With the swimming pools, drugs, girls and parties come a bunch of spoilt young brats who seem to take their cues from 'American History X' and black inner city gangster movies. They tattoo themselves, build their bodies, call their girls bitches, sell drugs, fight and use guns. Violence, drugs, language, this movie has them in bucketloads, even sex raises its head. Plotwise; headcase Jake owes lots of drug money to drug lord's son John and John kidnaps Jake's younger brother as a hostage. Kid br find out more...

Inside this conventionally structured biopic resides an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. William Wilberforce was the parliamentary spokesman for a group of radicalised young Evangelists (and Quakers), who despised the money politics and corruption of late 18th Century UK politics and who fought for many reformist policies, the most notable of which was the one this film annotates, the abolition of slavery, a process that took years of political skulduggery and the slow passage of find out more...

A down-beat story of a 13-year-old Berliner, ignored by her mother, drifting into herion addiction and consequent prostitution. A fine soundtrack by her musical hero, David Bowie, accompanies this excellent, if somewhat depressing movie. find out more...

When wealthy John du Pont invites Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz to move to his estate and help form a wrestling team for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Mark sees a way to step out of the shadow of his charismatic and revered find out more...

Hoffman is outstanding, especially in the night club stand up comedy scenes, as the flawed cult NY genius Lenny Bruce, the Beat Generation kid who became a blueprint for a new kind of entertainer with his outrageous anti-establishment routine, his profanities, his attitude toward drugs, his irreverence and general anarchistic demeanour. A must for all budding stand up comedians and fans of good movies. find out more...

The frightening story of a naive young American caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and sentenced to years inside a particularly vicious prison regime. The despair and desolation are brought home brutally. John Hurt is magnificent as the eccentric British prison veteran. find out more...

Streep and MacLaine give riveting portrayals as the celebrity mother and daughter, who, more alike than they think, battle against both each other and the alcohol and drug induced haze of Hollywood. Supposedly based on the true-life traumas of actress Carrie Fisher and her mum Debbie Reynolds and adapted from Fisher's semi-autobiographical novel. 9 out of 9. find out more...

Gritty drama based on the novel by Jim Carroll. DiCaprio is inspired as the ringleader of a bunch of teenage boys on the degrading downward spiral into drug addiction. Hard-hitting stuff which gets the "Just Say No" message across without becoming overly sanctimonious. Excellent performances. find out more...

A variant on the gangster theme but this time with an investigation led not by the police but by a high profile journalist, Veronica Guerin, whose determination to get to the root of the heroin problem in Dublin's housing estates eventually led to her murder. Based on a true story and highly recommended, especially so for anyone who watched the superb 'The General' as the film starts with Cahill's murder. find out more...

A tour de force of twisted weirdness, gonzo journalism and mutated nastiness, plus a bit of fear and loathing. Based on the writings and real life exploits of 60s journalist Hunter S Thompson. It's all here, the copious drink, the superhuman drug intake, and the wind-ups shot at whatever symbol of authority Thompson considers as fair game. Excellent. find out more...