Series 7: The Contenders

Series 7: The Contenders (2001) – Satirizing reality TV in the twenty-first century isn’t any kind of great challenge, and despite the billing, the film doesn’t do much comedy-wise (which is actually fine), but it more or less works because it’s spot-on in terms of the utterly shameless exploitative nature of the genre and because of some nice work by a few relatively unknown actors. 6

Children of Men

Children of Men (2006) – This is an extremely well-crafted film with rich background detail and a fully realized future; add in some great long shots, a compelling chase, and violence that feels real, and the hard-to-swallow plot points go down a lot easier. 7

Babylon A.D.

Babylon A.D. (2008) – The setting is strong but the storytelling is quite poor: the narrative is a cut-down, disjointed hodgepodge of insufficiently-developed story elements; it feels like a widely missed opportunity. 5

Asylum

Asylum (1972) – It generally does a good job with atmosphere, but beyond that and very brief turns by Peter Cushing and Herbert Lom, there’s not much that’s remarkable about this run-of-the-mill horror anthology, which features a collection of typically predictable and unimaginative stories. 5

The Secret World of Arrietty

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) – This happy little film features another strong female protagonist from Miyazaki and a nice score; I’ve never found The Borrowers particularly interesting, but this is certainly the best and best-looking realization of that world that I’ve seen. 6

The Grey

The Grey (2012) – This bleak, manly film has a pretty well-developed supporting cast for this sort of thing, but even so it’s almost a one-man Liam Neeson show, with all that entails; what sets this film apart is the reflective way in which it handles the constant presence of death, which gives it an engrossing amount of emotional weight. 7

Airplane!

Airplane! (1980) – Neither the leads nor their story is all that great, but a good majority of the jokes–including a couple of iconic ones–work, and work well, even after multiple viewings and decades; it’s aged a bit, but its use of tough-guy, straight-man actors and deadpan humor hold it together. 7

War of the Arrows

War of the Arrows (2011) – It doesn’t concern itself with backstory (which would have helped) and the story is fairly boilerplate, but credit the director et al.: this is a colorful, good-looking, nicely-scored action film with a surprising amount of intensity and suspense; the good character focus contributes to this latter and gives the film emotional gravity, lifting it above mediocrity; the overall impact of the film is not unlike that of Last of the Mohicans (although perhaps not quite on that level). 7