A farrago of cartoonish exaggeration (mouthfuls of fangs, razor-sharp talons and eyes like burning coals), knowing humour and '80s camp, it shouldn't even begin to work, and yet, strangely, it does, sort of, thanks to the assured handling of writer/director Holland, and two performances in particular - Geoffreys as Charley's pal Evil, and McDowall as the timid vampire killer.

As Match wilts into a trite portrait of people who are at the mercy of their pasts, Belber’s menagerie of inexpressive shots leaves his film at the mercy of its own.

The fictional filmmaker's rejection of "quirkiness" ends up, ironically, being embraced by the movie itself, but even at its most sitcomish, Karpovsky and Lowe's banter has a contentious authenticity that recognizes these industry grunts as vital and three-dimensional-no matter their nominal supporting status.

Brisk, easy, brutish. It has explosions, punch-ups, shoot-outs and more than one bit where someone gets smacked in the face with a big hammer. How much more could you reasonably ask? It’s a blast.

It's prime B-movie material put through the Ridley Scott Cuisinart.

It's in the periphery of this daily minutiae that Covi and Frimmel work their neorealistic magic, turning what might have been a sappy maternal-awakening melodrama into a simplistic, genuinely sweet tribute to motherhood, Italian style.

If any film could convince people that ACID is the patron saint of tomorrow's Godards, it's this one.

Entertainingly, the klezmer-scored Deli Man charts the history of urban eateries, nowhere near as prominent as they were during the early 20th century but still a vital link to Yiddish-accented comforts.

Spencer, a superb performer mainly known for small character parts, gives a star-making turn as the won't-take-no-guff Minny.

The film slowly loses the sobering toughness of its initial inquiry, and finally comes off as bloodline-biased hagiography.

Back to the Beach is fun for a while, but its six-person writing team can't figure out a logical way to wind it all up.

The demon doll from the Conjuring movies remains creepy, even if this prequel feels occasionally wooden.

The question of whether the couple can overcome respective traumas and inbred social attitudes is essentially moot; the real query is how much insufferable Gallic tweeness you can stand before simply shouting "no, merci!"

Entertaining enough, but a pity they didn't draft in more of the Eisenhower context.

This was Italy's official submission for Best Foreign Film to the 2011 Academy Awards (a red flag more often than not), and, sure enough there's little here that rises above middlebrow.

Atrociously directed and full of groan-making jokes, but the cast are having such a good time that it's difficult not to respond in a similar way.

Sure, some of the historical detail is terrible (did Henry V really get crowned topless?) and Shakespeare purists may scream heresy, but director David Michôd has done something genuinely fresh and confident with this well-told piece of English folklore.

This is a delightfully-pitched, gory horror comedy that energetically creates a crossover genre we never knew we needed: the vampire ballet.

Destroyer is a movie that confuses Kidman’s unmodulated funk for actual depth. In fairness, a brooding depression may be the reality of much police work, but onscreen it plays like a two-hour murder of our patience.

The director's righteous anger is less restrained than his conventional vérité aesthetics and less off-putting than his one-sided approach to the issues at hand - an advocacy for alternative wind-turbine energy is suspiciously sketchy - yet he smartly allows coal-exploiting bigwigs plenty of screen time to properly hang themselves.

Fortunately, there are a good number of Yen-choreographed action scenes to break up the monotony.

It’s not a bad movie, by any means, but it strains to turn a seriously introspective story into something cinematic.

Writer-director Laura Colella hasn’t strayed far from home (these characters are her actual housemates, rechristened into fiction), but her project feels like a casual experiment gone wonderfully right.

More interesting as a way station in Eastwood's career than for anything intrinsic to its lawman/vigilante scenario, this was his first American Western after the spaghettis.

Quite simply vulgar in comparison to its predecessors (especially Hawks' brilliant His Girl Friday), it relies too much on foul language, inappropriate slapstick, and superficial cynicism.

Framed as a deathbed reminiscence, the film does tend to ramble, and seems particularly uneven in its mixture of back-projected wildlife footage, studio and location work, while Peck's weighty Harry Street remains resolutely aloof, to the point where he will not deign to expire.

Richard Benjamin directs the smartish script and the chaotic tomfoolery quite brilliantly; but all concerned mishandle the soppy section where O'Toole gets misty-eyed about his discarded daughter. Still, the pace picks up for the magnificent comic climax.

Remarkably contrived delve into the here-today-gone-tomorrow memory of lovelorn Colman.