TrustCash

These are my top 5.

Final Destination 5

More from the deliberately contrived body-count franchise with a nice line in self-aware silliness. The best set-pieces this time around have some of the fun of a Road Runner cartoon, and there?s a fun twist that had me chuckling to myself.

Drive

There?s not a lot going on in Drive, really, beyond the re-heating of some noirish notions from a well-thumbed playbook. It?s less of a great film than a bit of fun with the dressing up trunk, but Gosling does fine, Albert Brooks does better, and the music and cinematography ooze seduction. It doesn?t quite offer the same thrill as driving around the scary bit of town with the perfect song blasting from your in-car sound system, but it?s getting that way.

The Help

The odd bit of genuinely deft visual storytelling stands out in this adaptation of a confoundingly super-popular bestseller. The Help doesn?t have the sharpest bite, but the not-inconsiderable running time zips by, many of the cast are genuinely engaging, and there?s the ultimate sense of a story told well, if with a shortage, perhaps of ambition and genuine insight, but also surfeit of charm.

My Week With Marilyn

Beautifully lit and lensed by Ben Smithard, this film was a pleasure to look at. The storyline is perhaps slight, and you won?t really get under the skin of Marilyn Monroe, despite Michelle Williams? best efforts, but I wasn?t bored, not for one second.

Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence

One of the most unusual and broken power fantasies in all of horror cinema, courtesy of a metatextual conceit. A pathetic man dreams of creating a human centipede, as he has seen and fetishised from the first movie in the series, but even in his delusions he trips himself up and renders himself impotent. A fascinating response to the most off-putting and disturbing audience responses to this kind of horror cinema.

__________________