Drugstore Cowboy
Gus Van Sant 1989 US (1st time)
A drug addict, his wife and their two friends feed their addiction by robbing chemists across America.
Early Van Sant with a dark humour and ultimately uplifting edge; it must be admired primarily for winning us over with a drugged-up junkie who rids himself of the hangers-on around him, and one has the feeling it rewards more when revisited.

Heavenly Creatures
Peter Jackson 1994 New Zealand (1st time)
Two young girls strike up a close friendship, and both sets of parents are alarmed by the intimacy.
A tragedy which may have deserved a more sombre, brooding treatment; Jackson piles on artifice in order to create a kind of fantasy world inhabited by its two adolescent girls, but in the process risks heavy-handed campness, distracting and tiresome until the powerful final scene, which is necessarily brutal and haunting. The obnoxious, overplayed characters don't help.

Double Indemnity
Billy Wilder 1944 US (2nd time)
An insurance salesman falls in love with a client's wife, and decides to help her kill her husband for the insurance.
Dark, cynical noir which has become widely regarded as the quintessence of the whole stylistic genre. Chandler's script is sharp and delivered with lip-smacking perfection by all involved; beneath its engrossing surface lies much to be analysed, not least the innuendos concerning an intimacy between Neff and Keyes, the two principle males.

The Bad and the Beautiful
Vincente Minnelli 1952 US (1st time)
A director, actress and writer all recall the rise and fall of a powerful producer in Hollywood.
Interesting character study in which the character is as much the movie industry as it is the producer; it reaches, many times, a level of profound energy and intelligence, but is a mite overlong.