The 50 Word Review

The eponymous Melquiades Estrada is a Mexican migrant working in America when he is mistakenly shot and hastily buried in the unforgiving landscape along the border of Texas and Mexico. His body is found and buried twice more in this sad but powerful directorial debut. One to watch.

If Cherry Falls had been the product of a group of adolescent boys it surely would have been better. Instead the director was given studio money to produce this ‘made-for-television gem’ about a killer seeking retribution by slaughtering high school virgins. Essential rubbish.

Director Noah Baumbach draws on the experiences of his parent’s tumultuous divorce as the inspiration for this eminent drama. Two teenage boys, both cast in the moulds of their writer parents, deal with the break up in very different ways. It’s funny and compassionate and well worth a watch.

Bill Murray is Billy Murray, as in I don’t know if he ‘acts’ or just ‘is’, either way in Broken Flowers he dons some cool 70s/80s threads, takes off on a road trip to unearth his romantic/prolific past. Jeffrey Wright (Winston) is excellent. Down beat with a sweet soundtrack.

This is a good one – adapted from a play, two octogenarians meet regularly on a bench in Central Park. Nat (Walter Matthau) and Midge (Ossie Davis) are two rogues who despite their age still battle the world. Full of little adventures and humour – Walter Matthau steals the show.

Manhattan is a post apocalyptic prison over run by hideous criminals. Kurt Russell is Snake Plissken, clad in leather, a menacing eye patch and armed with about four lines of dialogue, sent into rescue the US president who has crash-landed into the mayhem. Truly amazing – Kurt Russell that is.

Two junkie friends trudge round their native Dublin, desperately trying to live out another day in their peripatetic existences. Understated and unsentimental this drama shows the other side of the shiny capital. The two leads are well acted - studded with humour, pathos and tragedy.

An outstanding film shot nearly entirely in a cramped jury room as the twelve men in the title deliberate the verdict of a murder case. The one dissenter, played by Henry Fonda, tackles eleven jurors, eager to return a guilty verdict. A master class in acting.

Good old American suspense thriller, Denzel Washington is Doug Carlin, a federal agent in a race against time to prevent a ferry bombing from happening, again. Good pace and visual effects. Val Kilmer is expanding with age.

Possibly the greatest Belgian film ever; a wheel chair road movie that culminates in a farm machinery factory in Finland. Too bad Beckett didn’t hang on to see this one because absurdity doesn’t have to be cerebral – it can be black, Belgian, and brilliant. Should have won a billion Oscars.
-JJ