Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy promises the kind of irreverent disdain for blockbuster norms that founded the Marvel Studios juggernaut, way back when they handed the reins to Mr. Favreau and Mr. Downey Jr. It features an unapologetically weird crew of intergalactic outlaws – green-skinned princesses and rocket-wielding raccoons – in an unapologetically weird universe mined…

Scarlett Johansson in Lucy (2014)

Lucy (2014)

Lucy is a deliriously unhinged future cult-classic, a joyously overstuffed treatise on the Meaning Of Life scrawled in Comic Sans and rendered in a vivid mélange of gunfights, car chases and stock footage. Its frankly ridiculous concept – Local Woman Uses More Than 10% Of Her Brain – could have easily produced an enjoyably daft…

Vampire Hunter D

Vampire Hunter D (1985)

Confession: I spent the majority of Vampire Hunter D thoroughly puzzled. Not necessarily at the narrative – though its convoluted miasma of vampire aristocracy, big guns and faces-in-hands is a good distance from coherent – but at how little the film in question met my expectations. Didn’t I watch this a while ago? Didn’t it…