Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

Loulou
(Maurice Pialat, 1980)
An early triumph for Pialat, this features the heartstoppingly young and guileless-looking
Isabelle Huppert, then 27 years old, but looking far younger. She plays a well-to-do woman
trapped in an abusive relationship with an older lover. Defying him, she moves in with sexy
wastrel and ex-jailbird GÈrard DÈpardieu, and begins a new life of passion, anger and selfdiscovery.
Much praised for the raw, risky performances.
Love Is the Devil
(John Maybury, 1998)
Maybury not only gives us an Orton-esque love story about the unlikely romance between
Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) and petty burglar George Dyer (Daniel Craig), he also provides
a memorable evocation of decadent Soho bohemia in all its seedy pomp. This is the world of
Muriel Belcher, John Deakin and Daniel Farson - low-lives, often from high-born backgrounds,
railing against the dreariness and hypocrisy of British society.
The Lovers
(Louis Malle, 1958)
"I know it when I see it, and the motion picture in this case is not that." Thus spake US
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1960. "It" was obscenity, and the motion picture was
The Lovers, a still erotic, sexually torrid meditation on what a bored bourgeois Frenchwoman
(Jeanne Moreau) really wants.
M
(Fritz Lang, 1931)
While others were savouring the novelty of talking pictures, Lang, as usual, was thinking
much further ahead, unearthing subject matter that we're still fascinated with today: serial
killers and police investigations. What's more, Peter Lorre's child-murderer is almost the hero
of the piece, and the rest of society comes in for a pasting: inept police, hypocritical criminals,
even neglectful parents.
M Hulot's Holiday
(Jacques Tati, 1953)
Star, director, producer and co-writer of the Monsieur Hulot cycle, Tati launched his revered
alter ego in this 1953 satire, set in a stuffy beachside resort. Hulot, a likeable brainless hero
whose cheerful enthusiasm gets him into misadventures, unwittingly disrupts the guests'
peace and quiet in a series of hilarious dialogue-free slapstick episodes. Physical comedy at
its finest.
Mad Max
(George Miller, 1979)
Miller's future-vision of a barren, petrol-starved Australia run by feral biker tribes still has gutwrenching
throttle, with cop Mel Gibson flipping from tender to brutal when his young family
are murdered. The film may have grown out of the 1970s oil crisis, but given current events,
it's gaining in relevance once more.
Made in Britain
(Alan Clarke, 1982)
Stories about charismatic skinhead-fascists are now almost a distinct genre; this is the great
original, made for TV by Alan Clarke and featuring a blazingly powerful performance from the
16-year-old Tim Roth as angry, alienated young Trevor, who flaunts rightwing associations,
but is not attached to any tribe, and ferociously challenges authority at every step.
The Magnificent Seven
(John Sturges, 1960)
What a grand example of cultural exchange this is: the icoconography of the classic American
western of John Ford gets transplanted eastwards by Akira Kurosawa, where it is made over