen (Rebecca Chambers) spends time in solitary and learns of the harsh reality of their time in prison. They have to escape...

The four girls all have surgically enhanced bodies which get displayed many times, there are numerous shower scenes, a lesbian rape scene (of course), stripping and humiliation. 

Despite all that it is remarkably unsexy and rather boring after awhile (unless you are a teenage boy perhaps). The final act with the escape livens the film up but repeated soapy breasts can't really make up for the ridiculous and exploitative storyline and vacant acting. It is frequently laughable though probably not by intention.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

The iconic full length feature directorial debut of Quentin Tarantino, the first of many epics packed full of pop culture, and one of the best.

Joe (Lawrence Tierney) assembles a team who all have code names like Mr White (Harvey Keitel), Mr Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr Pink (Steve Buscemi) to hit a jewellery store. The raid goes horribly wrong though and Mr White takes the badly wounded Orange back to their hide out. There they think that someone has betrayed them, but who? Is it the psychotic Mr Blonde (Michael Madsen) who caused a bloodbath? In flashbacks we discover who the police's inside guy is...

The film was a pop culture phenomenon in the early 1990s, drawing in many references but also creating many of it's own including the black suits, and of course many quotes which entered the lexicon. It has held up very well and is a simply superb film worth the hype. A very violent and cruel film, plus with lots of bad language. Don't play a drinking game every time someone swears, you'll be dead of alcoholic poisoning before the opening credits start. 

Spanking the Monkey (1994)

A rather dark film about a rather inappropriate relationship.

Ray (Jeremy Davies) comes home from MIT to care for his mother Susan (Alberta Watson) who has broken her leg. Mum is lonely and rather manipulative and Dad (Benjamin Hendrickson) is away from home as a salesman. He doesn't get on with Susan or Ray in any case and is a rather unpleasant individual. 

Caring for his mum, and seeing her naked, leads Ray to start having sexual thoughts about her. Unfortunately, she shares these thoughts and they begin a relationship putting him in competition with the old man...

Despite the taboo subject the film has some quite offbeat humour. All of the characters have flaws in different ways, apart from Ray perhaps. An interesting watch and a competent independent film.

Hackers (1995)

A hilariously dated tale of internet antics,

It's the early days of the commercial internet, when downloading a badly pixelated soft core porn Gif took half an hour and would probably fail on 95% after you lost your modem connection. Former virus writer Dade (Johnny Lee Miller) (better known as Zero Cool or Crash Override - on LinkedIn no doubt) gets back into the hacking game and joins a gang of hackers (including a rather amazing looking Angelina Jolie) who are hacking into a system owned by computer expert Belford (Fisher Stevens) trying proving he is on the take. But as Belford prefers to be known as The Plague we can probably guess he is up to no good...

Computing in movies has always been problematic, especially so in this film. The graphics were dated even in the day, of course everyone "hacks" computers by typing really fast! I started my career in internet development when this film came out, to be honest it wasn't much like this. Which is a shame.

It is totally nonsense of course but fun.

Retro Puppet Master (1999)

A really bizarre and grotesque horror film, a prequel in the long-running Puppet Master series.

Toulon (Guy Rolfe) and his puppets, possessed by the spirits of dead people, is in Switzerland. He tells a story about how it all started, going back to Egypt - which for some reason is all blue. The ancient sorcerer Afzel (Jack Donner) has stolen the secret of life from the god Sutekh. He heads to Paris (which is also all blue, no reason for this is ever given) pursued by Sukekh's mummies. Afzel is attacked outside a theatre where young Toulon (Greg Sestero) and his friends hold creepy puppet shows.

Afzel teaches Toulon how to transfer the spirit from the dead to a puppet (of course!) The mummies of Sutekh now also go after Toulon too, they kill his friends. Toulon places their spirits into his puppets to create an army to fight evil! The mummies force Toulon into a showdown on a train by kidnapping Ilsa (Brigitta Dau), a girl Toulon likes...

Very strange film indeed. The film is very macabre in look and feel, and very atmospheric. The pacing and acting is often fairly off, sometimes the puppets move with more fluidity. It all adds to the weirdness and the enjoyment.

Carry on Columbus (1992)

The last Carry On film to be made, and you can see why...

The Turkish Sultan (Rik Mayall) is making a mint from trade heading to Europe from the East, however he discovers that a Portuguese map maker called Columbus (Jim Dale) is planning to find an alternative sea route which could ruin him. The Sultan sends his spy Fatima (Sara Crowe) and agent Achmed (Alexi Sayle) to stop him. Columbus has got funding from the King of Spain (Leslie Phillips) and is going to set sail...

Well we all know what happens of course. This is the usual mix of terrible jokes, double entendres and mild saucy antics that made the Carry On series such an icon of British comedy. 

Unfortunately apart from Jim Dale the old Carry On crew had either passed on or did not want to be involved with this film and much of the humour falls flat. Terrible lines which Sid James or Kenneth Williams made hilarious unfortunately fail without them. Some of the humour, such as the Inquisition scenes, does work but mostly because it has been updated a bit.

It's a terrible shame it had to end this way.

Kickboxing Academy (1999)

An unbelievable film, at times so bad you wonder if its some kind of elaborate joke being played on you?

Two martial arts academies are in conflict. The deranged Tarbeck (Tony Pacheco), with his military themed evil academy, is ranged against June (Donna Barnes) and her kickboxing academy. With the help of the money man Maddox (Tom Scalise), Tarbeck aims to take over June's academy after they defeat them in a contest...

June needs her best fighter back, but Danny (Christopher Khayman Lee) doesn't want to fight anymore. Can his new squeeze, and also a kickboxer, Cindy (Chyler Leigh) persuade him? When you see them snog bear in mind that they are a real life brother and sister...

This is a really really strange film. Characters are random, many barely one dimensional. The plot is also random and makes little sense (an unexplained ninja attack in a restaurant car park, really?) It is superbly weird and highly entertaining, somehow. 

In the Line of Fire (1993)

This is a superbly tense thriller involving the protection... and assassination of US presidents.

Frank (Clint Eastwood) is a grizzled old Secret Service agent, his claim to fame/infamy was that he was present when JFK was shot. Frank discovers a plot to kill the current president who is seeking re-election. Nothing too unusual there but it soon transpires that this is not a normal threat to POTUS. Frank begins a cat and mouse chase with a mysterious and deadly foe called Leary (John Malkovich) who will stop at nothing to achieve his aims.

As the election campaign reaches it's final stages, Leary prepares to strike. Can Frank stop him and gain redemption (and get his leg-over with fellow agent Lilly (Rene Russo))?

Leary's plot is pretty intricate and maybe slightly far fetched (though his amazing abilities are later explained). Eastwood does a great turn as the veteran with plenty of past demons, Malkovich superbly dark and menacing. 

Oblivion (1994)

Quite what is going on here i don't know. The film is set on an alien planet in the future but everyone dresses and acts like they are in an old Western. 

A cruel outlaw (a reptilian of course) called Redeye (Andrew Divoff) guns down the Marshal (Mark Genovese) of the town of Oblivion and takes over with his gang, which includes Lash (Muscetta Vander) who likes to wear bondage gear and whip people. The Marshal's son Zach (Richard Joesph Paul) lives out of town, unwilling to get involved in any gunplay because he feels the pain of his victims (something which seems rather variable if we are to be honest). He saves the life of cod-philosopher Buteo (Jimmie Skaggs) from a giant scorpion and finally gets involved in the fight and faces Redeye and his crew.

The film doesn't make a lot of sense and is packed full of strange cameos and random events and characters including Gaunt (Carel Struycken), a strange Death character who naturally is the undertaker. One of the cameos is George Takai, who plays the town's drunk doctor. He throws dreadful Star Trek related puns into his dialogue at random. We also have Isaac Hayes as a bar owner. He just seems to be there, because why not?

By no means is this a good film but it's awfulness is truly compelling. A film that needs to be experienced.

Deadly Instincts (1997)

Yet another film about horny aliens who are lusting after Earth women.

A meteorite lands at a girl's school in Boston (which we know because of large signs everywhere which say BOSTON, even though it looks suspiciously like the other side of the Atlantic...)

Inside the meteorite is some kind of alien beast, who wants human women for breeding purposes. He obviously chose his landing point very well landing at a school full of horny teens. Student Louise (Samantha Womack) is fairly concerned for her missing friend, when she isn't sleeping with her teacher Ashley (Todd Jensen). Her friend unfortunately has become one of the alien's first victims. Ashley meanwhile is trying to find a young woman (Kadamba Simmons) who looks like she has escaped from an all-night goth club.

The police in the form of Moore (Oliver Tobias) is uninterested in talk of alien monsters, instead thinking Ashley is behind the disappearances. Soon however, he is also hunting the monster alongside Louise and Ashley in the rather remarkably complicated tunnels under the school...

A silly film. Filmed in the Isle of Man with a mostly British cast, who attempt their American accents with varying degrees of failure. Overall the film is a reasonable sci-fi horror and fairly exploitative (not a bad thing). It looks good though is lacking in the plot department. Enjoyable junk.