The ABCS of Death
Too many people to mention - Starring: Too many people to mention

Anthology films are usually a bit hit and miss, and that's very much the case here. But, since there's a lot of good stuff amongst the dross, and since it was the brainchild of a Kiwi producer, I'm happy to recommend it as a 'Pick of the Week”.
Ant Timpson, the man who created new Zealand's Incredibly Strange Film Festivals (now part of the International Film Festival happening in Auckland) invited 26 directors from all around the world to participate. They were each assigned a letter of the alphabet. Then they picked a word starting with that letter and made a death-themed short film for $5000.
Each is about five minutes long, some scary, some gory, some funny, some bizarre, some just plain silly. Some are animated, some subtitled, running from A For Apocalypse to Z For Zetsumetsu (Extinction). Frankly its a bit of a slog watching all 26 separate films in a row, but there's no reason not to stop for a coffee along the way.
Some films really stand out: T For Toilet is surprisingly brilliant claymation; rising UK star Ben Wheatley's POV vampire flick U For Unearthed is very good; Q For Quack made me laugh out loud. There are also some real turkeys (M For Miscarriage stands out as a complete waste of whatever effort went into it).

Parker has reached the cinema in several different guises, from Lee Marvin in Point Blank to Mel Gibson in Payback. No he's back again and, surprisingly, takes the form of Jason Statham. And, even more surprisingly, this is the Stath's best film for an age, giving him free range to growl and beat people up but also inserting a slick plot and an interesting array of secondary characters (Jennifer Lopez does her best work since Out of Sight). The first twenty minutes actually rehashes the plot of Point Blank before moving on to new business. Good stuff.

The cover compares Hong King police thriller Cold War to Infernal Affairs, so I was definitely in. (IA is the HK film that Martin Scorsese's The Departed was based on – it's on DVD and it's fantastic.) While never rising to those heights, this does a cracking job with internal politics – two deputies vying for the commissioner's job – wracking the force just as five officers are kidnapped and held hostage. There's also a mole in the department and much double-crossing going on by persons unknown. Throw in some exciting action and you have a fun (if occasionally confusing) ride.

I'm a sucker for films set in the world of American politics so Knife Fight, with Rob Lowe as a political crisis manager juggling various scandal-ridden candidates, immediately grabbed my attention. And I wish I could recommend it; there's some smart talk and good performances. But the film totally fails to gel on almost every level. The tone is uncertain, veering between glibly humorous and sanctimonious, the pacing is uneven, editing and camera-work unimaginative, and the story never generates any momentum. The best things are the semi-satirical political ads but, given the extremes of the real thing, that's hardly an achievement.

If you're looking for big dumb action then A Good Day To Die Hard certainly delivers. Whether it's mass destruction of cars from driving heavy armoured vehicles through the streets of Moscow or simply the bonanza of blowing up and shooting stuff, you won't be disappointed. But the Die Hard films have always been about more than the action and this, like Die Hard 4.0, fails to deliver an interesting villain, instead relying on the dynamic with a newly-introduced – and similarly ass-kicking – son, a slightly blank Jai Courteney. Bruce Willis is his reliably wry and indestructible self, walking away unscathed from two serious car wrecks within the first half hour.