Like a lot of Kubrick films, Eyes Wide Shut suffered because of raised expectations. Here you have a film with the world’s most famous director and the world’s most famous actor, and it’s all about sex. Therefore it must be an amazing two hour bonk-a-thon, right? But instead Kubrick delivered a quieter, more sombre film. It wasn’t the perverted fuck fest that everyone expected.

I can’t say that Eyes Wide Shut is one of my favourite Kubrick films. Some of the acting is poor, the writing occasionally is clunky and it runs out of steam with about thirty minutes of film left, but despite this, it doesn’t deserve the flack that it received from some of the critics – some consider it a piece of shit. It’s not the masterpiece that everyone hoped for, but it’s a mature look at marriage and sexual jealousy – it’s an adult film, but without the capital ‘A’.

The film’s central scene is the one where Alice (Kidman) and Dr Bill (Cruise) smoke a bit of weed together in their bedroom. They begin talking about a party they attended the night before and the members of the opposite sex they were flirting with. Bill was being hit on by some models and Alice was being seduced by a rich Hungarian. They both want to know what happened. But although it begins as a light-hearted discussion, things suddenly become more serious when Bill fails to show any jealousy over the Hungarian. His explanation that Alice is the mother of his child and that he knows she’d never fuck another man, is far too confident and far too smug. So Alice decides to cut him down to size and show how wrong he is. She tells him about a Naval Officer she wanted to fuck. And she wanted to fuck him so bad that she would have given up her husband and her child for him. Suddenly Bill’s happy, comfortable life comes falling around him. He realises that he doesn’t really know what goes on in his wife’s head and that his marriage isn’t anywhere near as solid as he thought it was. He gets smacked in the face with a heavy does of reality – women have just the same sexual hunger as men and they’re just as likely to be unfaithful.

This scene is one of the best in the film. Kidman is excellent in the way that she blasts a hole through Cruise’s smug self-certainty, and Cruise, while listening to Kidman’s story, radiates suppressed rage. For the first time he’s beginning to understand his wife – if he takes her for granted, everything will be over. And he also understands that he can no longer coast along like he used to. He might have a nice apartment with all the trappings of success, but if he neglects to work on his marriage, if he fails to take any notice of his wife and thinks that he’s indestructible, the most important thing will be lost.

To illustrate how clueless Bill is, there’s a scene where Alice and Bill make out in front of a mirror. Bill comfortably and smugly thinks that his wife is thinking about him, but we can tell that her mind is straying – it’s not only men who fantasise about fucking everything in sight.

After Alice’s confession, the film turns into a bad dream. Bill wanders the streets, consumed with jealousy at the thought of Alice being with another man. All he can think about is her cheating on him.

It’s here, as Bill goes from one strange encounter to another, that the film becomes uneven. First of all you have a scene with a bereaved woman who then declares her love for Dr Bill. The scene doesn’t work particularly well because the actress is so bad. She rolls her eyes and stares wildly, but it’s far too over the top. Then Bill bumps into a prostitute who offers her services to him. This doesn’t really work that well for multiple reasons. First of all, the prostitute is far too good looking. Since when have you ever seen a street whore who looks that cute? Then you have the fact that she seems quite clean, that she’s too shy to talk about sex and that she tenderly kisses Bill. It’s strange to say this for a Kubrick film, but it’s far too sentimentalised. I know the film is basically a dream, but even in your dreams a whore wouldn’t be this sweet and innocent.

Thankfully, though, just when you’re despairing, you have the orgy sequence. It’s not particularly sexy, but that’s missing the point. It’s a nightmare. It’s a vision of how despairing ‘free’ sex would be. There’s no passion to it. Everyone has a wall up – everyone’s masked. Therefore the sex is bleak and cold and depressing. This is what Bill thinks he wants. He thinks he wants an easy fuck. But unfortunately there’s no such thing. Everything has a price.

The orgy sequence is a showcase for Kubrick’s mastery of cinematic language. One of the best shots in the film is when Bill looks up to a balcony and we cut to a slow zoom onto a couple of masked figures. Here the film feels like a horror movie – the shot has a quiet dread that few directors could conjure. And then you have Bill’s tour of the mansion. The music, the camerawork and the lighting are all perfect.

The only negative in the orgy sequence is some of the dialogue. At one point a woman comes up to Bill and asks him if he’s enjoying himself. He says that he’s had an interesting look around. It’s banal in the extreme.

But then much of the dialogue is clunky. For instance, throughout the whole of the film, Bill has the habit of repeating what other people say to him. He does it so often that you begin to anticipate it and begin tearing your hair out when he does it for fiftieth time. ‘Would you like to come inside with me?’ ‘Come inside with you?’ Argh!

And like I say, some of the acting is atrocious. I’ve already mentioned the eye-rolling woman, but then there’s Alan Cumming. He’s supposed to be a hotel clerk that flirts with Bill. But Cumming’s accent slips a handful of times and he seems to think he’s in a remake of Are You Being Served? He’s so overwhelmingly camp that I’m surprised that he didn’t just reach over the desk and wank Bill off right there and then. It’s a buffoonish, tic-ridden performance – a complete caricature of a homosexual.

But worse than this are the two models at the beginning of the movie. There’s an English one who sounds plumier than Elizabeth Hurley and who natters endlessly about what a great guy Bill is because he got some crud out of her eye with a handkerchief (more crushingly banal dialogue), and then there’s another one with a silly name who genuinely seems handicapped. Her attempts at flirting seem like the wild flailings of someone with Parkinson’s.

Oh, and have I mentioned that the Hungarian Count is played by someone who resembles an Eastern European Roger Moore? Yes, in a way this is strangely cool, but for a serious film it’s a bit of distraction. The smarm made me almost keel over.

Another annoyance is the piece of music that seems to play every ten seconds. You know, the piano one. The one that sounds like it’s played by a chimp trying to learn to play a musical instrument. He’s so confused by the strange contraption that sits before him that he can only hit a key every five seconds. But yeah, although most of the music is great, this one piece appears over and over again when something ‘important’ is meant to be happening (like when someone is very slowly delivering a letter). A bit more variety was called for, Stanley.

So with all of these distractions it’s sometimes easy to overlook all the great stuff in the film.

Other wonderful bits are the scene when Alice tells Bill about a dream she had, one where she fucked other men and mocked her husband. And then there’s the scene where Bill watches his wife do homework with his daughter. He pretends to look lovingly at her but he can only think about the dream she told him about, and so this idyllic sight has been corrupted for him. And I also love the moments where Bill is stalked through the streets of New York by a strange man. No one can do quiet horror like Kubrick.

And there’s a pleasingly adult message to the film. That we shouldn’t take each other for granted. That we shouldn’t coast along in our lives and assume that everything will be okay. We need to work constantly on our relationships. We need to put the effort in. Because it’s easy to give in to temptation. But what’s more difficult and ultimately more fulfilling, is to maintain a deep connection with one’s partner. I mean, all through the film, almost every character responds sexually to Bill. But what would be the point of any of the liaisons? How would they make anything better? They wouldn’t. So people need to wake up and realise the importance of what they have. They need to stop drifting blinding through life, hoping that everything will turn out for the best in the end, because it probably won’t.

But still, that damn piano music and Alan Cumming and the models and the repetitive dialogue. You almost had another great film Stanley.

When I first watched it as a teenager, I didn’t enjoy The Thing. I can't really recall what it was I didn't like about it, but I seem to remember finding it a little confusing and I can remember not being a fan of the special effects (some would consider that last statement heresy). But since then, I’ve come to like it a great deal. I wouldn't place it at the top of the genre like some people would, but it wouldn't be far off.

First things first, I appreciate the special effects a lot more now. I think the problem when I first watched it was just how bizarre it all was. Tentacles? Bloody flower guts? Giant snapping mouths? Maybe I found it hard to suspend my disbelief, or perhaps I found it repulsive – I don't mind gore in horror films, but I'm not a fan of what I'd call 'gloop'. For some reason I can happily watch limbs get blown and sawn off, or see people get shot, stabbed and eaten, but my sick trigger is sensitive to 'gloopy' film monsters. For instance, I love David Cronenberg's version of The Fly, but I do actually come close to gagging when watching it.

So perhaps I didn't appreciate the special effects for those reasons. But they're actually pretty great. One of the best bits has to be when an imitation human head sprouts a tentacle from its mouth and pulls itself along – and earlier on when the head begins to detach itself from its body. It's nasty and unpleasant and great to watch. And then there's the bit when Palmer's face rips apart and a giant alien mouth sprouts and bites a guy in the head. Sweet. (And to make it even better, the man who's getting bitten is shaken from side to side like a rag doll.)

But not all the special effects work great. Although I love the head being ripped off and I love it when it shoots a tentacle from its mouth, it does look silly rather than disturbing when it sprouts antennae and spidery legs. There's a fine line between great and crap. And the bit at the end isn't particularly impressive either – the bit where we see huge tentacles and a massive monster. It's overkill and the effects don't match what has come before.

Much better are the little bits. Right at the end, right before the silly tentacle business and the unconvincing alien dog, is a bit where Garry encounters an assimilated Blair and Blair sticks his hand in his head. It's brilliantly done. And then after that you see Blair dragging Garry along by his face like he’s sack. Again it's sick and nasty, but in a much more believable way.

However, it's not the monster that makes The Thing such an enjoyable film. It's the confusion and the paranoia that its presence generates in the humans (I guess when I first watched it as a kid, I didn't realise that confusion was the point – it’s kind of a take on the AIDS crisis). After all, seeing as The Thing is a shape-shifter, and it can take on any form, everyone's a suspect – anyone could be a carrier.

This climate of paranoia and suspicion is best illustrated in the scene where MacReady (Kurt Russell) ties the surviving scientists and workers to chairs so that he can check their blood to see who's human and who's not (it’s like a homemade AIDS test). The scene really is tense, as you haven't got a clue who's been assimilated and who hasn't. You're not even sure if MacReady is who he says he is, as even he's been built up as a suspect. But it literally could be anybody and the scene's a powder keg.

Another great scene is when MacReady declares that he knows for certain he's human and the camera slowly pans across the rest of the group. Do we believe him, and who among the group isn't what he says he is?

As well as these nail-biting scenes, I love the creepy moments too (they're often a lot better than the 'scary' bits). My favourite is when a half assimilated Bennings is caught trying to escape the camp – he's almost a perfect copy but his hands are deformed – and he lets off an eerie howl before he's burnt to a crisp (there are a lot of torchings in this film, which, needless to say, I love – and one brilliant torching is immediately followed by an exploding). And there's also the bit where MacReady visits Blair, who's been locked in the tool shed. MacReady opens a slit and Blair's sitting there by a noose while eating cans of food. He then begs to be let out. He insists that he's much better. It's a superb scene. And as simple as they are, I love all the lingering shots of the dog. It's a creepy mutt. It's got a thousand yard stare.

Also rather creepy is the ending. After all the pyrotechnics, MacReady thinks he's the sole survivor. But then Childs shows up. Childs’ explanation is that he got lost in the snow. There's a bit of an awkward conversation, and even though Mac kind of knows that it isn't the real Childs, he's become resigned to his fate and shares a smoke. It's an ending that, in the best way, keeps you wondering.

And on a final note, I must say how much I enjoy Mac's snow-sombrero and his bad geography. "Hey Sweden!" he shouts when he visits a Norwegian camp. There aren’t many laughs in the film, but the ones that are there do the trick.

Choppy, choppy your pee-pee - words that would strike fear into the heart of any man, but words that are made even more terrifying when the chopping comes from gnashers that are in some young girl’s cooter.

I guess most teenagers are a little afraid of sex. You know, what with the weird organs, the smelly bodily fluids and the female fear of having one’s hymen pierced by a throbbing shaft of man meat and the male fear of busting a nut before contact with the hairy love cave has been established. Sex is fraught with danger.

Some adolescents respond by excessively masturbating, others conquer the fear of their first sexual encounters by turning to booze and drugs, and some just fuck everything in sight. A few, though, decide to ignore sex all together.

Dawn is one of these people. In order not to deal with her burgeoning sexuality, she decides to suppress it by committing herself to a life of chastity. She won’t have sex until her wedding night. She’s going to remain ‘pure’.

Now this might sounds like madness to some. You might marry someone with a micropenis, or someone with a cunt-splittingly huge dong. Or they might not be able to get it up or they might need you to dress as a Cardinal in order to achieve orgasm. Surely you should try before you buy. But no, Dawn lectures children on the benefits of purity. Apparently virginity is a special gift and you shouldn’t give it to anyone. That’s true enough, but building sex up to giant proportions is enough to drive someone mad. It’s not something to be frightened of. After all, it’s not like you’ve got teeth in your twat.

Oh wait, Dawn does. Not that she knows it, though. Hell, she doesn’t even know what a vagina looks like.

There’s a scene early in the film where the kids are learning about sexual reproductive organs. The teacher has no problem talking about the penis, but he recoils at talking about the vagina. And the pictures of the vagina in the textbooks are censored by a foil sticker. The very notion that we’re protecting children by keeping them ignorant is suitably mocked in Teeth. The best protection is education – teenagers should know all the facts.

But alas Dawn doesn’t know anything about sex and even admonishes herself for fantasising about a boy and for being tempted to masturbate. ‘Purity, purity,’ she mutters to herself. Doesn’t she know that there’s a beast between her legs?

Teeth isn’t a particularly coherent film, but if it does have a point it’s that bad things happen when teenagers either rush into sex or if they don’t educate themselves. For instance, Dawn’s half-brother seems to spend all day banging his girlfriend, and he prefers to do it up the arse. This kind of rampant sexuality has all kinds of negative consequences. But at the same time, Dawn’s head in the sand mentality isn’t healthy either. It means that when she finally meets a boy she likes, she isn’t able to deal with the situation and bad things happen.

Of course, Teeth takes things to an extreme. Dawn doesn’t just find a boy and then gets a little pissed off when he tries to look down her knickers. No, she finds a boy who decides to attack her. She’s attracted a rapist. But as dark as the scene sounds, it’s played for laughs. ‘I haven’t jerked off since Easter!’ yells the boy as he forces himself on her in a cave. You see what happens when you bottle things up? Tsk, tsk. But although the boy’s reaction to her plea for self-control is a little over the top, so is her response to his illegal entry. She bites his cock off…with her vagina. And then we have a hilarious moment where the two scream at each one – the girl because she didn’t realise she had teeth and the boy because, well, his cock has left his body.

Following this encounter, Dawn goes home, not really sure of what happened. But upon her return there’s a brilliant one-liner. ‘There’s dinner if you want a bite,’ says one of her parents. ‘I ate,’ is Dawn’s reply. That made me chuckle like only a brilliant one-liner can.

And there’s also a wonderful visual gag. Dawn still isn’t really sure what happened and goes back to the cave to see if she really did castrate her boyfriend. At first she doesn’t see anything, but then she finds a piece of her boyfriend’s cock being eaten by crabs. Got crabs? Yeah, unprotected sex is murder.

Another hilarious scene is when Dawn goes to see her gynaecologist. He’s a right sleazy bastard and states that, seeing as this is her first visit, she probably doesn’t know what to expect. Taking advantage of this, he sees her without a female nurse present and he even begins fingering her without gloves on. Cue some amusingly skeezy dialogue where he tells her to breath through the pain and where he comments on how tight she is. But my favourite bit is when he tells her to relax. It’s the way he says it. It’s like the word is split into two: ‘Re-lax’. It has the coldly condescending tone that only men can manage.

But Dawn gets her own back on the man and bites the doctor’s fingers off. But not before he drags her around the room for a bit, unable to free himself from her nether regions. And then once he’s free and his fingers are on the floor, he repeatedly shouts, ‘Vagina dentata!’ Oh my god, it’s true! Women do have teeth!

We’re told that vagina dentata is a common myth and that it’s up to a male hero to come in and break the female’s power. But there isn’t such a hero here. We just have pathetic, sleazy man after pathetic, sleazy man, and when Dawn finally meets a seemingly decent guy and safely has sex with him, he turns out to be a scumbag and she snips his knob off. Finding a decent man is hell these days!

But the dick-snipping hilarity peaks when Dawn fucks her half-brother. You see, he’s had the hots for her since they were children and Dawn gets a little mad at him when he fails to give a shit about their mother dying. So to get revenge, she has sex with him and then castrates him. And this leads to many wonderful images. The first is the image of Dawn releasing the hacked cock out of her vagina – it goes ‘plonk’ on the floor. And then after this we have the shot of the boy’s dog picking up the severed penis in its mouth. The boy gasps and tells him to drop it, but instead the dog gobbles the dick up, leaving just the head on the floor. And this leads to the final wonderful image – the shot of a sad head lying on the floor with a bolt running through it – damn Prince Albert made that part inedible.

So unfortunately no one gets to break this girl’s power. But then that’s kind of the point. None of these men are worthy of Dawn. They’re all just trying to use her. And so therefore they can hardly complain when she bites.

And so while the film rightly mocks the trend for young people to devote themselves to a life of chastity, it also rallies against misogyny. You don’t have to wait until you get married before you give yourself to someone, but you have to make sure that the person is worthy of your affections.

Beware the trees, the bushes, the blades of grass and the shrubbery for they shall wreak a terrible vengeance. Beware the wind, too, for it shall be the vegetation’s chariot and shall spread death all over the land.

The Happening features many lingering shots of trees and bushes. It also has a high frequency of scenes where people run from gusts of wind. Thrilling the film isn’t, but silly it is.

In his latest film, M. Night Shyamalan tries to tap into our fear of an ecological disaster, but his movie is so ham-fisted, so badly written and so woodenly acted that it ends up being an unintentional comedic tour de force. M. Night has really outdone himself this time.

The film begins with a couple of women in Central Park. They talk amongst themselves and then suddenly everyone around them stops. Then one of the women begins to look confused. ‘What page was I on?’ she says like she’s summoning the spirit of Captain Kirk. And then she stabs herself in the neck. Hmm. Awful acting and ‘ominous’ shots of trees as someone…absolutely…must…kill…themselves. Yeah, it’s not scary.

Immediately following this scene is a sequence where people throw themselves off a building. We start with a bunch of construction workers and then bodies begin to fall around them. It tries its best to tie itself to the terror of 9/11 but the horror is constantly undermined by the ridiculous acting. The head construction guy, rather than go through any sort of disbelief, which I guess would be the normal reaction, seems to cry almost immediately. And then as he looks up and bodies rain on him, he says in hushed tones, ‘God in heaven.’ Who talks like that? Only people in Shyamalanland. For some reason he tries to make every piece of dialogue seem incredibly profound - instead it comes over as corny.

However, there are greater moments of silliness. One of the best features a man who lies down before a massive lawnmower and lets it run over him, splattering lots of blood all over a beautifully manicured lawn. Yeah, did no one think that this might look ridiculous? Oh no, not a giant lawnmower lumbering very slowly towards an incapacitated man! Such visions haunt my dreams. That and the thought of breaking my spine in a flower-watering incident and having malicious squirrels stuff nuts up my anus until I explode.

But even more sniggersome is the scene where a man gets his arm ripped off by a lion. Okay, so this has a more believable bend to it, as many a crazy bastard has tried to make ‘friends’ with the wild animals before. But here the horror is immediately diluted by the way the scene is filmed. Alright, so we have Mark Wahlberg talking to the young daughter of a friend of his and he does his best to cheer her up. He even succeeds. But then some stranger next to Markie Mark taps him on the shoulder and shows him a video on her iphone. We then see grisly footage of a lion ripping a man’s arm off. Yeah, don’t worry kid, everything will be alright. You’ll just either stab yourself in the head, javelin into a minefield, crucify yourself with a nail gun or rip your belly open and have vultures feast on your innards. Nothing bad is going to happen. Smile that smile again!

Another death scene that had me guffawing was the one where John Leguizamo dies. He’s trying to rescue his wife, and he drives off with some strangers in a Jeep, but then everyone succumbs to the toxins the plants have released. We see the Jeep stop and then it speeds towards a tree and people go flying through the windshield. However, Leguizamo survives the crash and slashes his wrists. Again, any potential horror is undermined by the way the crash is filmed. It’s speeded up! It looks like something out of The Cannonball Run. And because Leguizamo’s character is such an idiot, I found myself beaming when he cut through his cables.

However, I think the pièce de résistance comes near the end. Wahlberg and his idiot wife hide in the house of a mad old woman. She spouts nonsense and behaves irrationally and then she gets infected by the toxin. We then see her enter a trance and start circling the house from the outside. Okay, so this is the one unsettling moment in the film. It actually has a bit of tension. But then the woman appears at the window and headbutts it, a shard of glass sticking out of her eye. But this doesn’t kill her so she walks to the next window and headbutts that one. The wind then rushes into the room and Markie Mark has to run for his life. The scene, like most of the film, is insane, and unintentionally hilarious at the same time. Never mind Shyamalan’s heavy handed attempts to preach to us (our self destructive instincts are going to kill us and our planet!) – just watch the nonsense that is a mad old lady committing suicide by trying to destroy her glazing.

But just to show out of synch Shyamalan is with his audience, take the scenes where he tries to generate real laughs. There’s one scene where Wahlberg is in a room with a plant. He almost shits himself and then begins talking to it, saying that he only wants to use the toilet and that he’s trying to send out good vibes. He then touches it and realises that it’s plastic. I almost wanted to cry, so inane was the laboured attempt at humour and so amateurish the acting.

And Wahlberg is horribly miscast in this film. He’s meant to be a Science teacher. Fair enough, Wahlberg is okay when he’s cast properly (basically he has to either play a moron or a thug). But a Science teacher? Every time he talks scientifically he gazes into the distance, like someone on the far horizon is holding a massive idiot board. Either that or he’s trying to concentrate and he needs to somehow relax his facial muscles so that he can reach inside his mind, scratch his brain and remember his dialogue.

But then at other times he changes his inflections. Normal statements suddenly become questions. It’s like Shyamalan accidentally italicised his dialogue when he sent it to the printers.

However, Zooey Deschanel, who plays Wahlberg’s wife, turns in an even more embarrassing performance. Her character is a complete airhead and demands a horrid death – maybe she could take her mobile phone, connect it to a charger, stick it in her vagina and pee herself so that she dies of electrocution. But no, she bumbles her way through the film and gets through unscathed. She doesn’t even lose bladder control. And to add insult to injury, these horrifying events solidify their marriage. Once again traumatic events strengthen a rocky union. What a load of bollocks.

The end leaves the two main characters remarkably content. Never mind the fact that they saw many people commit suicide. Never mind the fact that one of their best friends slashed his wrists. Never mind the fact that two children they befriended got their heads blown off with a shotgun. No, that means nothing. These events made them grow as people. The Happening was a good thing.

But of course, this wouldn’t be a Shyamalan film if it didn’t have a sting in the tail. At the very, very end, after the crisis is over in America, France gets attacked. The film ends with a bunch of Frenchies about to kill themselves. Can we look forward to a sequel where men in striped shirts, riding bicycles with onions around their necks, ride in unison into the Seine? One can only hope.

This is how subtle Death Wish 3 is: there's a bit where the stupid police chief stamps on a cockroach. That kind of says it all really. Why bother with laws, why bother with a constitution and why bother with a police force – they only get in the way. What you really need to keep the streets safe is a big gun…and lots of bullets…and maybe a machine gun… and perhaps a grenade launcher too. Because, hey, if those liberal pinkos have their way there will only be anarchy.

Paul Kersey's day starts off really badly. Not only do synthesisers, weeping saxophones, twangy guitars and a smarmy piano accompany his trip to New York, but by the time he gets there his best mate has been killed. How unlucky can you get? Well, to make matters worse, one of the people that kills his best mate is Bill S. Preston, Esq. Oh, and when he gets there, just as his friend is dying in his arms, he gets arrested for his murder. Damn. But then, after getting beaten up by the police, and ramming a fat porker's bulbous head through prison bars, and enraging the head of a local gang, he gets unofficial approval from the stupid police chief to go on a one man killing rampage…which is nice.

Death Wish 3 is a guilty pleasure. After all, it's dumb, it's fascistic and it's badly filmed, but a number of people greater than the population of San Marino get brutally killed, so it rules. I mean, how can you not dig a film where people are set on fire, thrown off buildings and shot at point blank range with grenade launchers? Anyone with a penis should enjoy this. So if you don't like it, you're probably either a woman or Dale Winton.

Where do I start when it comes to the best death in Death Wish 3? The grenade launcher killing is a classic, but the firebombing is probably even better – the punks firebomb the flat of an elderly couple and they come running out, in flames, and then get mowed down with Uzis. But then there's death by broom and all the machine gun slayings. However, I also dig the bit when a bunch of bikers, in leather daddy gear, get blasted to pieces by a bunch of disgruntled neighbourhood residents. An armed society is a polite society.

But this praise for other characters takes away from the Bronsoninator's contribution. Never before has one man killed so many people. He mows down punks with his mate's Browning machine gun and then he blows them away with his unfeasibly huge Magnum – normally I'd suggest that Bronson was making up for certain shortcomings, but there's no way the man wasn't hung.

And it's his Magnum technique that impresses most. He can dodge a hail of bullets simply by slowly crouching down on one knee. Genius! And then there are the people he kills. One man, who's trying to rape a black woman, is the spitting image of Freddie Mercury. Another, who he throws off a roof, is Frost out of Aliens. And he even kills The Giggler…while eating an ice cream! "They killed The Giggler, man! They killed The Giggler!"

But perhaps the best Bronson killing is the one where he coolly kills a couple of punks who are trying to nick his car. At the time he's having dinner with a Jewish couple, but he politely excuses himself, shoots the punks and then returns to finish his grub. What a gentleman.

But it's not all fun and games. Bronson's lady gets killed. But the woman should have known better. Any woman that gets close to the Bronsoninator is immediately doomed. It's the James Bond rule. I mean, we can't have our bloodthirsty heroes suddenly become happy and content, can we? So she has to die. And at least she goes out in style. She gets a headbutt for her troubles and then succumbs in a car crash. Of course, just in case she might survive, the car spontaneously blows up. You've got to make sure these damn women die, haven’t you?

Not that any of this seems to bother Bronson. He merely goes along with his bloodthirsty rampage, squinting at the targets he's going to blow into bloody pieces. And what of his targets? Well, the gang he takes on is isn't especially formidable. In fact, they're rather camp. They wear bandanas, headbands, string vests, fingerless gloves, sleeveless shirts, leather jackets, chain belts, lots of studs and one even wears a cute little cut off vest so that he can show off his rock hard abs. Actually, now that I think about it, they dress and prance like a bunch of failed Fame auditionees. Perhaps that's why they're so mad. They just want to be in a chorus line but they can't get a gig. Maybe that's why they kidnap, rape and kill a poor Mexican lady. They want to get their own back on any tang they can get their hands on. The way they emerge from their hiding place – the bushes, of course – certainly suggests this. They leap out like coked-up ballerinas. But then they all get brutally killed, so their Broadway ambitions sadly go unfulfilled.

Oh, and the leader of the gang looks like Hawk out of Legion of Doom. Unfortunately, though, his facepaint doesn’t look as cool. He just has a red line running down his skull and he has a couple of black lines on his forehead. It makes him look like a menstruating woman has rubbed her vagina on his cranium and then he’s fallen on a couple of pieces of coal. It’s not the most formidable of looks.

But hey, who cares about the punks? Not I. Indeed, Death Wish 3 has made me see the light. All we need to keep the streets safe are vicious vigilantes, dispensing their wonderful brand of arbitrary justice. Only then will we be free from the tyranny of punks, hoods and lowlifes. I never knew that a Jewish food critic could be so delightfully fascist.

"The underprivileged are beating our goddamned brains out. You know what I say? Stick 'em in concentration camps. That's what I say."

Ah, the wisdom of Death Wish.

However, not everyone thinks that way. Paul Kersey certainly doesn't. At the start of Michael Winner's vigilante wet dream, Kersey is a 'bleeding heart liberal'. He even has sympathy for people who aren't fabulously wealthy. What a fool!

Death Wish starts with Kersey on holiday with his wife. Everything is idyllic – the sun is shinning, waves are lapping on the beach and Kersey's wife poses for several snapshots. Then they go back to their hotel room to have sex. What a mistake. You never have sex with Paul Kersey and live to tell the tale.

But despite this well-known fact, the Kerseys are oblivious. They just finish their holiday and return to New York. Then five minutes later, Kersey's wife and daughter are attacked by the monster that is Jeff Goldblum (playing 'Freak #1'). The rape scene that follows, if it weren't filmed by a filmmaker that is wholly incompetent in the art of movie making, should be hard-hitting, but instead it's hilarious. Basically you have a skinhead, a Jew and a moron in a bandana raping and pillaging while spouting lines like, "Don't jive, mother." Has Michael Winner ever met anyone that doesn't drive a Rolls-Royce or anyone who doesn't dine at The Ivy? His idea of 'punks' is so quaint, so out of touch and so naive that all the hard-hitting scenes are extraordinarily camp – bandanna has an obsession with spray-painting things ("Let me paint her ass"). I guess this is what criminals do in Winner's world. They're children who have to paint swastikas everywhere.

After the rape, Kersey's wife dies (Goldblum beats her around the head while spouting the best dialogue in the film – “Goddamn rich cunt! I kill rich cunts!”) and Kersey's daughter is reduced to a catatonic mess after being forced to taste the delights of Jeff. But how does Kersey react to this news? Well, he shakes a little bit, but he hardly seems fazed (Bronson is such an expressive actor). However, there's a deeper change in Kersey. He realises that to be a liberal is to be a fool. He realises that to have sympathy is to have weakness. And he realises that the only way you can make the world a better place is to blow large holes in the heads of goddamn punks. In other words, liberalism gets you nowhere, fascism gets you everywhere.

But Kersey doesn't immediately become a killing machine. First he walks the streets with a cosh – he fills a sock with coins. But although the effects are pleasing, heavy sock killings are time consuming, energy sapping and far too messy. What any good vigilante needs is a gun. And Kersey gets his gun on a business trip to Arizona.

The Arizona sequence is actually one of the funniest. There's one bit where you have a long close-up of a noose. Do you see what those do-gooders have done to us? There was a time when you could just lynch a man. There was a time when you could string criminals (or suspected criminals) up by their neck and get instant justice. But then people had to come along with laws and courts and foolish notions like 'innocent until proven guilty'. Look what they've done. But then Kersey watches a fake cowboy stunt show. He positively glows when he sees men shooting themselves in the streets. What a much better place the world was back then: you could settle everything with your fists and a gun. Those were the days.

And so, tooled up, Kersey returns to New York (or "that toilet" as one character says). And no sooner has he landed than he's confronted by his son-in-law. How's his daughter? "She's almost a goddamned vegetable." Ah, such kindness and understanding.

So, with this news, Kersey is in the mood to start killing. However, after his first killing, like the pussy liberal that he is, he pukes. But he soon gets the hang of it (he gets plenty of practice; in the space of a ninety minute movie he gets mugged four times). Soon he's shooting black men in the back with great aplomb. And he enjoys it so much that he redecorates and starts listening to chirpy music. Killing is a great cure for depression.

Pity, though, that the police aren't impressed. For some reason they want to apprehend Kersey, even though crime rates are down. But we soon understand why. They fear that Kersey is too effective. They fear that there will be a wave of vigilantism and that the public will no longer have a need for the police. What scumbags. They're denying us a utopia, a utopia where muggers, perverts, poor people and people who look at you funny are shot on sight by squinty-eyed madmen. The world needs more Kerseys!

However, the film doesn't broach the subject that if there was widespread vigilantism that the criminals would become more desperate, more ruthless and more dangerous. That would be too sensible and would require too much thought. Plus it would get in the way of a great wet dream, one where the pampered middle classes can shoot punks at will. If only...

When I was at school, there was nothing more exciting than a fight. It was better than being picked for the school football team or getting an A in English. A surge of excitement would burst through the entire year group. It would be the only thing on everyone’s lips.

The problem, though, back then, wasn’t trying to prevent an awful event from happening or trying to calm everyone down. The problem was trying to ensure that both parties remained angry enough to continue with the fight at the end of the school day. Yes, we were bloodthirsty little bastards.

But while I saw many fights at school – one that involved lots of biting, one that involved a boxer fighting a fat kid, one that involved karate and one that ended in a single punch – I never had to take part in one myself. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have been so quick to encourage adolescent brawling.

Three O’Clock High takes this frenzied excitement and filters it through a poor kid who is unlucky enough to have to fight school bully Buddy Revell. You see, the kid here, Jerry, is a bit of a nerd, and when he’s assigned to write a piece on a new student by the editor of the school paper, he does what his job demands of him. He talks to the kid. But Buddy Revell looks more like a caveman in a leather jacket than a child. He’s not the sort of person who wants to answer questions. And if school rumour is to be believed, then Buddy has broken necks and put people in hospital for touching him. So when Jerry makes the mistake of touching Buddy’s shoulder, he’s thrown into a mirror and told that he’s going to get beaten up when the bell rings at 3 o’clock. The fight is on.

Three O’Clock High is a simple film, but there is a tiny bit of ambiguity when it comes to Buddy Revell – he’s not your typical school bully. The typical school bully is the kid who instigates trouble, but here you have someone who just wants to be left alone and who doesn’t want to be touched. So therefore he runs against the grain of cinematic school bullies. At the same time, though, the film doesn’t go to any lengths to understand him. But seeing as the film is shot through Jerry’s perspective, this decision is the right one. Buddy is just a characterless bogeyman. He’s every nerd’s nightmare come to life – the unyielding, unstoppable giant that’s going to box your ears.

Quite what the point of the film is, I don’t know. That the only way to become a man is to fight? That sometimes you have to solve your problems with violence? I’m not sure. But it doesn’t really matter. The film only wants to entertain. And besides, when you’re a kid, you often find yourself in ridiculous situations. What matters is whether you learn anything from them.

But like I say, Three O’Clock High isn’t really concerned with things like this. As its title suggests, it’s a high school spin on a western and as such the final confrontation is inevitable. There’s no getting out of it. A date with destiny is etched on the school’s clock face.

Not that Jerry doesn’t try and worm his way out of the fight. And there are lots of amusing scenes that feature Jerry’s increasingly desperate attempts to avoid his date with Buddy. At first he tries to drive home, but he finds a knife stabbed into the steering wheel of his car and his engine is vandalised. Then he tries to reason with Buddy. That doesn’t work. But his best attempt to not have to fight is when he bribes a football player to beat Buddy up. Jerry watches from behind a couple of bookcases as the football player confronts Buddy in the library. But when the football player pokes Buddy in the chest, the football player gets his finger broken and he gets thrown into the bookcases. The bookcases then topple over and eventually reveal our hero cowering behind them. It’s a very funny moment.

Another great scene is when Jerry decides to get a detention. The reasoning behind this is that if he’s in detention, he can’t fight after school. So he’s in his English class and has to give a book report. Cue the massive nerd picking up some sunglasses and smoking a cigarette as he tries to give a rebellious interpretation of the novel he’s read. But I love how even when he tries to sound cool he still ends up sounding like a geek: ‘I was thinking about the syntax and how it affected the overall mood.’ What jock would talk like that?

But unfortunately for Jerry, his English teacher, who looks like a prim, young librarian, is aroused rather than insulted by his report. And so instead of getting detention, he gets kissed.

But although I like the book report scene, I do think that the kissing takes things a bit too far. I know the film is supposed to be surreal, but the moment is a little queasy. I’m well aware that every boy has fantasised about one of his teachers, but to see the fantasy filmed as some sort of reality gives the scene a slightly unpleasant vibe. And the ending, where the teacher comes in all glammed up and snogs Jerry in front of his girlfriend feels even worse. Sure the film could be interpreted as some sort of fevered dream where weird and wonderful things happen, but it gives the ending a slightly distasteful, predatory paedo feeling to it.

In fact, the women don’t come off very well at all in this film. Jerry’s girlfriend is a goth who thinks she talks to a guardian angel. Oookay. Then you have the girl that Jerry has a crush on. The girl in question is a vapid blonde with poodle hair who talks in a such a hushed way that it sounds like she’s had a stroke. Quite what the kid sees in her, I don’t know. And then of course you have the horny teacher who jumps a child in public.

But thankfully there’s lots of other good things, like Mitch Pileggi playing a weird security guard who has a possible homoerotic relationship with the Dean (the Dean is called ‘The Dean of Discipline’ and has a Hitler fixation), Jerry having to break an unbreakable cash register with a fire extinguisher and a group of cheerleaders beating a piñata in the shape of an American football player with sticks as the baying crowd shouts ‘kill it!’ I was also impressed with some of the camerawork. There are some really inventive visuals, even if once or twice it felt like needless showboating. And the fight at the end is great fun as well. Jerry, with the aid of some brass knucks, topples the Giant and becomes a modern David.

And at the end, Jerry even gains the respect of Buddy. But again, this could possibly leave a bad taste in the mouth. Is the film saying that the real way to gain respect is to win a fight rather than to show intelligence or reasoning? Maybe. Maybe not. But thankfully Three O’Clock High is an amusing film with a lot of visual verve. There isn’t a whole lot to it, but for the most part it pushes the right buttons.

After the mess that was The Phantom Menace, you’d be hard pressed to make a worse Star Wars film. But somehow George Lucas reached into his mangy beard and produced an even stinkier piece of shit. This film doesn’t even have the benefit of a couple of really good set pieces to make it somewhat watchable. You just have mind-numbingly tedious action followed by risible dialogue scenes. It’s a chore to sit through.

Of course, one of the worst things is the romance between Anakin and Padme. They loll about in fields and have picnics and look at waterfalls. It’s like they’re ten or something. It’s so sexless, it’s laughable.

And then there’s the dialogue. The quote that springs to mind is this gem that Anakin says: ‘I don’t like sand. It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything’s soft and smooth.’ And then he touches Padme. Dear Lord, I know people try and make excuses. They try and say that Star Wars isn’t Shakespeare. Fair enough, it isn’t. But at least when Lawrence Kasdan was writing the scripts, you didn’t want to shower the screen with laughter-propelled vomit.

And oh how it hurts to have one of the coolest characters in cinema – Darth Vader – be a flaccid, pouting teenager. Really, this is what drove Vader into insanity? He missed his mummy? Because that’s really what starts everything off. He misses his mum, then feels that she’s in pain and tries to rescue her.

However, when Anakin finally finds his mummy, she’s been tied up by some Sandpeople. It’s not quite clear whether they’ve been boning her as well as beating her, but she’s clearly in bad shape. And therefore Anakin must wreak a terrible vengeance by slaughtering them. Okay, so having some lanky aliens enslave you mum is pretty bad. I can accept that. If my mother was taken by hostile aliens, I’d be upset, too. But why does Anakin have to be such a girl about it? When he tells Padme, he begins pouting and crying. He’s like a teen having a hissy fit. We want Vader to be a badass. We don’t want him to be a character off Dawson’s Creek.

And Padme defies belief as well. She forgives Anakin in a second after he tells her that he slaughtered all the Sandpeople – children and women as well as men. I don’t know about you, but if my other half suddenly confessed to genocide, I might have to rethink our relationship. You know, that’s kind of fundamental. No cheating, no stealing and no genocide.

But Anakin tries to excuse himself by saying they’re animals and that he slaughtered them like animals. [pout] So maybe Padme forgives him because she’s a racist cow and she thinks that senseless killing is fine if the aliens don’t have beautiful white skin. In which case, fuck the pair of them!

One of the film’s biggest selling points when it came out was that Jango Fett was going to be in it – the father of Boba Fett (every geek’s favourite secondary Star Wars character). But why the fuck is Dr Ropata from crappy Kiwi soap Shortland Street playing him? Never has the quote “You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata” been more accurate. (Shortland Street joke that 0.0001% of the population will get? High five!)

But yes, we have Jango Fett and he’s a colossal disappointment. The biggest reason that he sucks is his voice. The Kiwi accent just isn’t threatening. It brings to mind large, roaming fields and men having sex with sheep behind barns. I mean, compare his voice to the voice of Boba Fett in the original trilogy (before George fucked with them). The original Boba sounded hard as nails. He sounded cool. Now he sounds like a farmer.

And do I really want to see Boba as a child? No. But again George has to be all weird and paedo-like and have Jango Fett and his son Boba hang around together without a woman in sight. Therefore there are lots of scenes with the annoying child encouraging his father to kick Jedi ass.

I also hate the idea of a clone army. You see, even though you hear about the Clone Wars in the original trilogy, you’re never told what it entails. You’re never told it entails silly-looking, lanky aliens cloning millions of Dr Ropatas to go to war. Seriously, that’s…shit.

And why do all the Dr Ropata stormtroopers have to be CGI? Okay, when you’re doing a massive wide shot with millions of men, you need CGI. But when it’s a close-up, why do you have to ruin everything with obvious computer effects? Are suits and extras really that expensive?

But the stormtroopers aren’t the only things that are completely CGI. After the horrific muppet in The Phantom Menace, we now have a CGI Yoda. And he looks, well…like a CGI Yoda. He never looks remotely tangible. He never looks like you could reach out and touch him and fondle him. He’s just a pixelated version of Yoda who exists purely in that form so that he can have a fight at the end.

And how piss poor is the fight at the end of the film? We have Yoda, a little green blob, versus old man Christopher Lee. It’s as bad as it sounds. You have an old age pensioner fighting an annoying green blur that bounces across the screen like a midget on meth. It can’t compare to the fight at the end of The Phantom Menace.

But worse than this is the Jedi fight at the Coliseum. Not only do we have to see lots of crappy alien Jedi fighting robots and flying insects, but we have to endure the attempts at ‘humour’. You see, in a hil-arious mix-up, C-3PO’s head gets fused onto a battle droid. Therefore he goes around helplessly watching himself kill Jedi while uttering moronic lines like, ‘I’m programmed for etiquette, not destruction’. I almost started sobbing. This is supposed to be funny?

And while I’m on the subject of droids, how come R2-D2 can fly now? He never did that in the original trilogy – he was just a tin can on wheels. Now he can do all kinds of fancy shit. Yet more proof of the way that CGI cripples the imagination.

But is there anything decent in the film? Well, the action scene with the flying cars was okay, I guess. But all that did was make me wish that I was watching Blade Runner.

To me, one of the most terrifying things in the world is the fact that a lot of Americans vote for their President based on whether they would like to have a beer with them or not. That certainly wouldn’t be my criteria. I want to vote for someone who’s far smarter than me, who has poise, who’s an excellent orator and who has lots of great ideas. I don’t want someone I could hang out with. I want a leader.

But still, in American politics, there persists this notion that the President should be an everyman (or everywoman). He or she should have the common touch. Fair enough, a President has to be able to connect with people, but with George W. Bush the notion has been taken too far. Yes, despite his persona, he’s far from a regular guy (coming from a wealthy family, having your daddy be a former President and going to Harvard will set you apart quite a bit from Joe Bloggs), but although he comes from a privileged background, he’s still a simple man. And that’s what makes his story both comic and frightening. In George W. Bush you can see the reflection of the ordinary citizen, the sort of person who while not mean-spirited or completely stupid, doesn’t understand subtlety or nuance. And as such, with Bush’s Presidency you see what happens when an empty shell of a person becomes the country’s leader. And what happens is chaos.

According to Oliver Stone’s enjoyable biopic, all George W. Bush wants is approval. He wants approval from his daddy and he wants approval from his voters. And that’s what’s so frightening about him. He doesn’t appear to be a wicked person. He just appears to be an opportunist, bouncing around a directionless life until he became President. And then when he gets there, he has nothing to do. Well, until 9/11 happens. Then he gets the chance to be a hero.

One of the recurring themes of the film is George W. standing in a baseball field raising his arms to an empty crowd. All he wants is applause and adulation. He wants the validation his father struggles to give him. So all the time, while in office, he’s trying to please the American voters. He’s trying to avenge 9/11 and he’s trying to protect its citizens. Therefore you have the Iraq war, Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. Bush thinks that these are all wonderful things that are going to secure his legacy as a great guy. Little does he know that these things are choking his country.

The real villains of the piece are Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. They’re Bush’s puppet masters. They’re the ones who really control his policies.

There’s a wonderful scene about halfway through the film where Bush’s cabinet are discussing a potential war with Iraq. Everyone has their own ideas but then Dick Cheney (played by Richard Dreyfuss) presents a plan to oust Saddam’s regime so that America can gain possession of the oil fields. He says that if they control the supply nobody will fuck with them anymore. The scene is rather chilling in the greed and selfishness that is displayed by Cheney, and in the naivety that Bush shows. I really do think that he believed that he was going to make the world safer rather than make it more chaotic.

Another scene that sent a shiver down my spine is the one where Bush and Cheney talk about using torture. Bush wolfs down a sandwich and drinks from a glass with a large Presidential seal on it as they discuss whether it’s okay to torture US citizens. They decide that it is, if they believe they’re terrorists. And then Cheney argues that if you have a one percent doubt that an unfriendly country has nukes, you should act. The recklessness displayed is pure insanity, a point not lost on Oliver Stone who, in one scene, frames Bush in such a way to make him look like General Ripper in Dr Strangelove. The lunatics really are running the asylum.

But while I was impressed with Richard Dreyfuss’ performance as Dick Cheney, other performances fell flat on faces. Jeffrey Wright, while not awful, doesn’t look anywhere near old enough to be Colin Powell and his performance comes over as something of a mediocre imitation of the man. Then you have Ioan Gruffudd in a brief cameo as Tony Blair. He just isn’t smarmy enough. But the worst performance by far is turned in by Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. She plays her like a simpering retard. Newton is always doing this ridiculous face like she’s shitting her knickers and her voice is exaggerated so much that she becomes a caricature. It’s embarrassing.

Thankfully, though, at the centre you have a marvellous performance by Josh Brolin. When the production began, I thought the casting was ridiculous, but Brolin pulls everything off. He manages to make you recoil from the man yet feel sorry for him at the same time. His W. just wants to be liked. He wants to be patted on the back. And with Brolin in the role you get to see replays of famous speeches and incidents that never feel like they’re pure imitations. You really do feel like Brolin becomes George W. Therefore moments in time as shown in the film feel authentic. Just take the scene where George W. can’t give an answer for what he did wrong in Iraq. You really do feel his panic, as the man is briefly forced to deal with something that isn’t in the script.

And the script is what Bush desperately wants to follow. He wants an ending with a curtain call and with applause from everyone. I mean, at the end of Stone’s film we see Bush on a baseball field waiting to catch a ball that never comes back down to Earth. The man got us into a game he can’t finish and there’s no end in sight. Therefore W.’s neat ending is denied him. He won’t be the hero he desperately wants to be.

From the director of Bridget Jones’ Diary comes a film about terrorism. If you think that sounds like a recipe for cinematic gold then you must be demented.

As you’d expect from someone who made such a wretched piece of fluff, the emotions here are laid on rather thick. This isn’t a film that knows a whole lot about subtlety. They might as well have just issued a box of hankies at the door.

The film begins with an exceedingly cute child having fun with his mummy. He’s so damn cute and so damn loveable that you know he’s not going to make it through the film alive. And then when you realise that the film is called Incendiary, you know he’s going to get blown into a million little pieces.

Now having your son die in a terrorist attack is bad enough, but the film decides to make it several degrees worse. First of all, the mother in this film, played by Michelle Williams, is no longer that enamoured with her husband. She thinks he’s a miserable sod. Therefore their relationship is rather loveless. However, not to fear, a sleazy journalist played by Ewan McGregor pops up. And no sooner have they exchanged a few words than they’re exchanging bodily fluids on the young mother’s sofa. Crikey. (And no ladies, you don’t get to see Ewan’s penis in this film. However, you do get to see everything else.) And as they’re humping and pumping, they have a football game on the television. And at this game are the woman’s husband and young son. And would you believe it, as Ewan’s boning the shit out of her, the stadium goes ka-boom and it’s goodbye husband and son. Me thinks that that’s a shag she’s not going to forget for a long time.

After this you’d kind of think that the woman would suffer some pretty serious psychosexual problems. But this doesn’t stop the woman from having sex with the head of the anti-terrorist unit (the woman’s husband was in bomb disposal, so this guy was a work colleague). And this guy seems really nice. He just wants to look after her. Nevermind that he’s dull as ditchwater and that he loves caravans. He’s just a good, honest guy. Well, or so you’d think. I guess the woman should have noted the fact that the man has a beard, and as we all know, men with beards always have something to hide. Why else would they cover themselves in facial shrubbery? You see, the man knew that the terrorist attack was going to happen and did nothing to stop it. Oh, that’s pretty bad, isn’t it? You were cheating on your husband as he went up in flames and now you’ve shagged the man who could have stopped it from happening. Maybe those psychosexual problems will finally kick in.

If this all sounds far-fetched, it’s because it is. But the film isn’t finished with the nonsense. The woman strikes up a friendship with the young son of one of the bombers. Okay, this has potential for bonding and mutual healing. But no, there’s a sequence where the two of them are at Waterloo train station. The kid is still unaware that his daddy was one of the bombers – he thinks he’s just gone away – and as he’s waiting for the woman to buy tickets, he sees newspapers with his dad’s face plastered all over them. Needless to say he’s a bit upset and begins behaving a little erratically. He then runs away. The police see this and because he’s Asian and has a backpack, they take chase. The woman chases as well, and they all end up on an empty train platform. Every party shouts a lot, and as the boy reaches into his jacket, the police prepare to shoot. But as a marksman pulls the trigger, the woman steps into his sights and gets shot in the head by mistake. Holy Jean Charles de Menezes, Batman, the police fucked up again!

But don’t fear. The woman only gets grazed by a bullet so everything is hunky-dory.

Amongst all this ridiculous melodrama there are a few good scenes. The best one is when the mother seriously begins to lose the plot and thinks that her son has come back. She spends all her time in the flat playing with him. She then leaves to get some food and the spell is broken when she actually has some real human interaction. When she rushes back her son is no longer there and she’s devastated.

However, this scene leads directly to another one of the film’s maudlin flights of fancy. In response to the tragedy, a barrage balloon for every victim hangs in the sky with a picture of the victim on it. This to me sounds like an awful idea. Could you imagine that? You’re just trying to get over the ordeal and you look out of the window and see your little Billy grinning from the sky. Yeah, nice one.

And so the woman realises that her son is really dead and decides to visit his barrage balloon. And to do so she has to stand on a tall roof and teeter on the edge. Will she kill herself or not? Now the barrage balloons I hated (even though they make a neat visual, the very idea is incredibly OTT), but we now have another one of the film’s few decent sequences. We see the boy and the father talking about the Great Fire of London. The boy asks what they did back then, and the father says that everyone had a cup of tea. We then have a voiceover where the woman says that many people have tried to destroy this city but no one has succeeded. Every time someone tries to knock it down, we rebuild. And that’s what she’s got to do with her life. She’s got to rebuild it. The film didn’t deserve to generate any emotion, but a love of my home city meant that for once I actually felt something in this preposterous movie.

A couple of other things that are wrong with this film: the attack is meant to happen at an Arsenal game. However, probably because of licensing problems, the fans and players wear fake kits. A real Arsenal logo is nowhere to be seen. And we also have lots of moments where we hear the woman writing letters to Osama bin Laden. She wonders whether he celebrated when he heard about the bomb. Have the filmmakers forgotten that Osama is a massive Arsenal fan? For greater authenticity they should have had him blow up Tottenham Hotspur. Or at the very least, West Ham United. Maybe then it might have seemed a bit more real.

I’m sure like many kids who grew up in the 80s I thought it would be neat to see Darth Vader before he turned evil. You know, how did he turn into such a gigantic bastard? And how did all the Jedi get wiped out? Yeah, I kind of wish I’d never found out.

The biggest mistake in The Phantom Menace is the casting of a kid as Anakin Skywalker. Come on, who really wants to see Darth Vader as a nine-year old? Who wants to see the evil one at an age where he’s still being tucked in for beddy-byes? Well, George Lucas apparently. But he surely must be the only one.

In the first trilogy we’re constantly told that Luke Skywalker is too old to start the training. I always thought this seemed strange, seeing as he looked about ten. But finally we have a kid who actually is about ten and once again we’re told he’s too old to start Jedi training. For fucks sake, how young do the Jedi take them? On second thoughts, maybe I don’t really want to know.

But the consequences of casting a child in the role are disastrous. Lucas is obviously under the impression that seeing Vader as an innocent child will add to the tragedy, but instead it just gives the film a queasy paedo vibe.

First of all, there’s the idea that little kids will be whisked away from their parents by strange men. ‘Oh, hello. I’ve just met your son. Just seeing him made me feel the Force quite strongly. Do you mind if I take him far away so that I can train him? Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. I’ll teach him well and you’ll never see him again. Bye.’ Doubtless the children are whisked away by the promise of puppies and sweeties in the Jedi’s cockpit.

Then there’s how inappropriate the relationship is between Anakin and the Queen, played by Natalie Portman. From the very start we know they become lovers, so every time they share a lingering glance you remember that at a later date they’re going to butt heads. It’s icky. This woman is going to nail this seven year-old.

One instance occurs after Anakin has left his mother’s bosom. He’s talking to the Queen and seems rather sad. ‘I care for you,’ he says. ‘Only I…’ And then the Queen butts in and says that he misses his mother. No, I don’t think that’s it. He has a new mother now. One who probably gives him a strange feeling somewhere. He feels the Force every time he sees her. Blech.

And at the very end when the Queen lovingly looks over at Anakin, I could only think that they’re going to shag. I do believe I almost puked in my mouth.

Jesus Christ. Why couldn’t Lucas just make him a teenager? You’d have better choice as regards acting talent and you wouldn’t be constantly reminded of how inappropriate the whole thing is. I mean, for fuck’s sake, the Jedi council meet up at the top of a tower that looks exactly like a giant phallus. And there they interrogate little children and get them to reveal their deepest fears. They should have stayed with their mothers.

And while I’m on the subject of the Jedi, I have to mention how disappointing they are. In the first trilogy, you only have Obi Wan and Luke Skywalker to look to. And they were cool – well, Luke was cool eventually. Therefore, when you think about many Jedi, you think of a group of brilliant warrior monks. You know, hardasses that are all spiritual and shit. But instead you have a bunch of terminally boring dullards who sit there all day talking nonsense. Plus the Council looks like an alien Benetton commercial. You have an alien of every shape, size and colour as a member. They don’t look like warriors. They look like they’re advertising a diversity campaign. And one of them is even a conehead. The alien design in this film is appalling.

Speaking of design, Yoda looks rotten in this film. Somehow puppet technology has regressed in the 16 years between The Phantom Menace and Return of the Jedi. It looks like Yoda has been injecting himself with Botox – his face is expressionless.

And it’s horrible how the film kills the mystery of the previous trilogy. Suddenly the Force is a virus or something. It lives in our blood and we can even take a test to see how strong it is in us. Great. Instead of the Force being an amorphous connection with the universe, it’s now like a good form of HIV. ‘The bad news is you have a blood disorder. The good news, though, is that it means you can pick up shit with your mind and see the future.’

And apparently the midi-chlorians (the things that live in someone’s blood and communicate with the Force) had sex with Anakin’s mum and conceived him. He has no father. Sigh. So now Anakin is Jesus gone bad. This is what would have happened to Christ if he’d been an alien, if he’d had a lightsaber and if he’d listened to Satan? Great.

But the worst thing about the film is all the racial stereotypes. The bad guys speak in comedy Japanese accents, Jar Jar is a buffoonish black man and Watto is a miserly Jew. They’re all handled with the subtlety of a Nazi salute up your arse. And even though Jar Jar is thoroughly irritating and objectionable, it’s Watto who is perhaps the most offensive. After all, he’s hideously ugly, he has a hook nose and he worships money above everything else. You’d think that Adolf himself had conceived this character.

And the CGI for Watto is completely gratuitous. He flies. But not for any real reason, just because he can. Now that ILM has the technology, Lucas decides he wants his characters to crawl and fly and slither and run across the screen. There’s visual clutter everywhere. Every frame is over-packed with…stuff.

There are only two good things in the film: the fight with Darth Maul and the pod race. And even the pod race is packed with nonsense. First we have the annoying two-headed commentator, then we have silly aliens that look like they’ve popped up from a Looney Tunes cartoon and then we have the predictability of the whole sequence. But still, the pod effects are good and it’s reasonably exciting. For a very brief time, you have fun.

But far better is the lightsaber duel. It almost makes the film worthwhile.

What’s so pleasing about the lightsaber fight is how simple it’s kept. Yes you have the gimmick of the double-ended dildo (I mean saber), but apart from that it’s just three people trying to chop each other to bits. There’s no dialogue, no distractions in the background. It’s just a good, pure fight.

My favourite bit is when it’s just down to Maul and Obi Wan. There’s real intensity between them. They’re really going for it. This is how you envisioned another Star Wars film when you were a kid.

But just to bring you down to Earth, cut around the fight are three awful action sequences. There’s a tiresome space battle, a pointless blaster shoot-out, and, worst of all, a hideous CGI battle between the Gungans and some robots. Somehow we’re meant to enjoy the sight of Jar Jar Binks accidentally killing robots by getting a robot torso stuck to his leg. Oh how endearing. Oh how hilarious. Yes, fart gags, idiot aliens and paedophilic relationships were just what the Star Wars series needed.

I've seen You Only Live Twice countless times now, but the same question always pops in my head. How does a pudding bowl wig and a shave turn a burly six-foot Scotsman into a Japanese? And how come the indigenous population of the island he sneaks onto don't stand and stare at him? He doesn't look the slightest bit Asian – he looks like one of the Beatles in their Mop Top phase.

Ah, but I'm forgetting another two elements of Bond's ingenious disguise – a peasant hat and a stoop. Yep, that will fool everyone. Forget the fact that even while bending I'm still about a foot taller than everyone else and ignore the fact that the silly hat now disguises my ingenious syrup; no one will be able to tell that a stranger walks amongst them. I'm like a ghost.

Another part of Bond turning Japanese that amuses me is the fact that he also, apparently, has to have sex in the Japanese fashion. Quite what this entails, I'm not sure. However, you'll be sorely disappointed if, like me, you were expecting an impromptu bukkake scene.

But even for a Bond film, You Only Live Twice isn't half packed full of nonsense. A scene that immediately springs to mind is when a pervy ginger broad captures 007. She has him tied up, and she threatens to slice him to bits, but then she apparently has a change of heart and cuts Bond loose so he can have his way with her. But then in the next scene she traps him in a plane, jumps free and tries to make him plummet to his death. Of all the contrived ways to kill Bond this must be the worst. I mean, if she was so desperate to have sex with him, why not do the dirty and shoot him in the head afterwards? It would make more sense than going to all the trouble of pretending to be on his side and then trapping him in a plane.

Another piece of stupidity comes from Blofeld. He's got Bond in his evil clutches and he tells him that "this is the price of failure". To which he shoots one of his underlings in the face. But then he apparently spares Bond and leads him to his groovy monorail. However, once he's there, he goes to shoot Bond. Of course, someone prevents this from happening, but why didn't Blofeld just shoot his underling and then shoot Bond. Why go to the trouble of walking a few paces where some ninja can get in the way? I know Bond has to hold onto his life through a mixture of luck and stupidity from his nemesis, but in You Only Live Twice it gets taken a bit too far.

Not to say that You Only Live Twice is a poor Bond film. In fact, in many regards it's a superb one – the score is one of John Barry's best, the volcano lair is great fun and Donald Pleasance is a memorable villain – but there are many weak elements. For instance, many parts of the film feel like a travelogue – in one scene Bond goes to a sumo match, not because it furthers the plot but just to show something that, at the time, would have been unusual and exotic for the audience. Another weak element is the story; there hardly is one. And then you have strange little details that make no sense. How come Blofeld can watch the outside of his spacecraft in space – who's filming them? And in the scene where a helicopter dumps a car in Tokyo bay, who's filming that (Bond watches it on a monitor)? These moments of silliness are present in every Bond film, but here they stand out far too much.

However, if this becomes too troubling you can at least think of Donald Pleasance as Blofeld. Sure he's been ripped to shreds by Mike Myers, but he's still a lot of fun – any man who has a volcano lair with a piranha pool in it is fine by me. And it's quite amusing to think about Blofeld's psychology. Here's a man who endlessly strokes a white pussy while gazing at a huge metallic phallus – his rocket. He's surely compensating for his embarrassing impotence. And it's also worth noting that he has a huge bodyguard that he hides behind for most of the film – staring at his backside, no less. Indeed, his face even appears from out of his bodyguard's toned arse. What's going on with those two? It's probably best not to ask…

And I also love how petty and untrustworthy Blofeld is. He'll kill anyone. Which, of course, begs you to ask why anyone would work for him? But people do and he shoots them, feeds them to ravenous fish and blows them up. Wonderful.

Something else that pleases me a great deal about You Only Live Twice is that it features Bond's encyclopaedic knowledge of booze – a facet of Connery's Bond that always cracks me up. In a scene on a train with the Japanese head of intelligence he expresses his approval that his sake is served at the correct temperature (98.4 degrees Fahrenheit in case you were wondering). Splendid.

And there's a great little moment when Bond is talking to a couple of evil SPECTRE agents. An old geezer expresses his disapproval as regards smoking and then his pervy secretary, while bending over Bond to serve him a drink, and with her tits almost in his face, says that her boss believes in a healthy chest. To which Bond has a sly look and says, "Really?" Connery's delivery is perfect.

Too bad then that for a lot of the film Connery looks a bit bored. But you can more than understand his desire at the time to move on with his career. I just wish he would have stuck to his guns and kept this as his last Bond film.

Personally, I find the idea of climbing a mountain about as appealing as repeatedly watching The Sound of Music for seven days. Both would leave me cold, dizzy and rather nauseous. But although I'm a lazy city-dweller that hates heights and who is far from physically robust, I can understand the appeal. To be able to scale such heights must fill an individual with a certain amount of pride, a pride that can't be obtained by kissing your boss's arse and by completing a crossword in a newspaper. And like the climbers in the film say, in a world that is getting increasingly safe and coddled, scaling a mountain makes them feel alive; they like the risk. It really is man versus nature.

The opening part of Touching the Void shows the fun of climbing. It shows the excitement of getting to the top and of conquering the elements. But the film really kicks in when nature rains on the parade, when it shows that survival is really the only positive outcome that can come from such a challenge.

The moment when Joe, one of the two mountaineers who climbed the Andean mountain Siula Grande, breaks his leg, shows how vulnerable we are, no matter how well equipped we might be or how much experience we might have. We can be snapped at any moment. But Joe's battle to survive the mountain also shows how strong we can be, how through determination and will we can sometimes get through the toughest situations.

But the film's also a testament to Joe's climbing partner, Simon Yates. It really is quite heroic how he almost manages to complete a single-handed rescue. I mean, he's on a mountain with a man who has a broken leg, but instead of leaving him to die, he risks his life to get his partner to the safety of camp. His effort is remarkable. And the only reason his rescue 'fails' (it can't be deemed a complete failure because without Simon's efforts Joe wouldn't have survived) is because the two are cursed with bad luck (although Joe does have some good luck in not dying after he falls into a crevasse…if surviving a fall into a crevasse can ever be deemed as good luck).

However, before the fall, there's the rope. Now the cutting of the rope was the film's main selling point. Was it wrong or was it right for Simon to cut the rope as his climbing partner hung off the side of the mountain? Well, I don't think it should even be debated. Cutting the rope saved the lives of two people. And it's not like Simon didn't try. He held on to the rope for a long time, not knowing that his partner was hanging off the side of an ice cliff. But all the time Simon was being dragged off the mountain. To hang on would have killed two people. So while the cutting of the rope was an act to save one (which itself would have been a better result than two deaths), it ended up saving the pair of them.

The real horrifying part of the film occurs after this moment, the part when Joe is stuck in the crevasse. Reading about such a predicament is one thing, but seeing it is another thing altogether (the film is superb in the way that it dramatises the events). The crevasse looks like a tomb. It looks like a place where no life can exist. And the moment when Joe screams and swears, and the bit when the real Joe says that he just cried and cried, hits the point home. This is a place you're not supposed to get out of. Therefore it's inspiring that Joe finds the strength to escape.

And it's doubly inspiring when Joe says that he doesn't believe in god and that at no time did he pray or give the almighty any thought. Perhaps the believer has the comforting daydreams of heaven and a life after death, but the atheist realises that we only get one shot at life and that we have to rely on ourselves if we want to survive. Maybe that gives the atheist an added kick to not sit down and die.

However, there are moments in the film when Joe says that he contemplated doing exactly that. And the candour with which Joe speaks is quite moving. But for some reason he keeps going.

A sequence that made me squirm was the one when Joe has to hop over the rocks. He keeps falling over and damaging his broken leg. I can't begin to imagine the pain. But the most powerful sequence is when Joe starts losing his mind. He even begins to think that Simon and Richard (their non-climbing companion) are following him as he crawls across the rocks, but he thinks they aren't helping him because they know that he'd be embarrassed about crying and wetting himself. Then he realises that they aren't there and that he's alone. It would take a man with a heart of stone not to be affected by that, and deep down I'm a complete softie.

But there is a moment of humour in the final moments. Joe gets a Boney M song stuck in his head, leading to the immortal quote: "Bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M." A truly miserable end for anyone.

The ending, though, while lacking in tension (because you know Joe survived), does come as an immense relief, especially as Joe thought he'd crawled all that way for nothing (the others might have left camp). So the final moments have an emotional wallop (although I felt like shouting at the grinning buffoon Richard: "I was holding back because I didn't really feel it was a human being out there." Just help the poor bloke, you fucking idiot!). But, idiot aside, it's a great film.