Dave’s Movie Diary

What do you get when you mix Christopher Walken, a mind-bending sci-fi idea, a pair of golf slacks straight out of Caddyshack and a finale that looks like Douglas Trumbull has raided the cosmic leftovers from 2001: A Space Odyssey ? You get Brainstorm (1983) — a film with its foot flat on the accelerator, its hands off the steering wheel and absolutely no idea where the road ends!

Kicking off my Wonder of Walken: A Weekend of Wacky, Weird and Wild Walken is The Dead Zone — a Stephen King story brought to life by Christopher Walken and director David Cronenberg. I’ve watched this one more times than I can count, but Walken’s wonderfully odd, understated performance still gets me thinking: if you could see the future, would you really want to know — and would you have the gut...

Michael Mann’s Collateral is a gripping night-time thriller, with Jamie Foxx caught in a nightmare taxi ride and Tom Cruise chillingly effective as a professional hitman. I revisit a film that keeps me hooked every time, and wonder why Cruise hasn’t taken more chances with roles like this.

Sunny has the voice, the looks and plenty of spark, but she can’t seem to catch a break as she tries to make it as a singer in East Germany. Renate Krößner is terrific in Konrad Wolf’s Solo Sunny , a film that asks whether it’s a rigid society or simply life itself that makes it so hard to be yourself.

I revisit Christina Hornisher’s cult film to explore its disturbing ideas about obsession, exploitation and urban decay, its remarkable images of early-70s Los Angeles, and how a film so rough around the edges can deliver one of the most unforgettable finales I’ve seen.

I thought Night Moves was good when I first saw it, but this rewatch has turned me into a fan — Gene Hackman is magnificent as a private eye who seems to get just about everything wrong, while Arthur Penn delivers a sun-drenched mystery with a very dark underbelly. For me, it’s the ultimate Saturday-night movie: great dialogue, fascinating characters, unexpected twists and a reminder of just how g...

I revisit China Moon , a 90s erotic thriller I remembered rather more fondly than it deserves. Madeleine Stowe is a smoke show, but with wooden performances, dodgy decisions and a plot you can see coming a mile away, this one’s strictly Thursday-night viewing — and probably best left in the 90s.

Revisiting Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible was far more confronting than I remembered, but beneath its horrific violence I found an extraordinary piece of filmmaking about time, revenge and the fragility of happiness. Deeply disturbing yet brilliantly constructed, it’s a film that left me thinking long after it ended.

Ken Russell’s Tommy is a gloriously bonkers rock opera packed with outrageous performances, bizarre imagery and unforgettable music. From Tina Turner’s Acid Queen to Ann-Margret’s baked-beans-and-chocolate meltdown, it’s decadent, excessive 1970s cinema at its absolute wildest. And as a gateway into The Who, it’s hard to beat.

Harry Callahan is back, and he’s got a new partner, a fresh batch of criminals to shoot and the usual collection of bureaucrats to piss off. I revisit The Enforcer to see whether Clint Eastwood still delivers the goods, even when the plot starts getting a little bloody ridiculous.

Winter of Our Dreams may be a slight little film, but Judy Davis’s troubled character and the complicated worlds she moves between give it plenty to chew on. For me, though, the real pleasure is revisiting a gritty, long-gone Sydney of old Kings Cross, Balmain and the waterfront — a fascinating snapshot of life in 1981.

Basic Instinct is a film of irresistible style, outrageous behaviour and one of cinema’s most iconic performances from Sharon Stone. But beneath all that sex, violence and San Francisco glamour, the mystery doesn’t always make as much sense as it thinks it does.

Revisiting Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom after 30 years, I found fewer chills than I remembered, but plenty to chew over in this disturbing tale of a photographer whose obsession with capturing fear comes at a terrible cost. It’s less a straight-up thriller than a deeply unsettling look at how a monster is made.

Catherine Deneuve, a secret double life and Luis Buñuel’s wonderfully strange view of desire — Belle de Jour is certainly an intriguing combination. Revisiting this 1967 classic, I found plenty to chew over, from its surreal fantasies to its curious characters and the fine line between what’s real and what isn’t.

I revisit Ken Russell’s gloriously bizarre take on the night Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein , and discover that nearly 40 years on, it’s every bit as strange as I remembered — although I now have a better idea what the hell is going on. Lord Byron, sex, drugs, séances, demons and Julian Sands at full volume… what could possibly go wrong?

Dustin Hoffman is almost unrecognisable in Straight Time , a tough, gritty 1978 film about an ex-con trying to make a life on the straight and narrow — and slowly finding his way back to the only world he really knows.

I revisit Spike Lee’s He Got Game , a film I’ve always had a soft spot for. Denzel is terrific, Ray Allen is a revelation, the music is bloody brilliant and there are some cracking scenes — it’s a really good film, even if a few things stop it from being a great one.

I revisit Proof , a quirky little Australian film from 1991 that I remembered liking but had almost completely forgotten. Hugo Weaving is terrific, Russell Crowe is impossibly young and natural, and Geneviève Picot’s Celia turns out to be far more fascinating — and dangerous — than I remembered.

I revisit this Dutch psychological thriller I hadn’t seen since the early 90s, and discover it’s every bit as unsettling as I remembered. A missing woman, a relentlessly obsessed boyfriend and one of the most chillingly ordinary psychopaths you’re ever likely to meet make this a fascinating film about obsession, madness and the price of finding out the truth.

I can’t believe I somehow missed The Bounty for more than 40 years, especially as an Australian. Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson are brilliantly cast, a very young Liam Neeson and Daniel Day-Lewis pop up along the way, and what I expected to be a history lesson turned out to be one hell of an entertaining adventure.

Fernando Rey spends the entire film chasing a woman who keeps changing her face, moving the goalposts and driving him completely mad. I had a great time watching Buñuel mix sexual frustration, dark comedy, obsession and terrorism into one wonderfully strange and captivating film.

I revisit Mike Leigh’s All or Nothing , a tough but brilliantly acted look at a family struggling with money, relationships and just getting through the day. Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville are terrific, and while things get pretty bleak, Leigh manages to find a little hope in the darkness.

I revisit Ken Loach’s gripping political thriller where an investigation into a murder gradually uncovers something much bigger. Brian Cox and Frances McDormand are terrific as two people forced to decide just how far they’re prepared to go to uncover the truth.

I revisit a film that’s every bit as powerful and entertaining as I remembered. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger are terrific, but it’s the combination of murder mystery, atmosphere and a searing portrait of racial prejudice that makes this 1967 classic still hit hard today.

Three Colours: Red has always been my favourite of Kieślowski’s trilogy, and one of the films I remembered most fondly from the 1990s. With its chance encounters, strange connections and characters whose lives gradually become intertwined, there’s certainly plenty to unpack this time around.