Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

with his wife (Patricia Arquette) and his breathtakingly useless social worker (Tia Leoni) in
search of his real parents, who turn out to be acid-dealing, pot-growing 60s casualties. His inlaws,
predictably and hysterically, are very much not.
The Fly
(David Cronenberg, 1986)
One of the few films that gives remakes a good name. It's a love triangle between a man, a
woman and a genetic-level infestation of rampant, mutating fly DNA. Then real-life couple Jeff
Goldblum and Geena Davis show real chemistry - by no means a given - adding real pathos
to Cronenberg's body-horror.
Force of Evil
(Abraham Polonsky, 1948)
In this classic noir, lawyer John Garfield puts himself through the wringer to protect his
numbers-racketeering brother from bankruptcy when his criminal clients embark on a plan to
ruin their opposition. Polonsky was an active and committed Marxist and even though the film
attacks a rather dubious form of capitalism, it was enough to get him blacklisted.
The Fortune Cookie
(Billy Wilder, 1966)
First and best example of the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau double act: the former is a
cameraman knocked over while covering a sports event, the latter an ambulance-chasing
lawyer who persuades him to ham up his injuries for the compensation money. Wilder and coscripter
IAL Diamond are at their cynical funniest; this is a real treat.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rex Ingram, 1921)
Blood-heat silent melodrama that made Rudolph Valentino a worldwide star. He's the
incarnation of dark-eyed South American sensuality as the scion of Argentinian ranch-owners
who decamps to debauchery in France but gets killed in the war. Before that, though, he
tangoed into the hearts of women everywhere.
The Four Hundred Blows
(François Truffaut, 1959)
A moving portrait of an unloved and misunderstood adolescent who turns to petty crime, this
marks the first of Truffaut's semi-autobiographic saga of Antoine Doinel, sensitively played by
the director's alter-ego protege Jean-Pierre Léaud. A landmark in black-and-white new wave
realism for its masterful mix of understated emotion and innovative technique.
Frankenstein
(James Whale, 1931)
Although it strays somewhat from Mary Shelley's novel, Whale's Frankenstein provided one of
cinema's most iconic visions in the form of Boris Karloff's flat-topped monster. His sensitive,
mute performance still seems years ahead of the rather stagey showboating of the other
actors. Viewed today, you can still catch glimpses of how groundbreaking this was on release.
Freaks
(Tod Browning, 1932)
"One of us! One of us!" Browning's oft-banned masterpiece tells of a circus girl who marries a
dwarf for his money, only to suffer the terrifying vengeance of his pals from the freak tent. Still
a queasy experience today.
The French Connection
(William Friedkin, 1971)
Archetypal tough-guy policier that cemented Friedkin's reputation in the early 70s New
Hollywood, as well as catapulting Gene Hackman to the major league after years of toiling in
relative obscurity. His Popeye Doyle was perfect for the times: violent, ruthless, amoral, and
too desperate to care.