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The Mouse on the Moon (1963)   Amiable sequel to an amiably underpowered original. And that, despite the presence of frequent powerhouse Peter Sellers in three roles. This time, he’s conspicuously absent and replaced actually or effectively by Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody and Bernard Cribbins. All of whom are absolutely funny, but the real pep that makes The Mouse on the Moon an improvement on The Mouse that Roared is a frequently sharp-ish Michael Pertwee screenplay and a more energetic approach from director Richard Lester (making his feature debut-ish, if you choose to discount jazz festival performer parade It’s Trad, Dad!) Bracewell: We are the joint

The Mouse that Roared (1959)   I’d quite forgotten Peter Sellers essayed multiple roles in a movie satirising the nuclear option prior to Dr. Strangelove. Possibly because, while its premise is memorable, The Mouse that Roared isn’t, very. I was never overly impressed, much preferring the sequel that landed (or took off) four years later – sans Sellers – and this revisit confirms that take. The movie appears to pride itself on faux-Passport to Pimlico Ealing eccentricity, but forgets to bring the requisite laughs along too, or the indelible characters. It isn’t objectionable, just faintly dull. US Defence Secretary: Do you want it recorded in history that

Skidoo (1968)   You could at least discern that someone involved had some degree of awareness or first-hand knowledge of the scene with most of the counter-culture cash-ins Hollywood attempted during the ’60s, regardless of how shipwrecked the results were. No such luck befalls Skidoo, frequently cited as one of the biggest dodos ever made and with which director Otto Preminger evidences to anyone interested why he had not, hitherto, explored the comedy genre. The result is a grimly unfunny satire, as well as being woefully square, but it’s nevertheless so wrongfooted at every turn, unfolding with all the narrative sophistication of one

I Care a Lot (2020)   And it starts so well too. J Blakeson’s movie sets out its stall as a merciless satire on greed; sociopath Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), from a line of sociopaths, makes her money manipulating the legal system to gain guardianship of the elderly, whom she then fleeces. Until she picks the wrong mark, that is: the mother (Dianne Wiest) of a Russian mobster (Peter Dinklage). The scenario’s potential, that of ruthless villain squaring off against ruthless villain, is fertile, and for a while I Care a Lot does indeed move along quite deliriously. And then it runs

Candy (1968)   There’s no way anyone could get away with making it today. I’ll wager that’s the immediate reaction of anyone seeing Candy for the first time. Which, much as I’m adverse to outrage culture, is probably a positive. There’s something inherently suspect about satirising a subject through embracing it wholeheartedly, as this adaptation of the 1958 novel’s trawl through a pornographic America rather bears out. It’s tantamount to suggesting the oeuvre of Eli Roth is actually a commentary on violence. Nevertheless, while Candy isn’t a good movie, attempting as it does to filter its satirical subjects through a Confessions of a Window Cleaner-style level of

The Loved One (1965)   Tony Richardson’s follow up to Tom Jones rather suggests his success with that film was an accident (I’m an unabashed fan, and regard it as a rare Best Picture Oscar winner the Academy got right). More likely, it was a case of the very things that worked for Jones… didn’t so much for The Loved One. The movie entertains consistently – it couldn’t really not with that cast – but it never feels quite as incisive or as effective as it should, Waugh’s eviscerating satire ending up rather too broad and scattershot. Pauline Kael labelled The Loved One “a triumphant

Private’s Progress (1956)   Truth be told, there’s good reason sequel I’m Alright Jack reaps the raves – it is, after all, razor sharp and entirely focussed in its satire – but Private’s Progress is no slouch either. In some respects, it makes for an easy bedfellow with such wartime larks as Norman Wisdom’s The Square Peg (one of the slapstick funny man’s better vehicles). But it’s also, typically of the Boulting Brothers’ unsentimental disposition, utterly remorseless in rebuffing any notions of romantic wartime heroism, nobility and fighting the good fight. Everyone in the British Army is entirely cynical, or terrified, or an idiot. At one

Doctor Who The Sun Makers   Or The Sunmakers, if you first came to the story via its Target novelisation. I’ve generally regarded this one as not quite making it. Call it the Pennant Roberts factor, if you like, degrading any bite and sharpness into a slightly bland soufflé. That approach failed to dent the later The Pirate Planet, where the script’s knockabout energy is complemented by the outrageous performances, lending the whole a ramshackle spark. But departing script editor Robert Holmes granted The Sun Makers a shed load of wit and perversity, and it didn’t feel like it was being done justice. Revisiting

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)   Kubrick’s masterpiece satire of mutually-assured destruction. Or is it? Not the masterpiece bit, because that’s a given. Rather, is all it’s really about the threat of nuclear holocaust? While that’s obviously quite sufficient, all the director’s films are suggested to have, in popular alt-readings, something else going on under the hood, be it exposing the ways of Elite paedophilia (Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut), MKUltra programming (A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket), transhumanism and the threat of imminent AI overlords (2001: A Space Odyssey), and most of the

Parasite (2019)   I had the ending of Parasite spoiled for me before seeing the film – it was difficult to avoid, given the time that has passed since its US release. Albeit, spoiled more in terms of the manner by which violence suddenly erupts than the specifics of who perpetrates it. Some of these mentions alluded to it coming out of nowhere, and thus being tonally inconsistent with the picture. It’s a view I can’t really get on board with, except in as much as there’s nothing so graphic hitherto. Otherwise, though, there’s an air of foreboding and dread running through

Duck Soup (1933)   Not for nothing is Duck Soup acclaimed as one of the greatest comedies ever, and while you’d never hold it against Marx Brothers movies for having little in the way of coherent plotting in – indeed, it’s pretty much essential to their approach – the presence of actual thematic content this time helps sharpen the edges of both their slapstick and their satire. Trentino: There is a machine gun nest near Hill 28. I want it cleaned out. Chicolini: All right, I’ll tell the janitor. It is stretching things a bit to characterise Duck Soup as one of the great war satires,

Jojo Rabbit (2019)   Not so much the banality of evil as of taking pot-shots at easy targets, Taika Waititi’s typically insubstantial, broad-brush, sketch-comedy approach isn’t the best of fits for the formulation of this self-styled “anti-hate satire”. The issue isn’t so much that it’s inappropriate or insensitive to broach material of Nazi persecution of the Jews comedically as that the manner in which it has been done here is so obvious as to be redundant. Waititi said his inspiration for making the movie was partly the statistics on those Americans who had never heard of Auschwitz; Jojo Rabbit is as cack-handed

Fight Club (1999)   Still David Fincher’s peak picture, mostly by dint of Fight Club being the only one you can point to and convincingly argue that the source material is up there with his visual and technical versatility. If Seven is a satisfying little serial-killer-with-a-twist story vastly improved by his involvement (just imagine it directed by Joel Schumacher… or watch 8mm), Fight Club invites him to utilise every trick in the book to tell the story of not-Tyler Durden, whom we encounter at a very peculiar time in his life. Indeed, much of the fare Fincher has ended up making since has seemed like a regression

The Laundromat (2019)   Steven Soderbergh’s flair for cinematic mediocrity continues with this attempt at The Big Short-style topicality, taking aim at the Panama Papers but ending up with a mostly blunt satire, one eager to show how the offshore system negatively impacts the average – and also the not-so-average – person but at the expense of really digging in to how it facilitates the turning of the broader capitalist world (it is, after all based on Jake Bernstein’s  Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite). As per Traffic and Contagion, Soderbergh illustrates his big idea via

Natural Born Killers (1994)   In which Oliver Stone loses the plot. Casting about for something new to get incensed over, now he’s burnt himself out on Nam and dead presidents, Oli happens upon a Tarantino script (sold for $10k) and proceeds to take a wrecking ball to it. As a non sequitur of a cinematic experience, it’s almost as if he actively sought to piss away the good will the editing Oscar for JFK engendered (notably awarded to a different editor). As a media “satire”, Natural Born Killers reinforces criticisms that his only means of tackling a subject is napalming it. Suffice to

American Beauty (1999)   As is often the case with the Best Picture Oscar, a backlash against a deemed undeserved reward has grown steadily in the years since American Beauty’s win. The film is now often identified as symptomatic of a strain of cinematic indulgence focussing on the affluent middle classes’ first-world problems. Worse, it showcases a problematic protagonist with a Lolita-fixation towards his daughter’s best friend (imagine its chances of getting made, let alone getting near the podium in the #MeToo era). Some have even suggested it “mercifully” represents a world that no longer exists (as a pre-9/11 movie), as if such hyperbole

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)   It’s often the case that industry-shaking flops aren’t nearly the travesties they appeared to be before the dust had settled, and so it is with The Bonfire of the Vanities. The adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s ultra-cynical bestseller is still the largely toothless, apologetically broad-brush comedy – I’d hesitate to call it a satire in its reconfigured form – it was when first savaged by critics nearly thirty years ago, but taken for what it is, that is, removed from the long shadow of Wolfe’s novel, it’s actually fairly serviceable star-stuffed affair. Certainly, one that

Sorry to Bother You (2018)   There’s a cumulative fatigue accompanying Sorry to Bother You, akin to readily agreeing to sign a petition only to be immediately subjected to a ten-minute tirade detailing all the reasons you should sign said petition. Boots Riley’s film can boast several great performances (in particular, Lakeith Stanfield, marvellously deadpan in the lead role), is intermittently very funny, has an appealing visual flair and a deftly complementary soundtrack (courtesy of Tune-Yards and Riley’s The Coup), but by the time it’s done, you’ve more than had enough. And that’s without including the horse-men. The setup is confident

Forrest Gump (1994)   There was a time when I’d have made a case for, if not greatness, then Forrest Gump’s unjust dismissal from conversations regarding its merits. To an extent, I still would. Just not nearly so fervently. There’s simply too much going on in the picture to conclude that the manner in which it has generally been received is the end of the story. Tarantino, magnanimous in the face of Oscar defeat, wasn’t entirely wrong when he suggested to Robert Zemeckis that his was, effectively, a subversive movie. Its problem, however, is that it wants to have its cake

Starship Troopers (1997)   Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trio of Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers are frequently claimed to be unrivalled in their genre, but it’s really only the first of them that entirely attains that rarefied level. Discussion and praise of Starship Troopers are generally prefaced by noting that great swathes of people – including critics and cast members – were too stupid to realise it was a satire. This is a bit of a Fight Club one, certainly for anyone from the UK – Verhoeven commented “The English got it though. I remember coming out of Heathrow and seeing the posters, which were great. They were just stupid lines

The Other Side of the Wind (2018)   Sometimes it may be better not to get what you want and to carry on dreaming about how splendid it would be if you had it. The Other Side of the Wind has been one of those elusive grail items; “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we finally got to see Orson Welles’ great uncompleted masterpiece?” The critical response to getting it at last has been generally kind, but generally kind in the sense of considering it would be churlish to rip it to shreds after all the effort that has gone in to getting

Okja (2017)   I’d avoided Okja until now, mainly because, while I appreciated Snowpiercer up to a point, I found its on-the-nose political allegory borderline excruciating. And that was quite beside the absence of internal logic in respect of its premise. Okja promised more of the same, and indeed, Bong Joon-ho’s hammer-to-crack-a-nut approach is entirely less than endearing, such that I was frequently prone to wishing a fate worse than sausages on the adorably titular GM porker and be done with her. But Bong’s a fine filmmaker, if a much more variable writer (here helped out by Jon Ronson, who acquitted himself much more honourably when

The Death of Stalin (2017)   Armando Iannucci’s previous big-screen effort, In the Loop, wasn’t, I felt, quite as effective as the short-sharp-sniggers its tighter TV companion The Thick of It delivered. With The Death of Stalin, the only common ground is that he’s still immersing himself in politics. Which, let’s face is it, is a substantial amount of common ground, as both follow a procession of ineptitude, backstabbing, power grabs and self-preservation. What makes the The Death of Stalin particularly stand out, though, is that it isn’t just very funny, it also works as a thriller. One can, if one so chooses, impress upon the

Heathers (1988)   Michael Lehmann’s opening trio of movies – Heathers, Meet the Applegates, and, yes, Hudson Hawk – marked him out as a bright talent in the realm of absurdist humour, one to rival Joe Dante and Tim Burton. And then what became of him? A retreat from the mauling Bruno’s vanity vehicle received, into likeable but indifferent fare, and now a jobbing career on TV. It seems so unfair. As for his collaborator in Heathers’ pitch-black comedy, Daniel Waters, the man who wrote the screenplay with Kubrick in mind as director, no less, he’s the classic example of starting on a giddy high

The Running Man (1987)   Now here’s a Stephen King/Richard Bachman adaptation that could do with a remake. The actual date of futuristic dystopias clocking round is usually a cue to compare and contrast, and no doubt in two years there will be legion Blade Runner articles doing precisely that (and damning/feting the worthy/tragic sequel). Actually, they might be doing it with The Running Man too, since it’s only a worldwide economic collapse announced in the opening crawl that occurred in 2017; the events of the movie also take place two years from now. Nevertheless, it has garnered some attention (most notably an Empire article) this

War Machine (2017)   How many War on Terror movies have to be made – let alone War on Terror satires – before Hollywood realises it simply doesn’t have what it takes to interrogate the ongoing charade with any degree of acumen, diligence or (in this case) wit? This isn’t just true of that particular ongoing excursion into imperialism, of course; it’s largely the case with any would-be politically-attuned vehicles (see the recent Our Brand Is Crisis), that go for soft ineffectuality, or knowing aloofness, when something, anything would be preferable. Anger’s one mode. Insight’s even better. They’re both absent from War Machine,

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)   I can probably count the musicals I really like on the fingers of one hand that has lost several digits in a dreadful viola accident. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is one of those, however. A satire very much of its era (leaving stage remounts the option of ill-advisedly attempting to update it or looking dubious in intent), infused with commentary on sexism in the workplace that may now seem outmoded (but, in some respects, has simply become less overt), David Swift’s adaptation of Frank Loesser’s 1961 musical, adapted

Robocop 2 (1990)   The potential for a decent movie is lurking somewhere within Robocop 2’s torrid metallic shell. Cast aside the tone-deaf visuals, the horrendous score from Leonard Rosenman (quite possibly the worst such to afflict a major motion picture outside of, well the ’80s; and at least they aren’t accompanied by the unheavenly choral charge of “Robocop!”) and the unerring facility for unpleasantness, and there’s something in there, deep underneath. Unfortunately, though, I suspect it was a doomed enterprise from the off. It falls apart through lacking the fundamental ingredients that make Robocop an abiding classic; an unwavering vision of what

The Lobster (2015)   A film for which the word “quirky” could have been designed. The Lobster fair old quivers with quirk, but unfortunately its idiosyncratic, deadpan satire of relationship mores isn’t entirely sustained across its two-hour length. And yet, despite its sometimes-overpowering affectation powering a slender premise, the sort of thing that would probably make for a much better short film than a feature, I found Yorgos Lanthimos’ English language feature debut fitfully engrossing. That’s not to say it’s particularly clever or insightful – its points are really rather crude – but it has an infectiously pitch-black sense of humour, and

The Second Civil War (1997)   This satire of a White House in crisis mode, as Ohio threatens cessation from the United States, was originally to have been directed by Levinson. Who made the same year’s intermittently effective Wag the Dog. Intermittently effective also describes Joe Dante’s HBO movie, which offers occasionally sharp and never-more-topical things to say about the buzz issues of immigration, personal sovereignty and media manipulation yet finds itself rather inert dramatically, when it needs to be propulsive. It may be that Dante was the wrong guy for the task, or simply that the means of making this

Meet the Applegates (1990)   A good few Michael Lehmann movies are probably best forgotten, but his first three aren’t among them. The in-betweener, Meet the Applegates, passed virtually unnoticed, missing out on the acclaim that greeted Heathers and the (undeserved) infamy reserved for Hudson Hawk. It has remained in an off-the-radar state, bereft of even a DVD release, making it something of a highly prized cult movie. Applegates is a broad, rambunctious satire of the American way of life, picking at the corrupting influences lurking beneath the idealised surface. Lehmann’s energy and glee at the task in hand are irresistible, and so he delivers a

Maps to the Stars (2014)   David Cronenberg’s typically twisted dissection of Hollywoods and would-bes gets under the skin like nothing he’s made in a decade. If the hermetic cocoon of Cosmopolis represented a return to the territory of less grounded narratives after a series of (for him) formally concrete pictures with Viggo Mortensen, Maps to the Stars seals that deal.  An exploration of superficiality and emptiness, and the darkness that lurks within, his film from Bruce Wagner’s screenplay is very much not a Tinseltown satire, although it nevertheless conveys the requisite barbs and props. Rather, Maps to the Stars is a claustrophobic horror, its jaundice deriving from the

Nightcrawler (2014)   A meticulously constructed thriller, at first glance Nightcrawler appears to position itself as a media satire in the vein of Network; only with a 21st century makeover. Yet, as biting as the chunks it takes out of the TV business are, it becomes ever clearer as the film progresses that the target is really the unfeeling soulless executive and the corporate mentality that will screw anyone over without a second thought in the name of profit and getting ahead. At the centre of the Dan Gilroy’s movie, one of the best and most unsettling of the year, is a startling, mesmerising

Robocop (1987)   Robocop is one of a select group of action movies I watched far too many times during my teenage years. One can over-indulge in the good things, and pallor can be lost through over-familiarity. It’s certainly the case that Paul Verhoeven’s US breakthrough wears its limited resources on its battered metal-plated chest and, in its “Director’s Cut” form at least, occasionally over-indulges his enthusiastic lack of restraint. Yet its shortcomings are minor ones. It remains stylistically impressive and thematically as a sharp as a whistle. This year’s remake may have megabucks and slickness on its side but there

The Prisoner 12. A Change of Mind   We want information. After two Villagers pick a fight with Six, which he wins, he is accused of anti-social behaviour. He is summoned before the Committee and is asked to confess his crimes, which he refuses to do. Subject to further investigation, Six is warned by Two that defiance of the Committee could be very dangerous. 86 has been appointed to guide Six through the process of public contrition, but he shows complete disinterest. He attends the Social Group where he ridicules those seeking help. Following this, the Committee classifies Six as

Robocop (2014)   How long before you can buy the Robocop remake for a dollar from bargain bins? Not very, I’d hazard a guess (if anyone watching it will even bother buying it, at this stage in the rise of the download world). Its greatest virtue is that it isn’t terrible, but stating that it’s superior to that other recent Paul Verhoeven remake (Total Recall) is merely damning Robocop 2014 with faint praise. None of the signs were promising, from the reveal of the suit onwards. It’s a graceless design, Street Hawk with the de rigueur Batman pectoral ribbing. But a sharp story, adeptly told will

The Prisoner 8. Dance of the Dead   We want information. An attempt to extract information from Six, using a fellow prisoner named Dutton, meets with failure. Two, who was not party to the experiment, has other plans. She intends to use persuasion with Six, who is invited to the annual Village Carnival. Six discovers a body on the beach. He retrieves a radio from the dead man and sends the corpse back out to sea with a distress message attached. Dutton encounters Six, and tells him he spilled his secrets but that the Village did not believe him. Six

The Howling (1981)   Much as I like The Howling, I can’t quite love The Howling. Strangely for a Joe Dante film, a director who usually really knows his intended tone, at times there is a mismatch between the stream of gags, asides and movie references and the earnest manner in with which the central character is portrayed. The Howling also suffers by inevitable comparison with the same year’s American Werewolf in London. Generally, it is John Landis whose cinematic mood lurches wildly about with gleeful disregard, but Werewolf is his most wholly conceived movie. The key to this might be the self-awareness of his central characters; it never

Winter Kills (1979)   Winter Kills stands out from other JFK assassination-fuelled pictures, not only due its broad satirical bent but also thanks to a beleaguered production history that could inspire its own movie. The latter involved murder, production shutdowns (no less than four), a filing for bankruptcy, a remount several years later and finally an ignominious fate when it was dumped, in butchered form, in a limited release slot. Based on Richard “The Manchurian Candidate” Condon’s novel of the same name, this fictionalised rehearsal of the different strands of JFK conspiracy theorising takes a “names have been changed” tack but

Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)   Cheeseburger Film Sandwich. Apparently, that’s what the French call Amazon Women on the Moon. Except it probably sounds a little more elegant, since they’d be saying it in French (I hope so, anyway). Given the title, it should be no surprise it’s regarded as a sequel to Kentucky Fried Movie there. Which, in some respects, it is. John Landis originally planned to direct the whole of Amazon Women himself, but brought in other directors due to scheduling issues. The finished film is as much of a mess as Kentucky Fried Movie, arrayed with more miss sketches than hit

The Prisoner 2. The Chimes of Big Ben   We want information. Number Six agrees to collaborate; if Number Two agrees to halt the interrogation of new arrival Number Eight. Six enters the Village Arts and Crafts Competition, but this is a cover for an escape bid he is planning with Eight. Six’s art doubles as a sailing boat, and he and Eight travel to London. Meeting with his bosses, Six is on the verge of discussing his resignation, but realises he is still in the Village when the chimes of Big Ben match the time on his watch; there

The Prisoner 1. Arrival   Where am I? Much has been written of The Prisoner over the years. Perhaps even more than comparable cult series, it’s very finite duration has encouraged fans to pore over its every nuance and quirk. I have to admit that, whilst I’d count it among my television favourites, I have tended to resist over-analysing the series or any impulses to weave together its disparate threads into a text providing clarity and definition. I don’t much care whether Number Six is really John Drake, why he resigned (it’s pretty much the series’ MacGuffin; unimportant except in that it

The Campaign (2012)   I’d forgotten that Jay Roach was responsible for this Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis pairing, assuming the director was Ferrell-regular Adam McKay (who gets a writing credit). It often is easy to forget who calls the shots on US comedies as stylistically they are so anonymous. Roach is as much of a journeyman as the rest; initial hopes that he might be another John Landis were dashed when he settled on the likes of Fockers. Nevertheless, he attracted plaudits for his Game Change TV movie (dramatising Sarah Palin’s running for VP). That might have suggested some political bite, but the satire in The Campaign is

The Man in the White Suit (1951)   Alexander Mackendrick’s highly astute film is spun from a very simple “What if?” premise; a scientist creates a fabric that will not wear-out or retain dirt. From this he weaves a scintillating satire on capitalism that takes potshots at both the the workers and the industrialists, whose views connect at the point where the status quo is endangered. Some have pointed to the dismay of Sidney Stratton’s (Alec Guinness) landlady, “Why can’t you scientists leave things as they are?” as a summary of the main message of the film itself (she, in

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)   Joe Dante’s solitary sequel is a fine example of why Hollywood studios don’t generally give filmmakers the keys to the kingdom. Warner Bros had been unsuccessfully attempting to come up with a second installment ever since Gremlins proved a break-out hit in the summer of 1984. One that was surprising even by “Steven Spielberg presents” standards. It was as doubtful a sure thing as the following year’s Back to the Future would be for Universal. Gremlins’ sensibility mined a pitch black humour that the mainstream generally baulked at. Spielberg had misgivings about some of these elements (but

Wrong is Right aka The Man With the Deadly Lens (1982)   For two of the last three decades, Richard Brooks’ media satire Wrong is Right was mostly forgotten. Then, in the wake of 9/11 and the wave of fear that followed, very gradually, a re-discovery began. Perhaps not on the level of a genuine cult following (although, hit and miss in tone and ramshackle in production, it is ideal fare for such protective endorsements) but certainly sufficient that multiple and audible gasps of amazement have been uttered at its  prescience and topicality. The extent of one’s cynicism over the West’s current

The President’s Analyst (1967)   Writer/director Theodore J Flicker’s The President’s Analyst was released at the tail end of 1967, a year which, in retrospect, appears to have been the peak moment for a generation who believed they could bring about real and lasting societal change. Flicker’s film refracts the spirit of the times through the prism of comedy. And the result, as is often the case with great satires, endeavours to have its cake and eat it too. So its ideas and themes are dressed in a recognisably ‘60s style, from the saturated colours of the widescreen cinematography and the jazz-pop