The Sentinel (1977)
Feb 15, 2000Haunted Apartment/Gateway to Hell
Michael Winner directs a film about a sinister apartment building but his typical crude and heavy-handed style fails to conjure anything remotely scary
Christopher Walken
Brainstorm (1983)
Mar 28, 2018Memory Recording Device
Highly ambitious film for its day, this concerns a memory-recording device that manages to accidentally record the experience of someone dying. Well worth seeing today, including being one of the first films to depict the internet
The Dead Zone (1983)
Jun 7, 2000Clairvoyance/Stephen King Adaptation
David Cronenberg adapts a Stephen King novel with Christopher Walken waking from a coma with clairvoyant abilities. An okay film if one that lacks the personal intensity and rich themes of Cronenberg's original works
A View to a Kill (1985)
Jul 15, 2000James Bond Film
The final outing as James Bond for a visibly aging Roger Moore, the fourteenth Bond film all told. One of the more anonymous among the giant unserious cartoon shows the Moore Bond films became
Puss in Boots (1987)
Aug 26, 2000Fairy-Tale
Another of the cheaply made fairytale adaptations from Cannon Films with the bizarre casting of Christopher Walken as Puss in Boots
The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)
May 12, 2004Magical Realism
Charming, delightful venture into Magical Realism directed by Robert Redford as the angels step in to aid the impoverished residents of a New Mexico town
Communion (1989)
May 15, 2001Alien Abduction/"True Story"
Film adaptation of writer Whitley Strieber's true-life claims to have been abducted by aliens. I am not sure if the film convinces us of Strieber's claims but what is interesting is the thoughtful way it examines the phenomenon
The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
May 9, 2001Psycho-Sexual Obsession in Venice
A Paul Schrader director psycho-sexual thriller set in a beautifully brooding Venice as a couple are befriended by menacing husband and wife Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren
Batman Returns (1992)
Dec 26, 2000Comic-Book Superhero
The second of Tim Burton's Batman films is even more beautifully dark and glistering than the first, introducing Michelle Pfeiffer as a sizzling Cat Woman and Danny De Vito as a venomous Penguin who respectively own the show
The Prophecy (1995)
Mar 18, 1999War Between Angels
Standout film about angels warring on Earth that dispenses with any cutsie depiction of angels. Several sequels followed.
The Addiction (1995)
May 31, 1999Nihilist Vampire Film
Abel Ferrara takes on the vampire film and delivers a work loaded with weighty and nihilistic philosophical meditations that creates startling reinventions of vampire mythology
MouseHunt (1997)
Dec 17, 2000Men vs an Intelligent Mouse
The directorial debut of Gore Verbinski, this harnesses Babe-styled animatronics to essentially create a live-action Tom and Jerry cartoon with two comic villains being outwitted by a seemingly unkillable mouse
Touch (1997)
Apr 7, 1999Faith Healer
Paul Schrader adapts an Elmore Leonard novel about a youth who suddenly becomes sought by various parties when it is discovered he has miracle healing powers but the results never quite come off
The Eternal (1998)
Mar 6, 2001Druidic Mummy
Michael Almereyda conducts a unique take on the mummy film dispensing with all the cliches in the eerie story of a Druidic mummy unearthed from an Irish peat bog
The Prophecy II (1998)
Nov 16, 2000War Between Angels
Okay sequel to the angel film The Prophecy. As in the previous film, a returning Christopher Walken steals the show and gets all the best lines
New Rose Hotel (1998)
Apr 9, 1999Cyberpunk/William Gibson Adpattion
Abel Ferrara adapts a William Gibson short story but seems disinterested in Gibson’s densely cluttered, technologically brimming Cyberpunk futures and strips the essence down to a caper film
Antz (1998)
Jun 11, 1999Animation/Talking Ants
The first animated film from DreamWorks, a rather charming effort that takes place in an ant nest with Woody Allen perfectly voice cast as a nebbish ant who decides to defy the crowd
Blast from the Past (1999)
May 6, 1999Out of the Nuclear Fallout Shelter Comedy
A comedy with the amusing premise where Brendan Fraser is raised in a nuclear fallout shelter since the Cuban Missile Crisis and emerges into the present for the first time, mistaking it for a post-apocalyptic world
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Jan 4, 2000Headless Horseman Killings
Tim Burton adapts the classic Washington Irving ghost story, although throws most of it out, to make his own beautifully designed period piece spearheaded by another eccentric Johnny Depp performance
The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000)
May 1, 2001War Between Angels
The third of the Prophecy films with Christopher Walken as the angel Gabriel, This time the wry humour and interplay of ideas of the other films feels more thinly drawn
The Country Bears (2002)
Jan 11, 2003Talking Bear Country-and-Western Band
Another film spun off from a Disneyland attraction, this hardly inspiring effort features a Country and Western band made up of talking bears and follows them as they set out on a reunion tour.
The Stepford Wives (2004)
Oct 18, 2004Android Housewife Replacements Comedy
Frank Oz conducts a remake of The Stepford Wives, which becomes a broad comedy take on the gender wars in the modern world
Domino (2005)
Feb 25, 2006True Life Bounty Hunter/Gonzo Biopic
Tony Scott directs a biopic of true-life bounty hunter Domino Harvey that becomes a totally madcap film (including fantasy elements) thanks to a lunatically out of control script from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly
Click (2006)
Jun 21, 2006Remote Control to Life Comedy
An Adam Sandler comedy in which he is an ordinary family man who is given a magical remote control that allows him to pause and fast forward his way through the boring bits of his life
The Jungle Book (2016)
Apr 23, 2016Jungle Boy
Live-action remake of the Disney film, one that takes the Babe approach of giving the animals life through top of the line CGI effects. The results are impressive with the animals emerging as distinctive characters (far more in fact than the film's single human) thanks in large part to near-perfect voice casting
Nine Lives (2016)
Dec 24, 2016Man Trapped in the Body of a Cat
Your mind struggles to process the premise of Nine Lives – where Kevin Spacey finds himself in the body of a cat. It seems a variation on the earlier Oh Heavenly Dog in which Chevy Chase was reincarnated as Benji. Some cute effects but what a lightweight effort for an actor of Spacey's calibre
Dune Part Two (2024)
Apr 20, 2024Desert World/Intergalactic Politics/Precognitive Messiah
The second part of Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic SF novel Dune, this delves more deeply into the world of the Fremen, although starts to diverge more from the book