William Thomas

Enjoyable enough nonsense, even if it barely cracks a smile.

Here's a film consisting entirely of things you've seen before. Especially indebted to the hardly classic students-on-rampage sagas Class Of 1984 and The Principal, it even takes its title from a forgotten Amanda Donohoe DTV movie of a few years back. Furthermore, it's choppily directed by Robert Manel (School Ties) and toplined by the still-in-decline Tom Berenger.

Road movies should be pleasurable and free-spirited, but Candy Mountain drags too much weight around.

A gaudy, flamboyant expose that asks a lot of its stars, and gets more than it deserves.

Sexual tension hangs in the air as the wind blows and native drums beat, but it's on a visual level that the film excels.

From the visceral plunges of the first person mind clip sequences (including a terrifying, controversy courting rape sequence) to the overwhelming finale this is a, literally, stunning event. Some directors can, thank God, still make you experience films.

A fun night in with the tellybox, but then it never claimed to be anything more.

There is bound to be a large appreciative audience for this chick flick. But it might not be you.

A worthy diversion for the very young, but against their more venerable stablemates - notably DuckTales - The Rescuers's identification/memorableness factor remains second division.

Stagey filming aside, this is a sharp and controlled study of celebrity obsession.

Predictably awful fourth installment.

Screamingly funny. Few films, if any, can match Spinal Tap for consistent laughs. Every scene is a classic.

About as funny as contracting cancer.

Spader and Cusack go through the motions as political sparring partners in this coming of age drama.

Ultimately lost in it's own contrivances, Big Business still manages a few laughs thanks to it's big name leading lady.

With a heavily improvised script Cassavetes gets the most from his actors, each giving emotive performances.

Little atmosphere and no surprises.

Apart from a sprinkling of Wilde's legendary bons mots and a few fleeting visits to theatres where audiences cheer Lady Windemere's Fan, there is disappointingly little here to suggest the complexity of his mind, the range of his writing or, crucially, the importance of being Oscar.

The first film to be based on a line of toys, this might not be the last, but it'd take something awful to replace it as the worst.

Worth a look, if only for the surreal groupings of the gangs (The Wongs, the Del Bombers and the Fordham Baldies...that's right, they're bald).

Despite the extended running time jam packed with action scene after after scene it still feels a little short on content.

Life stinks, Brooks' character stinks and the film, after all the Brooks magic in the past, stinks.

In another variation on a theme, this plodding drama may have its heart in the right place but, along side a gaggle of angst-ridden Hughes dramas of the period, fails to stand out amongst the crowd.

An all-star lineup with some kookie moments, but a bit limp overall.

If you want only one Astaire-Rogers musical, Top Hat is obligatory for Astaire at his most debonair with Irving Berlin's title number and Cheek to Cheek in this screwball confused identities plot.

Mamet’s gem of a movie, with a great final twist, goads the Godfathers with just as much invention and wit as the much higher profile Married To The Mob.

A satisfying come-down by the director, who stays safely within, rather than pushes against comedy conventions.

Maddin's surrealism is always gently persuasive rather than all-out shocking. Nobody else is doing anything remotely like this; reason enough to treasure it.

Enormously influential, it spawned Hollywood's interest in smaller scale, prosaic dramas, few of which failed to match its resonance.

There's no escaping the teen angst or, for that matter, Araki's thumping message with the angry director managing to slip the odd political curve-ball into proceedings as if he's been watching too many Oliver Stone movies.

This is the Bond flick blessed with the best plot, a genuine sense of emotion and a spirit closest to Ian Fleming’s novels.

Appealing, emotional and with a strong enough performance by Rice-Edwards as the boy in his own little war-free world.

Despite some fuzzy thinking in the third act, when it gets hard to see what is on Guare's mind, the result is a thoroughly engaging and pointed film.

Likeable Robert Townsend — who also co-wrote and directed — is a delight in this patchy but consistently enjoyable chronicle of a young black actor’s efforts to crack Hollywood.

It wants to be a modern "Taxi Driver"; it manages to be the new Falling Down, with Foster as fierce as ever.

Storytelling doesn't get much better than this.

As with most Cassavetes' it is Rowlands who steals this show, this time expertly playing the happy housewife slowly going off the rails while Falk plays the part of her bewildered husband. At two-and-a-half hours, it could easily have dragged but with such strong performances, you're left wanting more.

The most purely horrifying horror movie ever made.

A whimsical but optimistic tale of mistaken identity, it starred the Material Girl as the cheekily irresistible Susan, and turned Rosanna Arquette (repressed housewife Roberta) into a star.

Fans can mouth the words of Grant's big speeches along with him, relishing every viperish turn of phrase...this is and always will be a perfect dark comedy and a student staple.

Manages to capture the pure heart and spirit of this comic book Americana.

Connery was perhaps wise to call it quits the first time round.

While never as trailblazing as its subject, The Express is a worthy addition to the lengthy canon of sports biopics

It’s hard to remember that this extremely unexceptional film was a major hit back in the 70s.

Faultless, freewheeling-and very funny.

The rebirth of Disney in the modern era and due to superb songs, enduring humour and a touching plot it remains an animation classic.

Dreamlike Ghibli animation that's well worth seeking out.

It's solid Miyazaki, although he has reached greater heights both before and since.

The Duke's last hurrah is one of the very best of a cycle of 70s movies that served as obituaries for the Western itself.

Utterly mindless, but on its own snap, bang, and wallop terms, it works well enough.

Two actors have wasted their considerable talents on this hapless comedy. With a flawed plot and far too few jokes, it's understandable why this isn't a particularly memorable film and just as well it's disappeared without trace.

Driven by cliches and almost completely ignoring the psychological growth of the children coping with the loss of their parents, it doesn't take long for this to descent into meaningless schlock.

Not one of Nicholson's best, but an enjoyable comedy nonetheless.

Undemanding, entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable.

An otherwise fine sports fantasy is dragged down by an overindulgence in sentimentality.

Suffused with the pessimism of Taxi Driver, Blue Collar is one of the most brutally honest films to have come out of 70s Hollywood.

Given such a cloying and utterly predictable plot, it's surprising that Three Fugitives works as well as it does. Nolte, all big shoulders and bashfulness shows a pleasant self-deprecating talent and copes very well with the array of humiliations ranged against him.

At times puzzling due to the diverse panorama of subject matter, the film nevertheless corners touchy issues more than it flinches them.

An unredeemable failure on all levels, other than living up to our expectations.

Unfortunately shallow characterisation, a script so laid-back you can almost hear it snoring and the occasional outburst of hokey dialogue lead to a movie a good deal less charming than it thinks it is.

A patchwork of a movie that ultimately knows where it's going, but doesn't really know how to get there.

Good performances, but If you're looking for an uplifting tale of hope against despair, look elsewhere.

Though glossy, Sirk's film is tightly structured, with a creative manipulation of light and reflection, and heavy with the symbolism of male destructiveness. Unflinching in its often ugly revelation of character and consequence, it's an intense and powerful film.

The combination of Neil Simon and Mike Nichols has the pair of them back to somewhere near their best.

Dodgy on every level.

One for fans only.

Weird, but kind of cool.

Not fractionally as clever or as fast-paced as the television series upon which it's based.

Delightful, but bum-numbingly slow.

Whatever you want to call Sick, it's anything but a piece of exploitative voyeurism, by turns sombre, hilarious, wince-inducing and inspiring.

This is arguably although unfortunately Goldie Hawn's most memorable role. For while she embodies the character perfectly and when the jokes are funny they are hilarious, sadly there just isn't enough to keep the film going and it begins to run out of steam half way through, with an attempt at a deeper meaning ruining the film.

It all adds up to just another glossy Love Story.

With such a strong cast, the film almost turns into an ensemble film instead of a star vehicle for Stewart in his first of many collaborations with Mann. An Archetypal Western with the required cowboys, gunfights and damsels in distress, it has become an all time favourite.

Pollack does right to put his faith in one man and a whole lot of mountains. The result is impressive.

The plotting - Kelly's struggling painter falls for Leslie Caron's French waif, engaged to nice but dull Georges Guétary - lacks the pace, exuberance and wit of, say, Singin' In The Rain, but compensates with fantastic Technicolor visuals..., George Gershwin's sublime music (pick of the tunes: I've Got Rhythm, S'Wonderful and Our Love Is Here To Stay), sublime art direction from the great Cedric Gibbons and astounding choreography and footwork from Kelly.

Less a hangover of a sequel than a satisfying belch to rid the world of the original.

Interesting but flawed.

Murray's initial transition from the small screen is a classic.

However you dress it up, laughs where there should be frights is patently piss poor.

Although some say Wayne's Oscar was given out of sympathy instead of his performance, he still acts well as the sheriff who's past his peak. Proving he wasn't always a serious as he was made out to be, he plays the role with aplomb, even pastiching himself in other films.

Despite winning turns by Lewis and an on-form Goldblum, the laughs are in short supply.

An unusually thoughtful look (and a broad one) at powers on the wane, at America's shift from Vietnam polarisations to 80's apathy, and at one man teetering on the brink of a lonely old age.

Hardly a classic given the talents of Carell, Rudd and Roach at his best. It bungles utilising plenty of talent in a lightweight comedy effort that brings little fresh to the table.

Even the excellent Gong has a tough time trying to twist her character into a tragic heroine, while the utter despair to which sympathetic characters are condemned suggests a significant point in Zhang's career, but does nothing to relieve the viewer's ennui.

The trouble with spoofing soap opera is that its dramatically deranged conventions - dead characters resurrected, hitherto unknown progeny claiming birthrights and bedrooms, characters metamorphosed into new actors - are already so absurd they are hard to send up any further.

Undoubtedly the finest of Argento's thrilling horrors, this one takes the radical step, for the director at least, to concentrate on a plot that equals the shocking visuals of his other works. David Hemmings is well cast and is given a great script which genuinely frights.

The two stars are very good, doubtless enjoying their high fashion outfits, and the script has one clever plot reversal in the third act, but it really could have done with a few more thrills (the motives for the killings lead to necessarily slow plot development), either in the murder or the sexual perversity departments.

Wildly uneven, but funny in a bittersweet tittery sort of way in places.

The second half occasionally descends into melodrama, but for the most part this is bleak, non-judgemental, riveting stuff.

Even worse than it sounds.

The background is more intriguing than the stumbling up-front story, and monster watchers will get full use of the freeze-frame facility.

Humerous, but doesn't gel as well as Levinson's previous efforts.

Braindead and done to death, this somehow remains a relatively fun ride.

How did such a dream project on paper turn out so wrong. It should remain one of the great mysteries of cinema. The less said about this one, the better. For Spielberg completists only.

Both leading ladies display great willingness to send up themselves and Hollywood, and Willis' quiet nervous breakdown showcases his previously unguessed-at comic skills. But it's the pitch-black comedy and celebrity satire that make this so enjoyable.

Whatever his intentions, the finished product is about as deep and meaningful as you’d expect from a work starring the Man Who Is Clark Griswold. Which is a good thing really, as, uncomplicated, genuinely funny comedy players are thin on the ground at the moment, and it means Memoirs can carry off the semi-slapstick, borderline-cretinous gags with pace and panache.

An insipid '80s nostalgia piece really, held together by Fox's performance and several neat turns from his support.

Kids will love it but adults may find it just too silly to sit through.