Jonathan Crocker

He has no friends, no past and no name. “I drive,” he says. He does. Opening with its coolest set-piece – an intense, tightly constructed stop/start getaway – Drive immediately shows us how.

Having spun the story of Brit criminal Charles Bronson into a 21st-century Clockwork Orange, hotshot Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn joins forces with Ryan Gosling to take a classic American genre-engine– a girl, a hero, a dark lord, cars, guns, dirty money – and give it a gleaming new Euro-cool chassis. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1% [?]

1. The real… Rocky Balboa

It ain’t how hard you can hit… Sly Stallone based Rocky Balboa on no-hope heavyweight slugger Chuck Wepner after seeing him battle invincible world champion Muhammad Ali in an extraordinary fight in 1975. No one expected Wepner to last three rounds. But he took everything Ali could throw – then floored the champ with a bodyshot in the ninth. “Hey, I knocked him down!” grinned Wepner as he went back to his corner. “Well done,” replied his trainer. “But he looks really pissed off now…” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9% [?]

War, everyone seems to agree, is hell. War movies on the other hand? Brilliant. Whether you’re leaping a stolen Nazi motorcycle over a fence, machine-gunning your way through the trenches or blowing up a massive bridge you’ve just built for the Japanese, they’re a thrilling emotional battlefield of horror, heartbreak, action and adventure. “God is not on the side of the big battalions,” quipped Voltaire, “but on the side of those who shoot best.” We’re with the Big Man on that one. Here are 20 war movies that really hit the bull’s eye… Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 22% [?]

Before the loin-clothed Neanderthal orphan and the Uzi-loving cybernetic organism, Arnold Schwarzenegger scored one of the most influential acting roles of his career: himself. What makes cult ‘70s bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron such an interesting bridge between Arnie’s pro Adonis years and his birth as a big-screen anti-hero is the fact that it isn’t a documentary at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 30% [?]

“Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while that you shouldn’t have messed with? That’s me.” That’s scowling, growling Walt Kowalski. He’s a retired Detroit autoworker. He’s a Korean war veteran. And he’s Clint Eastwood’s first big-screen role since Million Dollar Baby. But really? He’s The Man With No Name. He’s Dirty Harry. He’s William Munny. He is Clint Eastwood. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

Kidnap, murder, madness, corruption and another missing child… Changeling‘s true-story of ’20s single-mum Christine Collins is so good/shocking that if it hadn’t actually happened, some smart screenwriter would have dreamed it anyway.

Christine’s ordinary neighbourhood life is shattered when her 10-year-old son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) suddenly vanishes from the house. Gone. Five months pass. The Police inform Christine that they’ve found Walter. The media gather, flash-bulbs popping, and the boy steps off the train to be reunited with his mother. Except: Christine knows that this is not her son. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]