Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris Washington, a photographer who’s been dating Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) for four months. As the film begins he’s going to meet her parents for the first time at their country mansion, and it’s quickly clear to the African-American Chris that he’ll be treated as an outsider in this thoroughly Caucasian neck of the woods. Rose’s family aren’t the bunch of redneck hicks that you’d expect to see in a horror film, however. Their prejudice is more subtle, like people who consider themselves benevolent, when they’re simply being racist. The more time Chris spends with them, the creepier things get. And pretty soon he wishes he’d never made the trip in the first place.

Just the notion of a horror comedy about racism should set off warning lights for any would-be screenwriter. This is the kind of film that’s difficult to pull off. Any slight misstep and you could veer into gauche exploitation, or at worst, flat-out offensiveness. And yet Get Out is pitch-perfect. Every single moment is handled beautifully, and Peele’s script knows exactly when to back off and when to push the pedal to the floor.

I haven’t seen a film quite like this, however the original version of The Stepford Wives comes close. Get Out was released by Jason Blum’s Blumhouse productions, a studio that can easily be described as the modern-day saviour of the low-budget, major-release film, even if they most recently subjected us to the latest M. Night Shyamalan misfire, Split.

Kaluuya is great as a man going through a deeply traumatic meet-the-parents experience, whilst Williams is confident and genuine as Rose. Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener have an excellent time, and truly excel at being ever-so-creepy.

A brilliant and honest comedy with horrific undertones, Get Out cleverly uses its genre trappings to create a bold and unique film. Where Colossal made me uncomfortable with its exploration of darker themes seen through a sci-fi/comedy lens, this film hits every beat perfectly. I can’t think of anything that would make this film better.

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Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, and opportunistic yet enterprising young man who stumbles upon the lucrative trade of ‘nightcrawling’. This means he lurks around the streets of Los Angeles in the dead of night, glued to his police scanner. The moment a crime gets reported, he’s there with a video camera, getting some gruesome footage for the morning news. After his initial attempts lead to success, Lou sets out to raise the stakes, pushing himself further and further in an attempt to get that ‘perfect’ piece of footage.

I have no idea just how close to reality Nightcrawler veers, but with a bit of a mental squint, the world it describes doesn’t seem that different to our own. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched live television, but the stories peddled by commercial news networks aren’t that far removed from what we see in the film. It’s all about constructing a narrative, and if that occasionally requires manipulating events, then so be it. It’s all in the name of entertainment, right?

Lou is a mesmerising character. He’s creepy, borderline sociopathic in his detachment, yet there’s something charismatic about him too. I wasn’t repulsed; I wanted to see what he’d do next. Rene Russo’s TV news director, Nina Romina, is equally interesting. She and Lou take turns pushing the envelope, and together they create something horrid.

You know when you’re out in the small hours of the morning, it’s dead quiet and your normal suburban streets seem like an alien world? That’s the kind of world Nightcrawler explores. It’s a fascinating look at the familiar turned mysterious and the mundane turned horrifying (and I’m sure it made it shooting the film cheaper too).

The cinematography is crisp and clean, and all the night time driving scenes in Lou’s sports car put me in mind of Drive, which featured a similarly detached leading man. The disc has a smattering of interviews and featurettes. They’re tightly edited, so no one waffles on, however the interviewer is off mic the entire time, which is frustrating.

If there would be any complaint about Nightcrawler, it would be that nothing ever phases Lou. The same thing frustrated me a lot more in Thank You For Smoking – a forever dauntless protagonist is less interesting than one who questions himself. The last ten minutes didn’t feel quite right either, suggesting perhaps some reshoots or last minute alterations to the script.

That being said, Nightcrawler is every bit as good as audiences said back when it was on the big screen. A fascinating tale of obsession, it’s a film that really gets under your skin.

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I presumably made very few friends in announcing that I quite liked the Total Recall remake. However, it’s important to realise that I never really liked the Schwartzenegger-starring original. When it comes to 1987’s Robocop though, I’ve always been a fan. Verhoeven’s whole ‘European filmmaker beating Hollywood at its own game’ schtick really came through there, and the movie’s gleeful excesses made it a classic.

The new RoboCop is a different kind of film, however. It’s still a satire with the USA squarely in its sights, but this one seems a much more realistic, contemporary exploration of the collusion between corrupt institutions. It’s not quite ‘The Wire’ – though does feature Michael K. Williams – but it’s an intelligent analysis of how the modern world works.

More importantly, however, this RoboCop really focusses on the horror of Alex Murphy’s situation. As a cop in the near future who is left for dead, he is remade as the cutting edge crime-fighter by the conflicted Dr Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman). Oldman’s in fine form here, effectively playing a version of Dr Frankenstein, simultaneously thrilled at his successes and horrified at the consequences. Kinnaman is a wise casting choice, though isn’t perfect. He doesn’t really have the typical leading man charisma (much like Peter Weller, I guess) but is perfect once he dons the suit, portraying a man trying to fight his robotic programming.

Fans of the original may have been aghast when they learned that this film wouldn’t get an R rating, but rest assured that there is one scene in particular that is truly nightmarish. RoboCop explores the notion of what it means to be a cyborg with an astounding degree of depth and complexity, especially for a mainstream movie. In fact, it’s a much better science fiction film than it is action film. If you put down money hoping for some nifty violence and cool explosions, then you’ll be sorely disappointed with RoboCop. The action is thin on the ground and, when the film does get violent, it’s not particularly impressive. The fight scenes are dull and often hard to follow.

I was fantastically pleased with RoboCop’s exploration of the issues surrounding its sci-fi premise, and whilst I was rarely sucked in emotionally, as a philosophical ‘what if?’ kind of movie, it’s genuinely absorbing. Your enjoyment of the film will depend on what you’re after when you sit down to watch it. Sci-fi geeks ought to get a kick out of it (unless they’re still not over the concept that someone’s remaking a beloved film of the 80s) whilst those simply looking for some mindless action will find themselves disappointed.

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Iron Sky concerns itself with that Nazi moon base that WE ALL KNOW is on the dark side of Luna. I’m someone who likes my conspiracy theories as extreme as possible, so the ‘Nazis on the moon’ thing is up there with The Philadelphia Project, Vril Society and New Chronologies. In this movie, for the first time in decades, the Americans return to the moon, only to discover a huge lunar colony where everyone’s favourite villains have been preparing for their return to Earth.

On paper, this sounds fantastic. In practice, it’s disappointing. What promises to be a ridiculous B-grade sci-fi romp ends up aiming for thought-provoking satire. I went in expecting Dead Snow, but what I got was an attempt at Dr. Strangelove. This variation in tone simply does not work. The funny bits aren’t funny enough, and the serious moments just feel… kind of shallow.

The visual effects are wonderful. A huge portion of the film was shot in front of a green screen (in Australia) and the digital sets look fantastic. The costumes and the practical parts of the set look great also. In fact, I have no problem with the production values whatsoever. In a stroke of genius, the soundtrack is provided by Laibach, a band who have long known how to confuse the general public with their deliberately confusing (mis)appropriation of fascism, nationalism and Nazi aesthetics.

Udo Kier – owner of the film industry’s scariest eyes – is in attendance, though he doesn’t achieve anything particularly special. Julia Dietze effectively plays the Nazi with a heart of gold, Stephanie Paul is the President of the USA (aka Sarah Palin), whilst Christopher Kirby plays astronaut James Washington, the only character that seems to embrace the true b-grade spirit of the film’s premise.

I was really surprised by Iron Sky’s strangely schizophrenic tone. Where it should have gone for out-and-out idiotic sci-fi exploitation madness, it instead wavers between crappy comedy and not-so-effective satire. There are moments – mere glimmers – of what could have been, and the production values are impressive considering its genesis, but this film is simply a passable distraction rather than anything particularly memorable.

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Don’t get me wrong: for the first half hour we are definitely in horror territory. After setting up the premise, whereby some teenagers decide to hook up with an older woman for some group sex in a trailer somewhere in middle America, things go from bad to worse pretty quickly. They live in a town that boasts the Five Points Church, a radical right-wing Christian denomination that pickets funerals of gays, so our hapless teens shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the church offers a little more than your average prayer meetings.

But then, just when you’re sure you’ve got Red State pegged down, the movie abruptly shifts in tone and direction. I was completed floored by this film, and genuinely had no idea where it was going. What initially seems to be a horror flick exploiting the American far right loony fringe could actually be seen as a critique of America in general, focussing on sex, religion and politics.

I consider myself a big fan of Smith’s, even if the quality of his output varies significantly. But even I had put him in a box; I was certain I knew what he was capable of and what his limitations were. Red State has completely blown such notions out of the water. What I see now is a filmmaker that could basically do anything, if he turned his mind to it. In Red State, he effortlessly writes, directs and edits horror, action and comedy in what could arguably be considered an ‘art house’ flick.

We also have a film with a conscious visual style, something that Smith’s never done. He himself has made jokes about how, stylistically, his films haven’t changed much since Clerks, but Red State is shot beautifully, with a distinct sense of menace. This is the first film he’s done without Scott Mosier (if you don’t count the gun-for-hire duties he did on Cop Out), and this also underlines the fact that this is Smith as we’ve never seen him before.

Michael Parks gives an extraordinary performance as the sinister head of the Five Points Church, Abin Cooper, and whilst the actions of his brethren may seem somewhat far-fetched, his rhetoric isn’t all that distinct from what I’ve heard coming from some notches in the Bible Belt. John Goodman plays the ATF agent investigating Cooper’s group, and excels in a role that differs greatly from that which he has done before. There are many, many other great performances from the likes of Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner, Marc Blucas, Kevin Alejandro, Melissa Leo and Kerry Bishé. Every character’s appearance, no matter how fleeting, is completely distinctive and memorable.

Red State is a fascinatingly original film and completely awe-inspiring. Smith has threatened to leave directing behind after his next project, Hit Somebody, but I truly hope he reconsiders. Red State is likely to be divisive, and it may have trouble finding an audience. Those who love his previous comedies may be dumbfounded, whilst those who would genuinely enjoy this film may skip it because of that same earlier work. Those expecting a straight horror film may be disappointed, whilst those who want to watch a biting social commentary may be daunted by the rather nasty first half hour. But that’s part of the brilliance of this film: it has no interest in giving the audience what it wants. It’s simply a fantastic, bold and unique film in its own right.

Hats off to Mr Smith.

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Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) is a recent college graduate with honours in business and a minor in anthropology. Uncertain how to begin a career it seems her mother wants more than she does, Annie stumbles across the X family in Central Park, and decides to spend some time as a nanny while working out what she wants from life. Thrust into the world of Upper East Side wealth and decadence, she will be challenged by her distaste for the lives of her new family and the conflict that comes when she realises she is the only hope at all for her charge Grayer (Nicholas Reese Art). Complicating matters further is Harvard Hottie (Chris Evans) who shares the apartment building and, although obviously desirable, seemingly represents all that she despises of the X family and their world.

There is so much wrong with this film it is difficult to find something to praise. Laura Linney perhaps comes closest to deserving it, playing Mrs X with a ruthless and manipulative streak that is horrifying to an outsider. Mrs X is the ultimate exemplar of the script’s point of view, and required someone of Linney’s ability to make her work. Overwhelming Linney, however, is a cavalcade of disastrous miscasting and abysmal overacting. Johansson is horribly out of place as the hero Annie, and her early scenes – particularly those requiring physical comedy – are particularly awful. She is never at home as the shy and naive young Jersey girl, and doesn’t fit as the angry burnt-out nanny either. Giamatti and Evans suffer from inadequately fleshed out roles that give them little to work with, and Giamatti is especially weak in a turn so significantly underdone compared with the character roles that give him room to move, like Sideways.

Beyond the difficulties with casting, the pseudo-magic realism tone also fails, with the use of the umbrella motif particularly embarassing. The Natural History exhibits and the sidewalk Field Guide scenes add nothing of substance and sit uncomfortably with the remainder of the work. The narration, purporting to be text from the book describing the events occurring onscreen, is intrusive and oftentimes unnecessary.

That so popular a work of writing can be reduced to something so profoundly disappointing on film is the real measure of the failure of Springer Berman and Pulcini. The Nanny Diaries is far from successful, and is frequently barely watchable. Were it not for Linney it would be impossible to recommend, and as it stands should only be seen on DVD by those who are very, very bored.

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Little has changed for the residents of America’s most pollution-riddled town. The Springfield Lake is so toxic it claims a huge rock band within the opening sequence, the citizens still treat it as their own personal dumping site, and apart from Lisa (as usual), no-one seems to care. Upon finally getting the message that their town is bordering on killing their lake, they finally decide to act, only for Homer to (without thinking of anything other than doughnuts) condemn them all.

It is obvious from the beginning that the chosen target for parody in this ‘episode’ is the environmental movement sweeping the world. The Simpsons Movie hits bullseye most often when portraying those who will close their doors to a child’s pleas about saving the planet, and goes as far as using Nelson to make the point. More obvious targets include Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth campaign, but placing Arnold Schwarzenegger in the White House and a millionaire businessman in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency shows the usual amount of thoughtfulness has gone into the writing.

There are moments when the events on screen are more likely to make the audience laugh than The Simpsons has for many years. Immediately classic sequences like Bart’s naked skateboard dare (partially spoiled by its presence in the trailer), and particularly Homer’s invention of ‘Spider-Pig’, mean it is impossible not to fall about in hysterics. That said, there are also stretches that move a little slowly, and after the first act (which is glorious) the pace really tails off. It is almost as if the writers used up a lot of their best mental energy on the first madcap half hour, it is so stuffed full of self awareness, irony and activity. After a midsection that is a little slow moving, the family’s return to Springfield renews the fun and excitement, and the film ends with positive energy. Audiences may wish to stick around during the credits to milk all the Simpson-y goodness from the film, and they will surely be rewarded. Not only will they be introduced to the new Springfield Anthem, but other surprises, including yet another moment of self deprecation, await.

In the 20 years since they first appeared in shorts on ‘The Tracey Ullman Show’, the Simpson family have been joined by all manner of fancy animated characters and creations, and they have stayed resolutely the same, even revelling in their simplicity in the trailer for their long-awaited film (‘The Simpsons Movie… in 2-D’). In spite of the wizardry of Pixar et al in their attempts to bring human characters to life, The Simpsons still presents the most realistic collection of animated humanity going around.

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The Host is actually a cut above the average monster movie flick – the creature’s initial rampage is brilliant. The first act skilfully blends humour with horror, and that on its own is worth the price of admission, which is a good thing considering it goes downhill from there on. The second act becomes rather serious, and I don’t mean it ups the not-so-subtle political commentary that runs rampant throughout, but that it is overwhelmingly dull. There’s way too much to-ing and fro-ing as the characters effectively waste some time until the inevitable showdown. The third act is a knockout, though unfortunately only reiterates how disappointing the middle was.

The creature is great fun – utterly ridiculous yet somehow believable enough to keep us entertained. The cinematography is great, with some very cool action moments. The heroes of the film are the Park family, who band together in an effort to stop the creature, and their wackiness is instantly appealing. There are very few films that could pull off a humorous moment of grief at a mass funeral.

The catalyst of this mutant disaster is apparently based on real events, whereby a US military employee ordered formaldehyde to be dumped down the drain, and in this light the rather overbearing political context is arguably justified. I’m sure this flick will be remade by Hollywood soon, though they may slightly alter the premise. Hell, they may even insert Raymond Burr into the film.

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Forming the ‘MOD (Merchants of Death) Squad’ are the spokespeople of industry research groups for tobacco, alcohol and firearms, and their regular meetings are designed to allow them to brainstorm new tactics to divert public attention from the less sellable aspects of their products. The most charismatic of these is Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart in what may be a career-defining role), spokesperson for the Tobacco industry group, a man so charming he can turn almost any negative into a positive through manipulation and disinformation. Whether trying to woo women into bed in business meetings or convince a teen cancer victim it’s in Big Tobacco’s “best interests to keep [him] alive and smoking” on a television talk show, Naylor has the vocabulary, mental sharpness and, most of all, the moral flexibility to succeed as no other has before.

It isn’t only lobbyists being targeted in Reitman’s somewhat scattergun approach, however, with Hollywood execs copping a backhander in an amusing scene in which Naylor and Jeff Megall (Hollywood producer, played by Rob Lowe) compete to see how low each is prepared to go in their search for the perfect star-powered vehicle to reform the image of cigarettes. Crusading senators and underhanded journalists also take hits, and although each individually may be deserved, the overall effect of choosing so many marks is a diminishment of the impact on each.

Eckhart is excellent in the demanding lead role, and with so much riding on his ability to appear both charming and evil at the same time, his success carries much of the film. He clearly conveys the intellectual bargains he must make to allow himself to do as he does, and even makes the somewhat less believable final sequences convincing. He is everything one imagines Reitman and co. were hoping for in their leading man. Maria Bello and David Koechner are given far less to do, but are adequate in their limited turns. J.K. Simmons brings his J. Jonah Jameson performance from the Spider-Man movies, in what seems a disappointing lack of range, but cameos by Adam Brody, Sam Elliott, Katie Holmes, Lowe, William H. Macy, Kim Dickens and Robert Duvall are all performed well.

Unfortunately, for all its star power and delicious attacks on targets ripe for the picking, somehow Thank You for Smoking never quite becomes the incredible film it hints at. Whether it would have had greater success with a tighter focus is another question, but as it stands, Thank You for Smoking is an amusing satire on power and politics without ever hitting the home run it might have.

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When ‘American Idol’ has made such fun of itself by having specials with those rejected by the judges as being far too bad to be anything but entertainment at their own expense, it is mostly redundant to attempt to make a feature film doing the same thing. ‘Idol’ has been phenomenally successful around the world, and part of its success has been the way it has embraced those whose performances are as embarassing for those watching as those performing. William Hung has long ago had his real-life day in the sun, and yet somehow Paul Weitz thinks we’ll find the antics of make-believe wannabes amusing.

American Dreamz tracks the lives of three characters particularly – the host, a Simon Cowell impersonation done half-heartedly by Hugh Grant; the star, Mandy Moore as a white-trash girl with dreams of fame and fortune; and the laughable, Muslim immigrant Omer, selected only to allow the manufacture of religious tension with a Jewish contestant. Of these, only Omer (Sam Golzari) has any appeal, and he is able to steal away most of his scenes, including those with the more experienced (and supposedly more appealing) Moore. Grant, as mentioned, seems to have only agreed to play half of this role, and his Martin Tweed, written presumably to have a kind of world-weary charm, is the worst example of this film’s missed opportunities.

American Dreamz is also scattered with favourites from previous Weitz films, including Chris Klein, the near-ubiquitous Jennifer Coolidge, and John Cho, none of whom enhance their reputations, although Cho doesn’t have far to fall, with the pinnacle of his career to date the average Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. (The upcoming Harold & Kumar Go to Amsterdam is only likely to lower his asking price even further).

American Dreamz wants to be satire, it truly does, but as so much of its set-up is lame and predictable, it just doesn’t work. That it takes almost two hours to tell this story is an indication of how slow the first half is – there is so much filler in the early expository sequences, when the film finally does get down to business the characters are already boring. The stabs made at George W. Bush are amusing only for their inadequacy and irrelevance – surely we’ve all made up our minds whether he is an idiot or not almost two thirds of the way through his maximum eight years in power, and any satirist hoping to target Bush at this late stage had better have an amazing new slant to get any reaction. The slightly more subtle jab at the American public for their voting apathy – ‘Imagine a country where… more people vote for a pop idol than their next President‘ – is barely more successful.

Possessing scant charm and lacking any of the dramatic qualities of the excellent About a Boy or In Good Company, American Dreamz aims for several high-priced targets and fails to hit any of them. Over-blown and unnecessary.

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