The Revenant, Where To Invade Next and Mistress America: Your Week In Film (June 6-12)

The Revenant: The CGI bear attack scene is genuinely stunning

TV, Radio, DVD, Blu-ray, VOD and cinema picks for the next seven days...

Monday 6th: The Revenant (DVD, Blu-ray and VOD) has a great deal to recommend it but somehow never quite manages to blow me away. It's 1823 and Leonardo DiCaprio is Hugh Glass, a guide for a party of trappers somewhere in the great American wilderness. After being attacked by a bear, he is left for dead by arch-rotter Tom Hardy, who, for some reason, sounds an awful lot like Deputy Dawg. By force of will alone, Glass survives, then proceeds to drag his battered, bitten carcass hundreds of miles through deep snow and freezing rivers to confront the man who betrayed him and also killed his son. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's triple Oscar winner is beguilingly beautiful to look at (courtesy of Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography) and contains several stunning moments, the notorious CGI ursine assault being one, the attack by a Pawnee war party in its early moments being another. But, at 156 minutes, the film is far too long and there are some serious longueurs between its most impactful scenes. More than that, I could also name you 10 better but non-Oscar winning performances from DiCaprio off the top of my head, while its use of hackneyed noble savage tropes places it only a hop, skip and a jump away from Dances With Wolves territory. All in all, it's a solid revenge western with a few bells and whistles but hardly a classic. A Million Ways To Die In The West (Netflix UK) is also a western, albeit one filled with knob, boob and fart gags. Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane (who also directs and co-writes) plays a cowardly farmer cosying up to Charlize Theron's mysterious badass, unaware her gun-happy old man (Liam Neeson) is about to make an appearance too. It's worth seeing for one genuinely inspired moment (you'll know the one I mean if you've seen it), and the fact Theron, Neeson and Neil Patrick Harris are always good value for money. This week's offering from the Criterion Collection is Overlord (Blu-ray), director Stuart Cooper's 1975 film about the D-Day landings, as seen through the eyes of a quiet young conscript. Unheroic and brutal.

Overlord is an unflinching World War II movie

Tuesday 7th: Charlie Kaufman writes, George Clooney directs and Sam Rockwell stars in Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (MUBI), an odd and entertaining adaptation of US game show host Chuck Barris's memoir in which he claimed to have been a CIA hitman with 33 kills to his name. Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and Clooney himself also star.

Wednesday 8th: Dazed and Confused (Netflix UK) is Richard Linklater's '70s-set coming-of-age comedy about a group of American high school jocks. It perfectly captures the aimlessness and madness of adolescence, although his female characters are all a bit too low in the mix. Everybody Wants Some!!, the director's recent "spiritual sequel" to Dazed, is reviewed by me right here. Paranormal Activity (Netflix UK) is a genuinely unsettling slice of found-footage horror, while Michael Winterbottom's The Look Of Love (01:40, Film4) features Steve Coogan as Soho soft-porn king Paul Raymond. 

Clooney directs Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind

Thursday 9th: Film-maker Mark Cousins and composer David Holmes discuss their documentary I Am Belfast with presenter Francine Stock on The Film Programme (16:00, BBC Radio 4). Movie-wise, there's Re-Animator (22:45, Horror Channel), Stuart Gordon's hilarious, transgressive and gory adaptation of the HP Lovecraft story about a deranged medical student able to return dead tissue to life. It's an absolute hoot.

Re-Animator: Good, old-fashioned gory fun

Friday 10th: Sky Movies Premiere have rolled out two of my favourite films from last year. Mistress America (14:15 and 23:45) sees the Frances Ha team of Noah Baumbach (co-writer/director) and Greta Gerwig (co-writer/star) reunite for a witty comedy that perfectly balances screwball elements with a more melancholic edge. Lola Kirke is Tracy, a lonely college fresher taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Gerwig). The older woman is impetuous, adventurous and appears to have the world at her feet. But it doesn't take Tracy long before she realises Brooke's schemes for success and world domination are little more than pipe dreams and that she is going nowhere fast. Nearly as good is Love & Mercy (17:45), a bravura biopic of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, which concentrates on two crucial periods of his life. Paul Dano plays the songwriter as a young man at the height of his musical powers, but teetering on the brink of mental illness, while John Cusack is the older Wilson, under the perfidious spell of Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a quack psychologist who took his money and cut him off from his family. Both films are also on NOW TV from today.

Love & Mercy: Brilliant biopic of Brian Wilson

There is a ton of interesting new stuff in cinemas from today, far too much to mention here in fact. I shall be seeking out Michael Moore's latest documentary, Where To Invade Next, in which the veteran rabble-rouser "invades" other countries - including Germany, Italy and Iceland - to see what the US can learn from them. I suspect "quite a bit" will be the Bowling For Columbine filmmaker's conclusion as he continues to get up all the right noses in a quest to make his home country a better place. Oh, and if you're staying up late (or know how to work a PVR), try and catch Valhalla Rising (00:05, BBC Two), Nicolas Winding Refn's violent and baffling Vikings-on-acid tale, starring the great Mads Mikkelsen as mute warrior, One-Eye.

Michael Moore returns in Where To Invade Next

Saturday 11th: The term 'hidden gem' could have been coined to describe Couple In A Hole (VOD), Tom Geens' bravura but harrowing drama about the terrible impact of grief on a husband and wife living like savages in a French forest. Paul Higgins (The Thick Of It) and Kate Dickie (The Witch) are both superb in a film that perfectly blends pitch-black humour and gut-wrenching emotion. It reminded me most of Lars von Trier's Antichrist, albeit without the genital mutilation and talking fox. TV-wise, you'll find CRIME! (The Lavender Hill Mob, 08:55, BBC Two), SMUT! (Carry On Loving, 23:45, ITV) and THE UNDEAD! (Zombieland, 23:35, Channel 4).

Sunday 12th: Three fractious brothers set off on a train trek through India in an attempt to rebuild their broken relationships, and find their estranged mother, in Wes Anderson’s charming comedy/drama, The Darjeeling Limited (23:05, Gold). Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Anjelica Huston star. Lambert And Stamp (23:25, Sky Arts) is an entertaining but by-the-numbers documentary about Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, the aspiring filmmakers who ended up discovering and managing The Who. 

Couple In A Hole is a true hidden gem

The Last 5 Films I've Seen
1. Youth (2015): Paolo Sorrentino's follow-up to the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty is an eccentric, tragicomic meditation on old age, grief and regret. Michael Caine is reliably superb as the retired composer waiting for the end at an exclusive Swiss spa, while Harvey Keitel turns in his best performance for years as a movie director chasing past glories.
2. Our Brand Is Crisis (2015): Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton are both excellent in this unfairly maligned political satire about two feuding spin doctors tearing metaphorical lumps out of each other during a presidential election in Bolivia. 
3. Arabian Nights Volume 1: The Restless One (2015): First part of Miguel Gomes's trilogy of films which satirically and polemically explore modern-day, austerity-hit Portugal using the famous Arabian Nights tales as their inspiration. Here we meet a cockerel put on trial for his early-morning squawking and a group of permanently tumescent bankers.
4. Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982): Amy Heckerling's high school comedy is very of its time, with the likes of Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Judge Reinhold doing their best with a script full of the usual sex, drugs and rock'n'roll teen misbehaviour. Still a lot of fun though.
5. Warcraft: The Beginning (2016): Duncan Jones' long-awaited adaptation of the fantasy online role-playing game is unwieldy and silly at times, but ultimately just about transcends its Dungeons & Dragons/Lord Of The Rings influences to deliver a pretty solid summer blockbuster. 

Youth: A tragicomic meditation on old age and regret

UK Top 10 box office
1. X-Men: Apocalypse R
2. Alice Through The Looking Glass
3. Angry Birds
4. Money Monster
5. The Jungle Book R
6. Captain America: Civil War R
7. Bad Neighbours 2
8. Love And Friendship
9. Secret Cinema: 28 Days Later
10. Minuscule: Valley Of The Lost Ants

R = Recommended

All information correct at time of publication

My 30 favourite films of 2015 (part three #10-1)

Of all the new films I saw in 2015 - 187 at the last count - these were the 10 I loved most...

10. Brooklyn 
(director: John Crowley UK release date: November 6)

Beautifully written and acted adaptation of Colm Tóibín's 1950s-set novel. Ellis (Saoirse Ronan) is a young immigrant relocating from her quiet Irish village to the hustle and bustle of the titular New York borough. There, she meets and falls for an easygoing Italian plumber but is soon recalled on urgent family business. Back on home soil, Ellis's new life, priorities and future are all suddenly thrown up into the air, especially when a potential new suitor makes himself known. She faces a huge choice - which way will she leap? The plot is simplicity itself but the themes and emotions are big. Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent are both superb in small supporting roles but this is Ronan's film and if she doesn't grab an Oscar nomination I will eat an entire hat shop. 

9. Girlhood

(Director: Celine Sciamma UK release date: May 8)

Excellent French-language drama set in and around a tough Parisian estate and focusing on the members of a black girl gang. Sciamma – a white woman – has been criticised in some quarters for portraying black characters and their lives negatively but this is as much about the limited choices and pressures faced by young women as it is a film attempting to chronicle the black or immigrant experience in France. Besides, at no point does Girlhood seek to denigrate its main characters or their choices. In fact, Karidja Touré's Marieme is an empowering, inspiring creation; a strong, determined and resourceful young woman who simply refuses to buckle under the weight of a difficult life. 

8. Carol 

(director: Todd Haynes UK release date: November 27) 

A film so classy and graceful it makes Breakfast At Tiffany's look like The Toxic Avenger, Todd Haynes' adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price Of Salt is set in 1950s New York and tells the story of a forbidden love affair between unhappy socialite Cate Blanchett (the titular Carol) and Rooney Mara's Therese, a department-store clerk with dreams of being a photographer. Like Brooklyn, the plot is minimal and Haynes takes his time exploring his main characters' lives, the evolution of their feelings for each other and how that impacts upon their other relationships (Carol is married to Kyle Chandler's boorish drunk Harge). The cast is as impressive as any I saw all year, with Blanchett even more magnetic than usual and Sarah Paulson excellent in a supporting role. Haynes once again proves himself a consummate storyteller and an absolute demon when it comes to period detail. 

7. Phoenix

(director: Christian Petzold UK release date: May 8)
Quietly devastating German noir dealing with the return of Auschwitz survivor Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) to Berlin after WWII. Sporting a new face following reconstructive surgery, she tracks down husband Johnny who, failing to recognise her, instead recruits Nelly into an elaborate plot to claim his 'dead' wife's inheritance. It would be easy to dismiss Phoenix as little more than a clever spin on Hitchcock's Vertigo and denounce the implausibility of its plotting. But the film is so much more than that, effortlessly juggling big themes of rebirth, identity, guilt and betrayal while exploring the experience of Holocaust survivors. Hoss, in her sixth collaboration with director Petzold, is quite superb, and the ending will leave you in bits.

6. Mistress America 

(director: Noah Baumbach UK release date: August 14) 

The Frances Ha team of Noah Baumbach (co-writer/director) and Greta Gerwig (co-writer/star) reunite for a witty comedy that perfectly balances screwball elements with a more melancholic edge speaking to failure and betrayal. Lola Kirke (who you may remember from Gone Girl) is Tracy, a lonely college fresher taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Gerwig). The older woman is impetuous, adventurous and appears to have the world at her feet. But it doesn't take Tracy long before she realises Brooke's schemes for success and world domination are little more than pipe dreams and that she is going nowhere fast. Woody Allen at something approaching his best is evoked in its rat-a-tat dialogue, spiky, not always likeable, characters and moments of pure, laugh-out-loud farce.

5. The Look Of Silence 
(Director: Joshua Oppenheimer UK release date: June 12)
Joshua Oppenheimer's bravura follow-up to The Act of Killing, his 2013 film about the 1965 Indonesian genocide of alleged communists. The Look Of Silence is a smaller, more personal story of one of the families who lost a loved one during the purge. The murdered man's brother - a gentle but determined optometrist named Adi - confronts his sibling's killers (many of whom are celebrated as heroes and hold positions of power) in a number of truly jaw-dropping scenes. My favourite documentary in a year packed with some very good ones.

4. The Dance Of Reality 

(director: Alejandro Jodorowsky UK release date: August 21) 

Veteran filmmaker Jodorowsky’s sort-of-autobiographical film, set in the small Chilean coastal town where the 86-year-old endured a difficult childhood, is peculiar, challenging and utterly bonkers. Counter-intuitively, it might just be his most accessible work to date. The movie - his first in 23 years - is full of surreal imagery, absurdist digressions, playful humour and several genuinely shocking moments (a golden shower, the killing of a donkey and genital torture, if you’re wondering), but at its core is really the story of Jodorowsky’s fraught relationship with his Stalinist dad (here played by Brontis, the director’s real-life son). It owes more than a little something to Federico Fellini (especially the Italian director's 8½ and Amarcord) but proves, that even pushing 90, the Chilean maestro is still capable of producing work every bit as intriguing, eccentric and transgressive as El Topo and Santa Sangre. 

3. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night 

(Director: Ana Lily Amirpour UK release date: May 22)

Utterly beguiling ‘Iranian vampire western’ that quickly transcends its influences to deliver something quite unique. Set in Bad City, a windblown, oddly-deserted industrial town somewhere in Iran (Taft, California in reality), this most peculiar of love stories centres on The Girl (Sheila Vand), a lonely, chador-clad blood-sucker who prowls the streets looking for wrongs to right and evil men to punish. One such night-time patrol brings her into contact with troubled Arash (Arash Marandi) – one part James Dean, one part major doofus – and they enjoy an immediate mutual attraction. Shot in gorgeous, high-contrast black and white with cinematographer Lyle Vincent, Amirpour's full-length debut never loses sight of its sinister horror edge despite also being playful, romantic and effortlessly cool. Superb soundtrack too.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road 

(Director: George Miller UK release date: May 15)

Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy in for Mel Gibson) returns to the post-apocalyptic Aussie badlands in a movie for which the term high-octane was surely invented. On the run from the tyrannical Immortan Joe and his motorcade of mutant crazies, Max teams up with Charlize Theron’s badass Imperator Furiosa (pictured, top of page) for one of the most exciting - and prolonged - chase sequences in movie history. At times, it's like the Marquis de Sade directing Wacky Races, at others surprisingly political, taking aim at patriarchy, climate change, and the one per cent. Hardy's debut as Max is solid enough but this film belongs to one-armed warrior woman Furiosa and the sheer avalanche of crazy ideas, images and stunts that Miller and his co-conspirators bring to the party. The finest action film ever made? It might just be.

1. The New Girlfriend 

(director: François Ozon UK release date: May 22) 

Loosely adapted from Ruth Rendell's bleak short story of the same name, The New Girlfriend is a strange but heady brew of farcical comedy and odd-couple romance that nevertheless contains a tiny sliver of thriller-ish ice at its heart. Ozon's film tells the story of David (Romain Duris) who, after the death of his wife, Laura, starts dressing as a woman, initially so his baby daughter can have a 'mother' but soon simply because he enjoys it. The only person who shares his secret is Claire (Anaïs Demoustier), poor dead Laura's married best friend who was secretly in love with her. 

Initially repelled by David's revelation, Claire tries to discourage his burgeoning transvestism but it isn't long before she starts to come to terms with her own sexuality and falls for his feminine alter-ego, Virginia. On a slightly sinister note, it becomes clear Claire is attracted to the part of David/Virginia that reminds her of Laura and is keen to, in effect, 'recreate' the dead woman using her new beau as a template. In fact, a hint of what can only be called 'necrophilia' informs the entire affair. Not only is Claire in love with Laura but we see David in the morgue dressing his naked wife in her wedding gown prior to her funeral. It's a scene that manages to be titillating and chilling at the same time, and The New Girlfriend is full of such contrasting moments, none more so than in its final shot.

There are times when the film's tone is uneven and the humour just a little too broad, while Ozon leaves some fairly important questions hanging (when David speaks of "living as a woman" does he mean as a transvestite or is he keen to fully transition?). So why is this rather than, say, Fury Road, my favourite film of the year? Well, because I love its ambition and its cheek and its desire to tackle a tricky subject head on and sod the consequences. I admire the fact that French auteur Ozon (Potiche, Swimming Pool) has given us a mature, challenging and utterly charming exploration of sexual and gender fluidity in the form of a film that is occasionally as daft as a brush and camp as Christmas. I also love that its leads are both brilliant. 

Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Populaire) is a hugely versatile actor and his turn here as a man finally able to throw off the shackles and be who he wants to be is sympathetic and believable. He's grieving and depressed, yes, but all of that soon gives way to relief and acceptance and he sells that shift perfectly. Demoustier is French cinema's best kept secret. She is one of those actors who elevates everything she is in by at least 10 per cent and that is certainly true here. As Claire, she's a beautiful ball of confusion and guilt - you can see every conflicted emotion etched across her face. 

Rendell died in May last year and, although Ozon excises her original story's nasty little twist, I'd like to think she'd approve of the complex and fascinatingly flawed film he has crafted from her source material.

Home Comforts: The best in TV, VOD, DVD and Blu-ray (week beginning Monday, December 7)

10 films in a variety of formats to check out in the coming week, including Jason And The Argonauts (pictured below)...

1. Mistress America 

(VOD)
The Frances Ha team of Noah Baumbach (co-writer/director) and Greta Gerwig (co-writer/star) reunite for a witty comedy that perfectly balances screwball elements with a more melancholic edge speaking to failure and betrayal. Lola Kirke (who you may remember from Gone Girl) is Tracy, a lonely college fresher taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Gerwig). The older woman is impetuous, adventurous and appears to have the world at her feet. But it doesn't take Tracy long before she realises Brooke's schemes for success and world domination are little more than pipe dreams and that she is going nowhere fast. With its Manhattan setting, scattershot dialogue, and moments of pure farce, Mistress America owes more than a little to Woody Allen which is never a bad thing. 

2. The Gift

(DVD, Blu-ray and VOD)
Joel Edgerton - last seen in Black Mass - writes, stars in and directs a powerful psychological thriller featuring Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall as a married couple whose relationship is threatened when Gordo (Edgerton), a mysterious figure from the husband's high school days pops back up after 20 years. He starts showering them with gifts and eventually brings to light a terrible secret. The ending has divided audiences but, in a year when edge-of-your-seat thrillers have been in short supply, this is well worth your time and money.

3. Grizzly Man 

(Blu-ray)
Werner Herzog (Aguirre The Wrath Of God, Fitzcarraldo) writes, narrates and directs a head-spinning documentary chronicling the life and death of amateur grizzly bear expert Timothy Treadwell, who every summer for 13 years travelled to the Alaskan wilderness to live with and film the creatures. Suffice to say, things ultimately go south both for 'kind warrior' Treadwell and his partner, Amie, when they become lunch for one of the bears. A remarkable film about hubris, obsessiveness and madness.

4. The Wizard Of Oz

(Amazon Prime Video, from Thursday)
5. Jason And The Argonauts 
(Sunday, BBC2, 13:00)
Two classics from the Hollywood vaults that despite not being Christmas films per se have nevertheless become hardy holiday perennials. The Wizard Of Oz - from 1939 - is the beloved musical starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, a young girl swept up by a tornado and deposited in the magical land of Oz. Apparently, 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' was almost cut from the movie because MGM studio execs thought the Kansas sequence went on too long. Jason And The Argonauts - from 1963 - is rightfully most famous for Ray Harryhausen's fantastic special effects. This is said to be Harryhausen's favourite of the movies he worked on - the skeleton army scene alone took him four months to complete.

6. Batman Returns

(Tuesday, Sky Christmas, 21:30)

Tim Burton's sequel to Batman sees villains The Penguin (Danny DeVito) and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) take centre stage in a Christmas tale so dark and twisted it makes Bad Santa look like Miracle On 34th Street. Director Burton expertly marries the gritty action and atmosphere of Frank Miller's Dark Knight comics to the surreal silliness of the '60s TV show to serve up a strange and disturbing noirish treat in which Michael Keaton's titular character is almost a guest star in his own movie. Christopher who?

7. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

(DVD, Blu-ray and VOD)

Guy Ritchie's reboot of the 1960s TV spy show took a kicking at the box office but is actually an enjoyable - if somewhat predictable - Cold War action flick. Henry 'Superman' Cavill, Armie 'Lone Ranger' Hammer and the ubiquitous Alicia Vikander star as the CIA/KGB secret-agent team battling a mysterious criminal organisation to prevent a nuclear device falling into the wrong hands. The direction's stylish, the script perfectly serviceable, the actors have genuine chemistry and a couple of the action scenes are real crackers. Obviously, everyone hated it...

8. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water

(from Friday, Sky Movies Premiere, 11:45 and 18:15)
Gloriously surreal kids' movie featuring Spongebob, Squidward, Patrick and the rest of the Bikini Bottom gang venturing onto dry land to battle Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas), a diabolical pirate who has stolen the secret Krabby Patty recipe. Toast Of London star Matt Berry pops up as Bubbles, the dolphin protector of the galaxy.

9. Trainwreck

(DVD, Blu-ray and VOD)
Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, This Is 40) directs American comedian Amy Schumer's big screen debut as writer and star. A surprisingly traditional romantic comedy (Bill Hader's dorky sports injury doctor is the object of journalist Amy's affections), it has its moments but never comes close to matching the good honest filth of her stand-up or the inventiveness of the excellent Inside Amy Schumer TV show. Look out for Tilda Swinton as a foul-mouthed magazine editor - it's quite a transformation.

10. Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD

(DVD)

As the self-styled Galaxy's Greatest Comic fast approaches its 40th anniversary in 2017, Paul Goodwin's documentary tells the tale of its origins in 1970s Britain and chronicles the influential and subversive publication's highs and lows over the last four decades. Talking heads such as actor Karl Urban and writer Neil Gaiman attempt to explain the enduring appeal of characters such as Judge Dredd (played by Urban in the movie Dredd), Nemesis The Warlock and Rogue Trooper. The bargain-priced DVD comes complete with PDF comics offering an introduction to 2000AD and its characters.

And one to avoid...

Pixels 

(DVD, Blu-ray and VOD)

A decent premise and some dazzling special effects are undermined by a terrible script and cringe-making performances from Josh Gadd and Peter Dinklage. Somehow, Adam Sandler is one of the least objectionable things about it.

5 for Friday (August 14): Trailers, new releases and box office

It's New York week here on As Human as the Rest of Us with no fewer than three of this week's five most essential film choices set in the Big Apple, although one shows a side of the city I'm guessing its citizens might want to forget. Elsewhere, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. brings the summer blockbuster season to a close and not a moment too soon. Mad Max: Fury Road and Inside Out apart, it's been a pretty lean year quality-wise, with even Jurassic World and Ant-Man coming up short (Ant-Man? Short? Oh, please yourself...)

1. Mistress America

The Noah Baumbach-Greta Gerwig collaboration Frances Ha – the story of a struggling apprentice dancer – was one of 2012's best comedies (in a year that also gave us That's My Boy and The Watch, I appreciate that's damning it with faint praise, but still...). The pair reunites here for more New York-centric mirth as lonely college fresher Tracy (Gone Girl's Lola Kirke) is taken in by Brooke (Gerwig), her eccentric but highly adventurous stepsister-to-be. Crazy shit featuring a former nemesis who stole Brooke's cats ensues...

2. Precinct Seven Five 

This year is shaping up to be a fine one for documentaries. I've already enjoyed the likes of Going Clear, Amy and The Look of Silence, and Tiller Russell's film about Michael Dowd, "the dirtiest cop in NYC history", looks like a winner too. In the 1980s, Dowd patrolled one of Brooklyn's toughest beats... he also headed up a ruthless criminal network that stole money and drugs, ultimately resulting in the city's biggest ever corruption scandal. As the man himself says here: "I considered myself both a cop and a gangster". (By the way, in the States this film was simply called The Seven Five but it has been retitled for the UK market, just in case us stupid Brits mistook it for a documentary about the number 75. Duh.).

3. Trainwreck

Amy Schumer's stand-up and her TV sketch show (Inside Amy Schumer) make me laugh like an idiot so I'm very much looking forward to director Judd Apatow's attempt at transferring her easy charm and gloriously filthy mind to the big screen. In Trainwreck, she's Amy Townsend, a New York-based magazine writer and boozy, promiscuous gal about town. But Amy's licentious, bed-hopping ways threaten to come to a halt after she spends the night with sports injury doctor Aaron (Bill Hader) and decides – horror of horrors – that she quite likes him. Apparently the film contains cameos from US sports stars no one here in the UK will give a fig about but we won't hold that against it.

4. Absolutely Anything 

To put it mildly, this British comedy has not been well received by critics. "The second word of the title should be 'appalling'," booms The Guardian, while The Times dubs it: "Certainly one of the worst movies yet made". Crikey, even Pixels received better notices than that. The Monty Python team - Terry Jones (who also directs), John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam - play aliens who imbue Simon Pegg with the power to bend reality to his every whim. Fancy being president of the US for a bit? Easy. Want your pet dog to talk? No problem. Unfortunately, there's a catch. The extra-terrestrials are considering destroying Earth and Pegg is being tested. If he uses his powers for good the planet will be spared. But, if he uses them for selfish reasons, it's goodnight Vienna. The trailer's funny and I like Pegg and the Pythons so, sod the critics, I'm in.

5. The Confessions Of Thomas Quick

Another crime documentary (perhaps more of a docu-drama, in truth), this time about an extraordinary Swedish case. In the 1990s, the titular Quick - real name Sture Bergwall, then in his forties - was sent to a psychiatric hospital after committing a series of crimes. Whilst receiving treatment, however, he confessed to the rape and murder of an 11-year-old boy - a long unsolved investigation. But it didn't end there. He also took the rap for all manner of other sadistic killings, 39 in all, suddenly making him the most notorious serial killer in Swedish history. But that isn't the end of the story either. All is not as it seems and, to remain completely unspoiled, you should probably only watch the first 50 seconds of the trailer below. It doesn't give away the big twist but strongly hints at it.

Also on release from today

Brothers

Captain Webb 

Karachi To Lahore

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 

Paper Towns 

Pleasure Island
Ramta Jogi

Theeb

Vaalu

Vasuvum Saravananum Onna Padichavanga

UK box office top 10

1. Fantastic Four
2. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
3. Inside Out
4. Southpaw
5. The Gift
6. Ant-Man
7. Minions
8. Empire Strikes Back (Secret Cinema)
9. Jurassic World
10. Amy

US box office top 101. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
2. Fantastic Four
3. The Gift
4. Vacation
5. Ant-Man
6. Minions
7. Ricki and the Flash
8. Trainwreck
9. Pixels
10. Southpaw