FilmFour is channel 315 on SkyDigital, with a one-hour delay version as channel 316.
FreeSat viewers will find FilmFour on 300 and 301 for the +1 version.
For those using FTA receivers - tune to 10.713 H 22000 5/6,
Video PID=2355, Audio PID=2356, PCR PID=2311.
Film4+1 is at 10.713 H 22000 5/6,
Video PID=2361, Audio PID=2362, PCR PID=2312.
For those not watching on satellite, you will find FilmFour on
NTL/Telewest/Virgin (cable) channel 444, and/or FreeView (DTT) channel 15.
Film4+1 is on cable as channel 445, but it is not available on FreeView.
This is not a sponsored link, it is something I believe in. Please take a moment to consider some who aren't as well off as you today... |
Here are the non-English titles presented in the localised (non-Latin) alphabet.
I welcome corrections, and also the Unicode sequences to use for the Chinese and Korean films.
There are some comic moments, like a romp around Budgens, however this film is more concerned with playing it straight (as opposed to "Shaun Of The Dead" which fell face down into the 'ZomCom' category).
The cast do well with the material (the young girl should have had a bigger part), and it was certainly a surprise to the the flappy-eared ex-Doctor (Christopher Ecclestone) turn up along the way.
An enjoyable film.
So why only 7? This would have scored 7½, maybe 7¾ if it wasn't for the peculiar, pointless, and essentially idiotic "What if..." closure. You'll see what I mean. PS: It follows the brief end credits, so don't leave as soon as the names roll up the screen...
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Now reading this, the story may seem too bizarre to bother to watch. But trust me, it actually works surprisingly well.
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I can tell you two things about Korea from this film. The language is somewhat yucky-sounding, akin to all the "umms" and "errs" from another Asian language rolled into one new language, with the held syllables, it is also fairly distinctive. Secondly, the Korean alphabet (called "Hangul" script), was devised around 1443, and it is the only true alphabet native to the Far East. Remember that Chinese (traditional, simplified, mandarin, etc) as well as Japanese (Hiragana, Katakana, and the ideogramatic Kanji) are not alphabets. They are descriptions. Ideas. Concepts. We, English speakers, would write 's', 'u', 'n', to name that glowing thing in the sky. French people would write "soleil". Italians would write "sole", which when spoken isn't all that different to the French word. In Chinese? It'd be some sort of squiggle that means "that glowing thing in the sky". For all I know, it could be a circle with a dot in it (actually, I believe in Japanese and Chinese, the pictogram for 'sun' it is an upright rectangle with a horizontal line across the middle, like this: 日 ).
You may well wonder why I am talking about language instead of the film. This is because FilmFour is offering a much greater way for you to broaden your horizons than by simply watching a spooky film from another country. This film was made by people of an entirely different culture than that to which FilmFour broadcasts. Simply observing little things here and there, it can be very interesting, bordering on enlightening
So to the film. Two girls - late teens? - arrive home from a time being institutionalised. Not only do they have to deal with that shift in their reality, but they also have to deal with the step-mother. Now, the step-mother is an interesting character. She plays at being nice and homely, but there's just... sort of like a dark aura around her. If I was in that house, I'd be damn sure I knew where she was at every moment.
I cannot continue much more into the story without letting slip a few fundamental things, but trust me, when these things are revealed and the movie undergoes a massive paradigm shift in the wake of the revelations, it is an unsettling experience. This is especially heightened by the fact that it appears as if the rule of the dialogue is "less is more"; so some of the character interaction is a look, a gesture, an emotion. It takes good actors to pull of this sort of thing convincingly (that's probably why so many of our 'Western' movies have characters that never shut up!), and the players here do an outstanding job. This is aided by some inventive camera angles. My favourite unusual angle of the entire movie is right at the beginning when the girls are on the jetty and the camera is looking directly down on them (picture above right). It seems so simple, so obvious, but I bet many directors wouldn't have thought of that.
I'll warn you though, this film may not seem to make a lot of sense once it has finished. A second (and possibly a third) viewing is recommended.
The inspiration of this movie is from a well-known (in Korea!) folk tale called "Janghwa Heungryeonjeon". The Korean language title, "Janghwa, Hongryeon" means Rose Flower and Red Lotus. The two girls in the movie are called Su-mi (Rose) and Su-yeon (Lotus).
Called "Janghwa, Hongryeon" in Korean. In Korean with subtitles.
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Those who know of Jean-Pierre Junet's work will quickly spot the surrealistic bits in this movie (such as a painfully beautiful Paris free from all the doggie poop), but this bright vision is a far cry from the imaginary world of "The City Of Lost Children" (which I hope FilmFour will show sometime). What has remained is the inventive use of the camera. But, like numerous Scorsese sequences, you aren't really aware of what the camera is doing until something in your head clicks and you think "did it just...?". Yes, it probably did!
This film is blessed with loads of tiny touches that make up the sensitive and highly quirky personality of Amélie. And, through the film, it is all of those subtle little things that really make this movie.
The worst news I've heard, in a long time, is that the Hollywood machinery are intending to remake this film. They just about got away with it with "Nikita" becoming "The Assassin", mostly thanks to Bridget Fonda's powerful performance. But so many films were simply lost in translation. I specifically point to "My Father The Hero" ("Mon Père, Ce Héros") because the same person (Gerard Depardieu) was the lead in both. Mon Père was watchable and carried that French sense of the quirky, while My Father tried hard but was still definitely second-rate. And this is all I can hope for if there is an American remake of Amélie.
Let's face it, can you seriously imagine Working Title (of all of those seriously British movies - "Notting Hill", "4 Weddings", "Bridget Jones") being able to turn out a film like this? Can you seriously imagine Dreamworks or Amblin or Touchstone turning out an Amélie? Do we need to see a remake starring a few reality TV 'starlets'? I can't put my finger on it, but there is definitely something uniquely French about this movie, that I don't think it would have been the same had it been made anywhere else on the planet. It was just a perfect match between a young actress that was just so Amélie, and a director who could pull it off.
I absolutely loathe pop music that ruins a classic song by adding a heavy drum sequence, and possibly a fake Rasta in the chorus. For something you might see today (on ClassicFM TV, #359), compare "Now We Are Free" by Lisa Gerrard (the so-called "Maximus Mix") with the beautiful version performed by Triniti. That, above all else, explains what is wrong with upping the tempo and tossing in unwanted percussion.
I view remakes as much the same thing. Amélie just misses out on a 10/10 due to a number of small technical issues (that, ironically, Jean-Pierre himself goes to trouble to point out and moan about in the director's commentary on the DVD). In all other senses, Amélie is perfection itself. Why remake it? If the target audience (no doubt the uniquely stupid American audiences that most second-rate remakes seem aimed for, the sort that thought "Animal House" was a serious depiction of campus life) is too lazy, stupid, or ADHD-afflicated to put up with the subtitles... well, their loss.
Just to point out - I live in France, yes, but my French is not (yet) good enough to fully enjoy this movie. I still have to rely on the subtitles, so I'm not speaking with a superior "I know what it's all about" sort of position.
Called "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain" in the French release. In French with subtitles.
As usual, the visual gags, the parodies, and the cultural references come thick and fast. And if you can't hack the idea of Myers in multiple roles, not to mention "Mini Me", or if you are too young to get all those references, well then there is always the lovely Heather Graham (who is so better all round than Liz Hurley) to look at.
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This action-laden visual treat hits the ground running. After a training session and some deep mumbling about honour, the ten candidates line up and pick a partner. Whom they must now kill. This is supposedly to teach them that, as assassins, they cannot choose who to kill or how to feel about it. But, here we see the beginnings of a fragmentation in the group that is left. Some cling to the Master's every wish (remember, this is Japan - they have big respect for honour), others are starting to question why. What is going on? What is the purpose of all this violence?
This is especially hard in the following bloodshed in which they must stand by and watch as the Master dictates that they are not to become involved in 'trifles' that are not their big mission. We can see this more and more through the eyes of Azumi who seems to suffer internally for everything she sees, and doubly so if it is a killing of her own.
In a way, this makes the violence that would otherwise seem shocking in its gratuity all the worse, for it now carries emotional baggage.
There is a continuation of this review below, but it has been hidden as a 'spoiler' as it goes deeper into the plot.
If I had to level any criticisms at this movie, they would mostly be with something that seems almost de-facto in ninja/samurai movies, namely:
Called あずみ (a-zu-mi) in Japanese. In Japanese with subtitles.
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Andie McDowell, radiant as always looking like she's just stepped over from Four Weddings And A Funeral, Madeleine Stowe (the love interest in Stakeout), Drew Barrymore (you only need me to list her films if you were visiting another planet), and Mary Stuart Masterson (who was perfect in Fried Green Tomatoes (mom's favourite film) and sublimely kooky in Benny & Joon (one of my favourites - how about it FilmFour?)).
With such a strong cast and an interesting storyline, what could go wrong?
Well, a lot evidently. I think somebody at the studio bottled it and decided this would be better a failed flop then a movie that worked, for the assembled talent are given the most generic B-movie Western clichés imaginable, along with some flimsy feminist statements so us men can swagger around and remark that these four are no match for Clint Eastwood.
Perhaps one day the Western genre will be given the feminine touch in all sincerity (look what Ripley did for space sci-fi; and no, we don't count The Quick And The Dead) and females in a Western will be something other than a gimmick. Perhaps...
Batoru Rowaiaru [is listed as "Battle Royale"]
バトル ロワイアル [is listed as "Battle Royale"]
Batoru rowaiaru II Chinkonka [is listed as "Battle Royale II - Requiem"]
バトル ロワイアル 2 ちこか [is listed as "Battle Royale II - Requiem"]
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If you can imagine "Lord Of The Flies" written by somebody who must have been on his eighth caffeine hit since ten minutes ago, who probably got rat-assed and stayed up all night, and grew up addicted to Wolfenstein and "Takeshi's Castle", you might have an inkling of what this film is like. If you can stomach the gore, you might appreciate this film for widening your horizons considerably. It has some lovely touches designed to unsettle you even more - like a running score of who's just bought it and how many kids are to go. The suicides are plentiful and graphic, the murders moreso. This film is just completely raw, and in it's own sick way, completely amazing.
 One of the strengths of this film is that, like most good "totalitarian" sci-fi stories (such as "A Handmaiden's Tale"), the goings on are far enough away from reality to be unthinkable today, but close enough to perhaps be real tomorrow... |
Called "Batoru Rowaiaru" in Japanese. In Japanese with subtitles.
LATER: You might have thought I was a bit of a sicko pervert for suggesting that such brutal violence could be willingly administered to children; two people emailed me to complain about that opinion.
Well, I wish to present you with the text of a news article copied verbatim from ITV Teletext news headlines (article on p311) at 22:44 UK time on the 22nd of October 2006:
Britons 'fear teenagers' A storm in a teacup, or the tiny beginnings of the prophecy of Battle Royale? |  |
The original film was packed full of brutal violence. This film sees a more stylised approach, the fast shutter speeds capturing every drop of water and somehow disconnecting us from reality. There are many "Saving Private Ryan" moments, but somehow it seems a little too slick.
The previous teacher (played par excellence by Beat Takeshi) was great. With his dismissive mannerisms and sarcastic comments, you felt he was a lonely old adult simply in it to mentor the kids into his own personal revenge, both against the children and against his own disaster of a home life. He had a personality.
The teacher this time, Riki Takeuchi (played by...Riki Takeuchi!), is simply unhinged. Acting so over the top that he almost becomes a comic relief part.
This story is also loaded down with politics and Zen-like comments. Everybody that dies (after the first lot are wiped out wholesale) has a meaningful statement to make. And whatever action was going on just stops long enough for us to take pause to consider the meaning of these statements. In a way it feels as if half of it is some sort of apology for the brutality of the first film.
As for plot... well, there is a plot but it has so many holes I think they've already been at it with their AK-47s.
This film might have stood up much better if it didn't base itself upon Battle Royale, and simply ripped off ideas instead. This isn't to say it is a bad film, there is plenty of energy and gunplay to help you through the night. However if you were expecting more of the same, don't.
According to IMDb, the filming was begun by Kinji Fukasaku, who sadly died during production. Filming was taken over by his son, Kenta Fukasaku and - well - one wonders if this movie was simply destined to be sucky, or if the son just didn't have the balls to live up to the original vision. Whatever, there's too much political content, too many 'meaningful' final sentences, and not enough connection with the characters. It has been reduced to an action war movie with kids.
Perhaps the most memorable thing about this film is the amazingly bad punk song playing with the end credits!
There is apparently a different version ("Battle Royale 2 - Revenge") which runs for a bit longer and includes extended scenes which flesh out some of the interactions between the characters. Perhaps this would be a more logical film?
Called "Batoru rowaiaru II Chinkonka" in Japanese. In Japanese with subtitles.
Blair Witch Project, The [is listed as "The Blair Witch Project"]
Brady Bunch, The [is listed as "The Brady Bunch"]
Why is it "almost offensive" to inherit three hundred million, an amount that is hard to imagine? Because there it a condition. Brewster has to spend $30,000,000 (loads more zeros) within thirty days - without so much as a dollar left by the end of it. The idea is to have Brewster go to such excess that when he comes to inherit the cash, he doesn't want to know. Rather like a donut bar offering free donuts to employees - it sounds awesome for about a week, then you don't want to look at another donut!
However there is really nothing compared to the dross level of this movie. We have seen Pryor and Candy do some great comedy roles, this could have been a heck of a pairing.
But it was not to be. There are four subplots in this movie. They are:
Cheerleading as a competition sport is real, and is practiced in numerous countries though I would imagine it is the Americans that really go in for the whole cheerleader thing. If this is the sort of sport that appeals to you, be aware that all of the flying stunts are not permitted at "High School" level, it is too dangerous for 'children' to perform like that; you are looking at performances from adult professional cheerleaders. And there, "adult professional", two words you probably thought you'd never see pertaining to cheerleading!
It's a great ride for special effects, stuff being blown up, more stuff being blown up... The basic premise is that the two guys are USAF pilots. Travolta dumps nukes from a Stealth bomber (which then crashes, just so we can get a big bang). Travolta always beats his little brother (Slater) at everything. But this time, Slater isn't gonna let him get away with hijacking nukes. No, that's too much.
You might think, as somebody who likes a good action flick, that I'l score this a near-eight, so why a mere five?
Well, that's simple. This film is practically a masterclass in how not to make an action movie.
1. Mathis is a cute tag-along, but apart from blowing her hair out of her face and muttering "this is a really bad idea", she doesn't get to do much. I bet, had this film been on rougher terrain, her uniform, her shoes... they'd all start to fall apart while the guy wouldn't have so much as a torn seam.
2. Not only it is near impossible to believe that Slater and Travolta are brothers, there is an even bigger problem. Travolta is totally not believable as a crazed terrorist. You want me to buy it, cast Dennis Hopper. He could pull it off (but he still wouldn't look like Slater's brother!).
3. Everybody talks. Now talking is necessary in a film. It is only those bizarre Korean thrillers or art-housey types that have barely a word of dialogue. But in action flicks there is always the problem that bad guy pins down the good guy and puts a gun to his head. "Say", says the good guy, "why are you doing this anyway?". And so the bad guy takes great delight in explaining his master plan, leaving loads of time for the good guy to figure out his escape, be rescued, whatever. This was even parodied in the film "Last Action Hero". So what happens here? Talking. Talking. Lots of talking. The film couldn't speak its plot more if it had a narrator. And we need this spoken commentary to permit us to understand what the heck is going on. After all, why bother to act out the plot when you can have Mathis being extremely cute and Travolta/Slater squaring off against each other in true John Woo style while stuff blows up around them? Not that there is much of a plot to speak of, to be honest.
4. The bomb has a giant digital read-out that counts down how long it has to go until it explodes. Now I have never designed a bomb, but if I was to, I really doubt I'd put a great big count-down clock on it, complete with second-by-second beeps. The bomb is just too much. Actually it isn't really a bomb, it's a nifty way of making tension. Set it for 30 minutes. Want to up the ante? Reset it for half that. Or maybe just a couple of minutes. Through the course of the movie the bomb is set and reset numerous times.
5. As if this isn't enough, there's a little remote control. Press this one little button, the bomb disarms. Seriously? That is so ridiculous.
6. So at one point Slater is hanging out of a helicopter with a rifle pointed right at Travolta. Does he blow him away? Of course not. It is much more macho to glare at him. And for him to glare back. And thus the chance is missed, but it's okay, more macho nonsense and much narrowing of eyes will turn up later on. It might work in east Asian cinema, but it looks kinda daft seeing Westerners do it.
7... Actually I think I'll stop here before my brain explodes, unless there's a TV remote control that can disarm my brain while one of the most ridiculously cast people gets into a fist fight...
As a mindless and fun action movie, this is great. As for plot and originality, it just misses in so many ways.
In English and subtitled Japanese.
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The only thing keeping this movie from being a favourite (scoring 8 or more) is that the end revelation was easy to guess, perhaps from the very first scenes. But don't let this put you off watching. For a low-budget film, this offers a lot of imaginative ideas. Light on effects (did they even have effects in those days? ☺), it has to concentrate on making itself look good - the black and white photography is full of stark contrast, it would not have worked so well in colour. It also has to perform a function that seems largely to exist only in Japanese horror films these days - the idea of a constant unnerving suspense.
Of course, if your idea of a great horror flick is a nubile chick enduring some variety of slayage, hackage, or chainsawage every six minutes then you'll probably not enjoy this. Which is a shame, because - as films such as "The Others" show, it is possible to make quite an effective horror film without the array of corpses.
There was a lot about this film that reminded me of "Spider Baby" (click here for Zone Horror review), in that it is a creepy film that you need to invest some time and effort in - only "Spider Baby" goes for fine comedy while this is a more serious affair.
It will be time and effort that won't be rewarded by the final payoff (you'll have guessed the end long before it happens), but which will be amply rewarded by simply watching the film...
The version of "Carnival Of Souls" shown by FilmFour runs in at 82 minutes - the 'revival' edit that has become a bit of a cult classic. The original release version of this film runs in at 91 minutes. It makes you wonder what nine minutes (which is quite a lot of time, a tenth of the entire film) was omitted, and why.
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I don't think I really need to go into much more detail, for the ending of this film is a part of movie history. If you're one of the few who doesn't know the climax, and goodness is it ever a climax, then make some time for this movie.
Cat Returns, The [is listed as "The Cat Returns"]
This is strictly for younger kids [of any age! :-)] who will enjoy the action and excitement. Those kids who are older and more mature may start to wonder about the various moral messages that will come from this movie; as some stuff is more than a touch on the dubious side.
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Which brings us to Clueless. Possibly one of the best Valley Girls committed to celluloid, played with delightful wide-eyed enthusiasm by Alicia Silverstone, in a movie by Amy Heckerling, who is also responsible for Fast Times At Ridgemont High (actually, that was her first film, made some 13 years earlier).
Alicia plays Cher, her friend is Dionne. They're all named after famous people, and their life exists simply to be devastatingly pretty, extremely popular, and always a step ahead of fashion (Cher could have invented the expression "so yesterday").
When, one day, farm-girl Tai (Brittany Murphy) appears on the scene, Cher simply has to work her magic and give the girl a make-over. Only, she doesn't realise that people aren't exactly puppies.
What really works with this film is that it is never mean. A few bitchy comments, and plenty of satire lurking around the incredible vernacular (those who didn't grow up with a heavy dose of SoCal programming might benefit from subtitles?). It is fun, fluffy, and kawaï.
Another thing that really works is the voice-over. We get to her Cher's thoughts. In fact, we almost get a narration to her thinking process, never mind just the thoughts. But this, in a way is great. She's going along, yack yack yack, suddenly "ooh, I wonder if they have that in my size?". Cher has stopped dead. Camera backs up a little to see her gawking at a dress. Okay, it works better on-screen, but trust me, you'll giggle when you see it.
Cher is astonishingly self-absorbed. She matters. Not much else does. There is a scene where she is robbed at gunpoint. Worried about being robbed? No. Worried about the gun? Of course not. She is worried about having to lie on the icky ground in her designer outfit. Yet through this, there's a soft sarcasm as she comes up with lines like "Why learn to park when every place you go has a valet?" (said to her driving instructor!).
Her father, a caring worried father (which puts this film way above the level of most teen films) is a scary litigator. Following in his footsteps, Cher attempts to negotiate bad grades.
This brings us to what I think may be the second best line in the movie, which I must quote as it gives you an idea of why I wrote an entire paragraph about something else first: Searching for good grades in high school is like searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.
(the best line I will leave for you to discover)
Pop culture references come thick and fast. The dialogue itself modernises and reinvents the very essence of Valley Girl, and because this film was made in 1995, we don't have those oh-so-dated '80s fashion accessories (such as roller skates and a Walkman). Or 90% of the hairstyles from the '80s. Let's not even talk about the shoulder pads...
This spawned a television series, but forget that. The real deal is here. A well deserved 9/10 and just as an aside, the 100th review that I have wriiten!
Here we have a towering performance by Samuel L Jackson, his performance is why you're looking at a 7/10 instead of a 5½/10. It is, also, apparently based on a true story though I wonder how much is true and how much is poetic licence.
The plot? Boys who are good at basketball and not so hot at the academic side, with a coach who cancels their plays until they pull up their GPA with lots of hard study, and the local community who can't see beyond tomorrow and what the coach is trying to do. Easy to summarise in a sentence, it's very character led as you can imagine.
Watching this, you can't help to think how the mighty have fallen. Yes, Katie was cute in Dawson's Creek but... but...
Core, The [is listed as "The Core"]
I'm not giving anything away by saying there's a sort of final revelation. Most films have one. But this, in Cruel Intentions, is beautiful. There is no dialogue - none is necessary, plus a lovely choice of song to accompany it. The end is just action and reaction from the cast. And, I'll tell you what, it is extremely satisfying. It's a shame that extra thirty-odd seconds was tacked on the end, they should have just cut that and gone straight to credits, with the finalé ringing in our minds.
And this I really do not understand. I could comprehend if the film could be enhanced by modern special effects, or if some film students rewrote sections of it to be better than the original, but to remake it just like the original? Why? What is the point? Why not watch the original?
I have found my DVD, I'll watch it soon. I have a dim recollection of a helicopter and a small upstairs storage room in a shopping mall, however I'm not sure how these parts fit into Dawn Of The Dead, I may be mixing up with another one in the series? I'll need to check...
Day After Tomorrow, The [is listed as "The Day After Tomorrow"]
It isn't all fun - it seems that there are older people (sophomores?) who seem to revel in the institutionalised bulling of younger kids (pre-freshmen) in something which is called a "hazing" ritual. This is where you are expected to either degrade yourself by having all sorts of stuff poured on you (if you're a girl) or by being mercilessly "paddled" by something that looks like a cricket bat (if you're a boy). To my mind, like the keeping of slaves, these sorts of rituals really ought to be confined as an anachronism of yesteryear. Unfortunately, as you will discover from American TV, it still goes on today.
So, you might ask - what's the point of a plotless movie? While the film American Graffiti (from the same era) covered this material with gloss and nostalgia and a plot, this film tells the other side of the story. A lot of kids who are coming to terms with the end of their High School days and thinking "is that it? now what?" while celebrating the end of school.
It is a bittersweet celebration. When I left my boarding school at the end of fifth form in the summer of 1990, I very nearly cried. Not because I was leaving school, but because something that I'd been used to for so long was now over. Because kids I'd known so well, I would probably never see again in my life. It doesn't really hit you until that final moment. You want to jump up and down and yell "I'm free! I survived!", but at the same time yell "No! Stop!". That is what this film is all about, being dazed and confused.
Essentially this is a cat-and-mouse game between an overly brainy (and very bizarre) police investigator, and 'Kira'. It is strange in that it is equally shocking and expected. What Kira does (especially towards the end) is really disturbed, but then it might not work had it played any other way.
While the film rolls along nicely - and you don't really realise how long it is until the credits roll, to the sounds of The Red Hot Chili Peppers - there is a certain amount that seems... I don't know. Contrived? Is that the word? As if you cannot quite understand how each side can perform the actions that they do without already knowing what the other side is doing. It's... strange. In addition, I'm wondering why the Japanese would allow the FBI (yes, that FBI) to walk around like that.
But still, a fun film, and as a bonus you even get some thrown-in commentary on the power of television.
A claustrophobically spooky film with loads of atmosphere, mud, and rats. Starts good, builds good, but eventually fizzles thanks to a depressingly hokey ending.
Yes, and Kris Marshall is the 'dad' in the BT "family" adverts.
Descent, The [is listed as "The Descent"]
Devil Wears Prada, The [is listed as "The Devil Wears Prada"]
In this installament of the zombie series, we begin amusingly with some students making a horror film (and some of this comes back amusingly later on in the film). We see the action though the lens of the cameras that the students are carrying; and there is a powerful commentary going on. Questions - is it acceptable to live behind the lens and let it unfold without feeling, without shame? How quickly, given the rise of the zombie, can you take a gun and blow out the brains of a stranger? Even a dead stranger? What if you can't cope? Or, perhaps worse, what if you can? I won't say more, but this is an extremely perceptive and socially aware film with quite an ascerbic edge. Or a gore-strewn zombie flick. Take your pick!
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei [is listed as "The Edukators"]
There's this other guy. A legend in his own mind. Owns a chain of slick fitness centres. Wants to buy his competitor to flatten it as an extended car park.
The first guy finds out he owes $50,000 in taxes or he gets the boot. How to raise that kind of cash in two weeks? A "Dodgeball" tournament with a prize of $50,000. Convenient. Only his team have never played the game, and second-guy is going to get all his best players to whoop-ass all over the first guy's efforts.
This preposterous-sounding film really is as amazingly stupid as it sounds. And not to be 'cheap' or 'tacky', it takes the approach of knowing it's a stupid concept and it revels in it. A wheelchair-bound 'mentor' lobbing spanners at you to teach you to dodge, a classic "Use the force, Luke" moment, and a perfect characterisation by the blonde woman, whose name escapes me. Oh, and a steady stream of well-known actors in quirky cameo roles (mainly as judges, though).
There's a strange coda tacked on to the end, after the credits.
Dreamers, The [is listed as "The Dreamers"]
This film is perhaps most relevant to an English audience, as the country is the most telesurveilled in the world - with an estimated camera per 14 people (Ouest France, janvier 2007). Sadly for us, we don't know who is watching, why, and what happens with this old media. And, sadly for us, we don't have an exceedingly clever denouement such as that which Ed pulls at the end - it's a stroke of genius, you'll love it.
Thankfully, though, I live in rural France. I can watch films like this and marvel that there are still people stupid enough to blurt their garbage to the world (daily on Jeremy Kyle, etc...) and - best of all - I can actually walk through a few towns where there are no video cameras, and I can shop in a supermarket that only uses beep-barriers for security.
This isn't to say video surveillance is a bad thing per se, however why don't we simply take a moment to ponder why the cameras are there in the first place? To ponder those that think 24 hour pub opening times will encourage more responsible drinking habits (in much the same manner as a full propane cannister lobbed onto a bonfire will extinguish the flames - yeah, right!). And as if that wasn't insanity enough, there'll be a supercasino in Manchester - a place that has already appeared on TV shows following drunk ladettes painting the town blood red. Am I the only person that sees this ending in a chaotic disaster?
Well, whatever. I left. Thank God.
I left for a place where a supercasino would contain nothing but a few thousand square metres of petanque games, and the prize for the winner would be a suckling pig. I left for a place where gafitti is rare, spitting in the street is practically non-existant, and cameras only watch the bigger towns. A place where the trains are bang on time, and libraries don't have the concept of overdue fines. Downsides? Of course - the French tend to drive like maniacs, not to mention the rather blasé attitude towards bodily functions (a male urinal might be a pot on a street corner with no attempt at privacy, and apparently women don't get caught short at all, given the usual lack of public toilets), and some of the culinary delicacies are probably bio-hazards (I'd nominate the Andouille and all manner of squishy mouldy cheeses)...
But, on the whole, I think it was the right choice.
For what it is worth, the French press, when referring to Britain, often begin their articles with "Britain, the country with the most surveillance in the world, blah blah blah..." - I think there's a message here, don't you?
Edukators, The [is listed as "The Edukators"]
There was material to work with, the effects are good without being all "oooh, look at me", and the daughter played her part well. I am less sure about Jennifer's acting, I think Elektra was supposed to be "emotionally distant" but it sometimes came across a bit Keanu Reeves.
The problem, and the reason I have scored this less than the 7 I think it should have, is that it comes from the comic-book style of directing. In a comic we are rarely afforded time to flesh out the backstory of the characters. Bits and pieces of history will come out, but you'll find that everything in any given episode is designed to advance the plot. Rarely will anything (even down to each drawn frame) happen that does not move the plot forward.
Elektra was like this. Everything that took place moved the plot. We didn't really pick up on the backstory (unless it moved the plot or explained what was going to happen next) and this possible explains the short running time (it seemed to be about 75 minutes?). It was a "blink and it's over" kind of deal, with a rather simplistic storyline in which most of the complications seemed to have been omitted.
I liked the idea of a female assassin. It makes a welcome deviation from the Seagal school of action bull.
You want to know what I really think? I think this film runs like a double-episode pilot for a potential TV series. I could see this all taken further, the idea is good and the characters can be fleshed out a bit more so we feel we can understand them. Not over the top like those "reminiscence" episodes that seem to have plagued season two of "Bleach", but it could learn a lesson from the female assassin done correctly and with infinite style. Of course, I'm talking about Azumi!
But this film? Too short. We got lots of "how" with a lot less emphasis on the "why?".
The film opens with Sean William Scott trying to rescue an inflatable girl from a shed that he just sat on fire (the reason is explained later on). As he is giving her CPR, he looks up and sees a bright light in the sky...
...heading his way...
When he turns around we're all expecting him to say something like "Whoa, duuuuude!", but he doesn't.
David Duchovny and Orlando Jones are science teachers. They visit the 'meteor' and, the next day use it as a school outing. Quickly they discover that life, from the rock, is evolving a lot faster than logically possible. We're up to worms in 24 hours!
Sadly the army lock things down pretty quickly. There's a clichéd army general with a fettish for napalm, and possibly the most accident prone scientist in existence, played by Julianne Moore.
Obviously the evolution continues apace, but to write any more would give away the story, and maybe even provide more advertising for the gratuitous product placement.
There is enough plausible pseudoscience to keep critics such as myself happy, the story zips along with great characterisation, and one might even consider that it could be a 'knowing' version of a sci-fi alien invasion, only this invasion doesn't involve green men pouring out of spaceships. This film, instead, plunders some genuine threats - a lot of this stuff has a logical basis, though it has been greatly 'sexed up' for the movie. The ending, the final weapon, and how it is used, will no doubt have you in hysterics. In retrospect, a number of things in this movie are setting up other things, but it isn't done in the bleedin' obvious way. You will actually require a modicum of intelligence to put the pieces together.
And, just to finish off, one of my favourite sequences from the movie: A girl (played by Morgan Nagler (howzat for a name?)) is swiping stuff from the shop. She's in the dressing room putting on, like, four shirts. As if that isn't patently obvious to any security guard! Watch what happens next...
There are many interesting touches to this film. Unfortunately pointing them out would be a list of spoilers. What I will point out is the reason why it barely pushes 6/10 when it was a favourite film of mine. When I was younger, I was a little greener. Okay, a lot greener, and I found this to be a nice almost whimsical tale of three kids and their spacecraft. There were some cool parts - such as when the software takes over and begins programming itself, or when they take it outside to test the bubble and one of them gets trapped inside it while it flies around out of control. There is a whole child's sense of wonder about these things.
But this is before the whole outer space part of the film. Essentially the second half of the movie. Is it trying to lecture us on what sort of a species we are? I don't know. All I do know is that it sucked bigtime. As a kid I liked it. As an adult, it bored me. Again, there were some great scenes, but scenes against maybe half an hour of running time is not the sort of payoff that this movie promised. It would have worked a lot better if the kids stayed on planet earth and played cat and mouse with that nosy cop.
First half, genius. Great ideas, like "The Jules Verne". Very innovative.
Second half, record this film as an MPEG file and simply clip out all of the outer space stuff. Okay, leave the spider, it was cute. Get rid of the rest. ☺
It probably comes as no real surprise to anybody that's bothered to read some of the other stuff on this site that I identified most with the geek (played perfectly by the late River Phoenix, this was his début movie), and to confirm this, he controls the energy ball with an Apple II computer powered by a 6502, it is much like an American BBC Micro (only the Beeb was infinitely better!).
Oh, God, I'm so sad. Well... Whatever! ☺
Eye, The [is listed as "The Eye"]
You might wonder why, then, I gave this film such a low score despite my obvious enthusiasm for the genre. Well, the film offers an outstanding cast who make an amazing film out of some rather poor material. If you look at it analytically, the film is essentially a teen sexploitation. The lovely and cute Jennifer Jason Leigh isn't only a sexually inept character, she is used and abused by a plot line that does her no justice whatsoever. Her brother (Judge Reinhold) should have done his nut when he discovered the predicament that she got herself into. But he was more worried about the increasingly stupid uniforms he was expected to wear in his jobs in fast food joints. Her best friend, one of the best movie Valley Girls ever, played by Phoebe Cates, explains sexual matters in a way that is detail overload, bordering on the gynæcological. And this is from the tamer version of the movie, not the 18 cert version!
However if you can overlook these somewhat serious flaws, you'll find a movie with loads of funny touches. Sean Penn as a stoner who dislikes the history teacher (played by Ray Walston) so much that they get into a battle of the wills - him ordering a pizza while in class and the teacher sharing it amongst other students. Vincent Schiavelli as a biology teacher with a fondness for whipping internal organs out of cadavers. Forest Whitaker as a football player. Eric Stoltz as another stoner. Nicolas Cage (under his real name), Anthony Edwards... A number of these names played their debut roles in this film, so with a better (less sexually-obsessed) script, this film could have been an absolute classic.
There are some great, well chosen, songs underlining various moments. I cracked up at the song played for the end credits which was just, like, so totally apt!
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While you watch this movie, you are bound to see how it has made an influence on other, later, films. If nothing else, there is a pop group called "Save Ferris"! ☺
One could argue that the film has issues of realism - all of the adults are weird individuals who think they know their kids but don't have a clue - this is a trend in a number of John Hughes' movies, look at The Breakfast Club for another example. The ending does not offer a tidy solution (I don't feel I am giving much of a spoiler with the picture above right as I've seen this film about ten times on other channels in my life), but it does end with plenty to think about.
This movie won't necessarily improve your life, but it might make you start to think about it, and that may be enough to get the ball rolling.
Or as Ferris himself says: "Life goes by so fast, if you don't stop and look around, you might miss it."
I still kinda think of myself as a late-teenager (17-19ish). I recently (2006/12/16) had my 33rd birthday [and as I revise these reviews, I am about a month off my 35th birthday - another two years vanishes...]. So, hell, can I ever empathise with that sentiment!
Firm, The [is listed as "The Firm"]
This film made an interesting juxtaposition against the vicar that was gunned down just a day before thus was a leading news item - a man of God that did it correctly versus a crazed "man of God" that shows how the religious rhetoric can be subverted and perverted.
Gaau Ji [is listed as "Dumplings"]
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Starting with an amusing single-take "pop video" routine, this film seems to be any number of funny skits (such as the chinese restaurant) loosely held together by the story, which involves plenty of hammy theatrical performances in the name of putting together the school musical. But don't think this is anything like "High School Musical", it is just a coincidence.
Some good performances, some good scenarios, and Kirsten Dunst pulls it off in style.
The end credits are also set to a dance routine, though somewhat more conventional than the brilliant starter. Did the director cut his teeth on music vids? Was this an MTV Networks production under a different guise?
This is one of those films that picks up in somebody's life, runs with them awhile, and then leaves for the credits to roll. The plot is not a by-the-dots (i.e. "girl in trouble, guy saves girl, girl falls in love with guy, ahhhh"), but rather a recounting of some of the things that took place. Some of the highs and lows of life with people who see the world a little differently. And, along the way, some character development - or maybe just baked chicken.
You would be best to watch this without disturbances, for the story is a rich one with a lot going on, and several subtexts in and around the main theme.
Gokudō kyōfu dai-gekijō [is listed as "Gozu"]
ごくど こふ だいげきよ [is listed as "Gozu"]
Good Girl, The [is listed as "The Good Girl"]
The plot? We begin at a Yakuza meeting (they are the Japanese version of the Mafia). Designer shades and leather trench coats are the order or the day. One of the hard men (Brother Ozaki) spots a "Yakuza Dog" (a dog that kills Yakuza) and decides to kill it before it kills them. We watch through a window as he beats a poodle to death. So a younger member (Minami) is instructed to take Ozaki to the 'disposal' site, only Ozaki freaks seeing a "Yakuza Car" (a car that kills Yakuza). A freak accident later and Ozaki dies. Probably just as well, before we encounter something really peculiar like "Highly Disrespectful Yakuza Condom" (yeah, a condom that kills Yakuza - sounds like something from a Woody Allen film...).
Stopping for a meal in a strange town, Minami discovers that Ozaki, dead, left in the car, has vanished.
That is as far as the logical side of the plot goes. And if that didn't sound very logical to you, you'll blow your mind on the following illogical part!
Now we meet an array of bizarre characters - including a woman who is quite happy to stand by the sauna and squirt milk from her breast into the towel wrapped around her, it eventually running down her legs. If you think that sounds disgusting, I ought to warn you that her breast milk is a bit of a recurring theme. There's some stuff that is even yuckier.
And an ending that has to be seen to be believed. It is really so left-of-centre it is... Well, let's just say it will probably linger in your mind for quite a while afterwards.
This film will not appeal if you like lots of quick action. And, to be honest, this film is best experienced with, or after, a beer or two. At any rate you'll need to switch off the analytical side of your brain as I don't think any number of repeat viewings will bring sense to some of the stuff in this film. Instead, just lay back and soak up the atmosphere and revel in the utter utter weirdness.
I feel that this film easily manages to out-weird David Lynch, something that I didn't think was possible!
Perhaps after enough beer it'll start to make sense? I dunno, I rather like it this way. Weird, freaky, illogical. I like that some people will make a bizarre film simply because, and not looking for a big ratings puller.
Called "Gokudō kyōfu dai-gekijō" in Japan. In Japanese with subtitles.
For all those who think the (mostly) American action in Iraq, and other armed conflicts, are good things - there are three films that are essential viewing: "Apocalypse Now", "Fahrenheit 9/11", and this. For these films depict the reality of an armed conflict. Real people get hurt, real people die. And for what, exactly?
This may be listed in schedules are "Grave of the Fireflies".
In Japanese with subtitles.
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I am slightly ashamed to admit that this film is silly, idiotic, and a total riot. There are many laugh-out-loud moments that are very funny at the time, but slightly embarrassing to think about later (like when Happy decides to wrestle a crocodile).
However, if you are looking for a bit of cheering up, then chill out with Happy Gilmore...
Haute Tension [is listed as "Switchblade Romance"]
Not a bad English accent from Jennifer Love Hewitt. Usually, with the other notable exception of Renée Zellweger in "Bridget Jones", Americans are so terrible at British accents... rather like most Brits who are trying to sound American!
In any case, the effects and cinematography are outstanding. I urge you to watch Hero once just for the experience...
In Chinese (Mandarin?) with subtitles.
I put the word 'comedy' in the description in single quotes because this is not a comedy in today's sense of the word. I did want to describe it as a comedy in more the Bond tradition, but after reflecting on Bond girls such as Plenty and Pussy Galore, I think this film has an even higher level of sophistication than that. This is perhaps a gentle spy thriller for the sort of person that would rather watch QI than Never Mind The Buzzcocks; it is that sort of abstraction from 'comedy'. Everything is very understated and, remember, this is an era when, thankfully, the crude sexual gags stayed in Carry On films...
Hole, The [is listed as "The Hole"]
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There is no Culkin in this movie either, just a slightly annoying boy filling his place with the aid of a pet rat and a talking parrot.
You want the story? Here goes. Some internationally-wanted criminals (hah! this lot!?!?) have stolen a super-special control chip (looks like two old Pentium chips stuck to an old network card. The old lady across the road picks up the wrong bag at the air port. Finding a toy car, she gives it to the kid as a reward for shovelling the lawn.
Staying at home from school, because he has chicken pox, the boy spots some odd people around the neighbourhood. He calls the police and they have a go at him for making prank calls. So, you know, a boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do...
The problem is the idea has been done perfectly well already. So why this remake? And to make this film rise above the level of the predecessors, it needs to raise the bar. How? By inflicting ridiculous levels of damage on the criminals.
Spray-painted in the eyes. Dumbells falling directly onto somebody's head from high above. A woman passing out (after being hit on the head by a plant pot falling from roof level) face down in a muddy quagmire. A man hit on the head by a full-throttle petrol lawnmower rolling itself and falling from the level above. The woman falling down the entire height of the dumb waiter passage, butt first. These things are beyond absurd, these criminals should be dead... several times over.
The kid is precotiously smart. The parents aren't. And you wonder how the criminals can be so teched up when they don't seem smart enough to have passed Kindergarten, never mind fledged as actual real adults.
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An environmentalist who feels he is losing grip on his life decides it could be sorted by hiring an existential detective agency to help solve his co-incidences.
A deep, heavy, and remarkably funny film - well worth a look, if you're sure your brain can hack it!
If you are wondering about the odd title, it is correctly "I ♥ Huckabees" (as also pictured to the right), however the Digibox cannot display the 'heart' character, and neither can the Comic Sans font used for the movie titles...
I would also like to take this moment to point out a tiny continuity error that I noticed. I have included the video time position (time from the end of the tape) to show that this follows on:
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One of my favourite topics is covered from several directions - the question of what it means to be human, and if a machine can attain this, and how would we judge it? Sadly, I think in reality we'd probably kill it, either through fear of no longer being special or some concocted religious excuse. Either way, this film raises some deep questions in amidst the action. Well, what did you expect? It is from an Asimov story!
As if it needs clarification, Will Smith may soon be the golden boy of Hollywood now that Tom Cruise has his head firmly up...... <cough> anyway, with films such as this, it is easy to see why.
Fast forward hundreds of years. Our two wake up. The smartest people on the planet. It's an amusing enough idea that is woefully let down by some glaring inconsistencies. These people are supposed to be so stupid they tie crumbling tower blocks with giant ropes yet they can maintain and run television broadcasting? They are so stupid they can't spell uhmerikah but they can spell electrolyte?
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It's a girls school. An exclusive sort, where the girls dress in white as a sort of uniform. They discover a coffin in their 'house', and a girl opens it. Inside is a young girl. How did she get there?
The girls now swap ribbons. The ribbons in their hair denote their age. Or maybe their class, with red being the youngest and purple being the eldest. The eldest, Bianca (played by Bérangère Haubruge), who we can see in the picture above left, is fair and just and thoughtful. It is her place to explain to the new girl Iris (Zoé Auclair) that this house is their home now. The outside world, essentially, no longer exists. There are some bizarre rules, like the elderly women serving the girls must obey them or be punished... meanwhile most things are forbidden. The campus is a group of five houses and a schoolhouse in a wooded park surrounded by a high wall. To cross the wall is forbidden. To try to escape by way of the lake is forbidden. To follow Bianca at night is forbidden. In fact, there are lots of things that are forbidden. No explanation is given, it just is. This is rather like a parent saying "because I said so".
The whole set-up is, as I mentioned, five houses. We presume the five houses contain five lots of girls in much the same manner as the ones we follow. The other girls appear once in a while, however we mostly follow Bianca's house.
As for the school, there are only two teachers - Mademoiselle Eva (Marion Cotillard) and Mademoiselle Edith (Hélène de Fougerolles). The only other member of staff is the Principal who appears once a year to claim a blue-ribbon as her own. What for? Slave? Toy? Replacement daughter? As with the "forbidden" things, this is another thing that happens. Acceptance is an important feature in the lives of these girls.
This is a film of contrasts. It is beautifully shot, some of the sequences (especially that one of the girls playing in the woods) are sublime. But, yet, there are a number of shots of the children playing around that verge on the pornographic. It is an interesting reminder - recalling that advert that was pulled because "the girl looked too young" - of the difference between cultures and the perceptions of things such as this. I noticed, but it didn't bother me much - in fact for the girls to behave in that way seemed natural given their surroundings... but I can imagine some would find it uncomfortable.
And so the story progresses. A number of things are explained, but sadly if you are looking for neat and tidy endings you should look elsewhere. There are, overall, probably twice as many questions than answers.
Don't let this put you off the film. As a work of art it is impressive. The young cast also do well in their roles. Overall, it's a bizarre story. Once, no doubt, that will have you mulling over an assortment of questions for days to follow.
In French with subtitles.
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The story itself is somewhat formulaic, however the inspired casting Richard E. Grant (who acts well as amazingly self-centred and quite rude) raises a standard story into something more. This isn't a film in which to go all gooey and eat vast quantities of Häagen-Dazs; but perhaps once it is over you'll feel kinda gooey and certainly will find comfort in a tub of ice cream...
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Ever wondered what it is like to try to crawl, practically naked, across a room loaded with mousetraps? Ever wondered what it is like to be shot in the gut with a riot bullet? Ever wondered what it would be like to hold a roller disco in the back of a truck swerving all over a car park? They say "enquiring minds want to know", but I'd rather know how they come up with this stuff! I mean, imagine being at the pitch meeting - "hey guys, today one of us will throw ourselves down an aqua-slide closely followed by half a dozen cannonballs". And, being Jackasses, they'll all agree that it's a hell of a good idea.
As you may have guessed from the montage photo, there are a lot of oriental faces. You could perhaps also describe this film as "Knoxville conquers Japan". They send us manga and scary horror films, and in return we in the West send them Kelly Osbourne and Johnny Knoxville. I think we got the better end of that bargain...
So, left to right in the montage...
If the Jackass crew want to be real Jackasses, show their manliness, and take on Japan the Japanese way, perhaps a sequel should be them participating in the game "Endurance". That'll deflate their egos somewhat!
Janghwa, Hongryeon [is listed as "A Tale Of Two Sisters"]
As much as the lead actress is cute (and looks a bit like Brittany Murphy, but isn't), I'm afraid I cannot bring myself to score this anything over a 5. The "Nightmare On Elm Street" movies were interesting on their concept of the sleeping nightmare (in dreamland), while Jason's slashfest was, well, a pretty generic slashfest.
But to base an entire film around pulling Freddy Kreuger out of his dream world so that Jason Voerhees can kick seven shades of .... out of him? That is bordering on insulting, and this is being written by somebody who has willingly (and knowingly) watched Troma Team movies.
Please, producers, can we not have "who can take who" movies? Where will it end? Resident Evil vs The Grudge? Azumi vs Bulletproof Monk? Kiki vs Nausicaä?
Think up some original ideas. For horror films, zombies are usually a safe bet - Romero has a career and half a dozen to his name. There is something cheesy, genuinely creepy, and hysterically funny about the walking dead.
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This time the story is suprisingly watchable despite a totally naff premise. You ready? Some female police woman (or the like?) realises that Jason can't die. So she sets him up to be cryogenically frozen. It all goes wrong, people die, and as Jason is about to bust his way out she hits the big switch freezing him and herself.
Fast forward around four hundred years. Some sort of intergalactic salvage vessel (captained by a slimy money-grabbing creep and staffed by assorted overly attractive students and some army rejects) finds them and they decide it might be a good idea to defrost the pair. Absolutely no prizes for guessing what happens next.
You can pick loads of flaws in the movie (here's a BIG one, semi-spoiler: if the regeneration machine can do that to Jason, how come the army guys died when they died?) but this is one of those movies where the best idea is to just go with the flow. Keep your eye on the female robot girlfriend, she puts in a star turn in the final third. You'll know what I mean!
Arnie has a good line in self-deprecating humour, exercised with comic abandon in films such as "Last Action Hero" and "True Lies". Oh, goodness, what sold him on the idea that this moronic mess would be funny?
Ju-on [is listed as "Ju-On: The Grudge"]
ゆお [is listed as "Ju-On: The Grudge"]
Ju-on 2 [is listed as "Ju-On: The Grudge 2"]
ゆお 2 [is listed as "Ju-On: The Grudge 2"]
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The problem arises when it seems that all of this is taking place at the same time! Yes, there are links between the stories. I'll give you an example. When the reluctant replacement home-help carer (Rika) is tidying up the house, she overhears a woman leaving a message on the answering machine.
Later on in the film, we see that the woman is the rather attractive Hitomi. Shortly after leaving the house, at night, she stops in the lobby of her building to phone the house and leave that exact same call.
Then there are the schoolgirls, and the ex-policeman, and... I think for the first viewing you should watch it purely for the ambience. Only then, back up the tape and watch it again to try to figure it all out.
It is certainly a complex movie, but not without its merits - for later that year Hollywood remade it, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, and using the same director. It wasn't a bad retelling of the story, shifting it to a view of Japan as seen through Western eyes ... love the bit where the woman (Clea Duvall?) goes into a minimart and pokes holes in noodle-cup packs to sniff and see if it is something she recognises!
I am inclined to prefer this version of the film purely because of the seemingly illogical and the creep factor is a lot higher (the Western remake is tamer).
I view it that either it is completely a fruitcake film, or it is a logical film but I've not figured out the link yet. In either case, a horror film that makes me think is a rare thing indeed and well worth the concentration.
In Japanese with subtitles.
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 Is the spooky ghost-like girl (centre) actually Rika (left/right) in spirit form? |
As with the original, the story follows a person at a time, as opposed to a linear time-line. The problem is that this story, although fairly creepy, isn't a patch on the original. It doesn't have the same menacing atmosphere. It lacks the conundrum of the original, leaving this basically a story where we see a bunch of people who we know will die (everybody that comes into contact with the house do) and all we're waiting for is to see how.
There are the expected creepy portents, and the slight oddity of a character seemingly dying twice, as if the time-lines get a bit muddled up. But in short, I think the problem with this film is that it didn't offer any astonishing surprises (save the event of the final minute, possibly there to link to a part three?). It was, dare I say it, an itty-bit predictable.
Admit it though, we all secretly hope something like this happens to the "Ghosthunting with..." people, especially if some obnoxious boy band is involved...
Kaze no tani no Naushika [is listed as "Nausicaä of the Valley of The Winds"]
かぜ の たに の なうしか [is listed as "Nausicaä of the Valley of The Winds"]
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Called "Majo no takkyūbin" in Japanese.
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So what's it about? It's about the inhabitants of a poor district called Pig Sty Alley who are looked after by a mean landlady. In the middle of this comes a clan. A group. A sort-of Yakuza bunch with a whole Blues Brother thing and a fettish for axes.
Not that the inhabitants of Pig Sty Alley are going to take this sitting down. Oh no, their landlady is a far scarier proposition than three versus fifty.
Just do yourself a favour. Don't eat when you watch this. You'll be laughing too much, and it isn't pleasant scraping ejected pizza topping off of the CRT and damn-near impossible to remove it from one of those LCD contraptions.
The French magazine Marie Claire (Juin 2005, #634) had this to say about "Kung Fu Hustle" (click picture for translation):
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain [is listed as "Amélie"]
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The [is listed as "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"]
Long Kiss Goodnight, The [is listed as "The Long Kiss Goodnight"]
Majo no takkyūbin [is listed as "Kiki's Delivery Service"]
まよ の たくび [is listed as "Kiki's Delivery Service"]
In "Clerks", we kinda hung out with some guys. Got a perspective on life. This is much the same sort of premise, only it takes place in a mall and it is saddled down with a dopey story about trying to get back with their respective girlfriends, and also sabotage a television show being filmed in the mall by girlfriend's evil father. I find this detracts from what could have been an interesting film. We're not so "character driven" as "raging-hormone driven". And, you know, if the guy loves his Sega and his comic books and the girl wants more out of life, it isn't going to work unless somebody changes. Can we believe these guys could change? No! There are various subplots, some of which are rather complicated, and you can see the occasional gem... But not enough to keep the film going.
I am not sure that a public apology is warranted. It is not a good film, but it isn't bad enough to call for an apology unless you are way too self-critical. I like to consider the View Askew time-line roughly as follows: 1. "Clerks", opening an independent outfit to the world and showing that Hollywood's not where it's at, again; 2. "Mallrats", an almost-turkey to show them the error of their ways; 3. "Chasing Amy" to tackle subjects that mainstream cinema don't have the guts to, and reaffirm their indie status; 4. "Dogma" - a sublime film, all else was the road leading up to this, View Askew's finest hour.
Yeah, okay, I guess I should mention the one with the daft title like "Jay & Silent Bob Ride Again" or whatever. There is actually a really smart movie lurking underneath all that stupidity. Shame the stupid gags got in the way of the intelligence...
Here, he could not have put in a more different performance. As a violent teenager, he finds himself checked into a rehabilitation centre with other troubled kids - and he provides a powerful performance as a deeply troubled brooding teenager on the verge of violent insanity.
There is a notable performance from Zooey Deschannel in this engaging film. In fact, the only criticism I'd throw at this film is the annoying over-abuse of the cinéma vérité "wobblycam" style of filming.
Essentially this film is an examination of the (stereo)typical American high school. However to make it work, we need to experience it through the point of view of an outsider. For this, Lindsay's character is new. Not only to the high school, but to high schools in general. Previously living with her parents in Africa, and being home schooled, the whole experience is extremely different to what she has been used to.
Fairly soon we discover the usual group of cliques, and an outsider ropes her into becoming a "plastic" (think self-obsessed girls with wishes for augmentation surgery) to infiltrate and dish the dirt. The problem is that everybody seems to have it in for everybody else, and she's suddenly in the middle of a whole mess.
This is an often amusing high school genre movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, yet - thankfully - doesn't lower itself to deliberate gags, except for one Ally McBealism.
The ending is lovely. If only some of the generic high school airheads though of this. But hey, if high school wasn't a battleground, we'd never have had My So-Called Life.
Mimi wo sumaseba [is listed as "Whisper Of The Heart"]
みみ を すませば [is listed as "Whisper Of The Heart"]
Those are two examples of a character trait that I have observed in a number of German people. Where 'good enough' is not good enough. And this is a trait that is very evident in Mostly Martha. The movie is beautiful to look at. It has a pleasing soundtrack (mainly piano/saxaphone), and you can just tell that an awful lot of care and attention went into making this film. In that respect, it has a feel not unlike Amélie, only being German there is a lot of precision to it.
The story itself is gentle. Almost slight, because its subtleties are astonishing. Much is understated, it is almost more about what isn't being said.
This is mostly a character study of Martha (it is German, so say "marta") who is brilliantly portrayed by Martina Gedeck. She has a cosy comfortable life. She is a good chef in a restaurant in Hamburg. She is overly obsessive about her art, so much so that she regularly cooks for her therapist, and anybody else. She genuinely has no idea why her boss has told her that she must see the therapist regularly in order to keep her job. Yes, she's a bit of a fruitcake, but she's nice with it... unless you insult her cooking. Then she makes a bit of a scene.
The next thing she knows, her sister is killed in a car accident and she is given charge of her niece - while trying to find a person in Italy called Joseph (not spelled like that) who should be the girl's biological father.
As you might be able to imagine, she has no idea what to do with this young girl who doesn't want to sleep, doesn't want to eat, and is perhaps more headstrong and stubborn that Martha realises. This, unfortunately for her, is only half of what is about to turn her cosy ordered life into complete disarray.
Through all of it, there are touches of comedy. It isn't a 'heavy' film. Her reaction in the scene where she walks into her kitchen after the meal without plates (Martha: without plates? without plates?!?) is priceless.
It is a shame FilmFour showed this film late at night (once it was on around 11pm, I watched the 1am-3am showing). This film deserves a showing sometime in the 9pm slot. And if FilmFour ever show it at a more accessible time, please do watch it!
In German with subtitles.
REMAKE ALERT! A movie released on Friday 31st August 2007 carried the following description on BBCi: No Reservations Catherine Zeta-Jones stars as a successful chef whose whole life changes when she becomes the guardian to her neice (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin). Sound familiar? I know it is always wrong to prejudge a film (I've not seen it yet), however I'm not sure that CZJ can pull off the delightful quirkiness that made Mostly Martha so much fun...
Well, they get to find out the truth about each other and realise their married life has been a bit of a lie. There is a lot of sharp dialogue, perhaps preparing the pair for real married life with its ups and downs... but the situations and interactions are so bogus.
There is a final showdown, not surprisingly, and it is beyond belief. The action is well choreographed but there is a serious lack of reality.
Unfortunately for Pesci, there is a person that regularly steals the scene - and pretty much every scene she's in. This is the character Mona Lisa played by Marissa Tomerie.
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Sadly for her, this lovely film from Christine Lahti (yeah, the tall blonde smart one from "Chicago Hope") carries us along on a giggly high and then throws down a heck of an obstacle. For it is foolish of us to think that life is that simple, unless we're watching a Disney film, but we aren't...
The always-impressive, if oddly-named, Leelee plays the part perfectly. Just the right side of tragedy and comedy as required. It's a role that is funny, heartbreaking, comic, and tragic. And she does it well, without straying into slushy melodrama and cheapening the whole deal.
Be warned, the 'f' word is used to almost comic excess. But if you are the sort that really does dress "like a Republican", then you might not like the language. Shame, for you'd be missing a great story.
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Thing is, this film not only drags in the middle, but the head nerd (played by Jon Heder) is so far from the norm it is alienating in itself. I mean, I've known nerds at school - I was one. Okay, not the American High School scene... but this guy seems like a freak even to me, only Jon way overplays the nerd card.
I think there is a good idea lurking in this film, and some interesting characters, but it doesn't quite come together. If it's a comedy, why wasn't I laughing?
Hang around for the shortish credits, 'cos there's another few minutes of this film.
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Called "Kaze no tani no Naushika" in Japanese. In Japanese with subtitles.
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Neko no ongaeshi [is listed as "The Cat Returns"]
ねこ の おがえし [is listed as "The Cat Returns"]
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How to describe this film? If you can imagine "The Matrix" with vampires instead of geeks, as it would have been directed by Sam Raimi, and starring - obviously - Bruce Campbell, only in Russian... If you can imagine that, then you'll have an idea of what to expect from NightWatch.
Essentially it is the eternal good ('lightwatch') vs evil ('nightwatch') scenario. Into it comes a curse that will not only destroy Moscow, but our very existence. There is also a story of a special chosen one who must make the decision between being good or being evil. It doesn't sound like anything so out of the unusual. What lifts this film above the crowd (and into a 9/10 rating) is the raw energy coupled with some pretty impressive CGI.
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Absolutely a thumbs up!
Called "Nochnoy Dozor" in Russian, unless you are of the Padonki persuasion where you might refer to it as "Nochnoj Pozor" (Night Shame) because of a perception that it is too Westernised with the CGI and Hollywood filming style - something I suspect is more political than critical.
Mostly in Russian with subtitles.
Sequel alert! The sequel to NightWatch, called DayWatch, was scheduled (BBCi) for release 2007/10/05. Based, again, on Sergei Luyanenko's horror trilogy, this promises to continue the battle between good and evil against the backdrop of contemporary Moscow. I wonder what part three would be called? AfternoonWatch? DuskWatch? Don'tWatch? ☺
Nochnoy Dozor [is listed as "NightWatch"]
Лочноы дозор [is listed as "NightWatch"]
Nutcracker, The [is listed as "The Nutcracker"]
As is fairly typical in Japanese horror films, there's a sort of gleeful enthusiasm for the various 'death' scenes. There's a ghostly long-haired woman with broken bones (must be some sort of Japanese legend, that ghost turns up a lot). And, well, don't expect a neat resolution where all the questions are answered. But you can count on lots of ambience, lots of bulging eyes, and probably an eventual Hollywood remake...
Opposite Of Sex, The [is listed as "The Opposite Of Sex"]
There are numerous nice touches in this film, such as the 'cricket commentary' providing a narration to the boy's actions. My favourite scene in the film is somewhere in the middle when it all goes wrong for him, and he walks home smacking himself across the head with his satchel. Been there, done that! (but not for the same reasons)
As for the bizarre name of the film, it is apparently something that the boys said to each other. One would say, in a deep voice, "P'tang, yang, kipperbang, uh!" and the others were supposed to return likewise. He that didn't was probably "class twit" for the day. We did things like that at school, but I don't remember what our phrases were - they changed frequently to see how 'in' you were - because using an outdated response was sometimes worse than not knowing the response. I tended to make up my own, but hey, I was never ever going to be "the cool kid".
Some of the dialogue is interesting also, such as the girl asking "May I have bags of hush, please?". I didn't think people said stuff like that except in Enid Blyton books, though I must admit the quaint late-40s version is a heck of an improvement over the "Shut the .... up!" you'd be likely to hear today.
I shall say no more, except that there is quite an ending. You might want to video this so you can back up the tape and watch it again. What may appear to be at first isn't necessarily what is.
In Spanish with subtitles.
Passion Of The Christ, The [is listed as "The Passion Of The Christ"]
This certainly won't be to everybody's tastes, however I recomend that you watch it just so you can say that you have, and form your own geniune opinion of it. This is a deep work, indeed a masterpiece, from Ingmar Bergman, so be sure you can say "I know that film!" if ever it crops up in a conversation!
In Swedish with subtitles.
Player, The [is listed as "The Player"]
A young boy, a prince, is 'infected' by a demon hog. He is cast out from his community and vows to find the spirit responsible and lift the curse. His dream, a peace between the humans and the forest. Only the humans would rather kill the heart of the forest to tame it and the forest dwellers would rather kill all the humans as they think it'll make their problems go away. And this mess is what our prince walks in to.
This film, it's powerful animation, and a good dub job (including the voices of Minnie Driver and Claire Danes...) come together for an engaging film. And maybe a lesson that more of us should pay attention to, instead of our continual hunt for our own forest demons (the so-called "War On Terror", itself an oxymoron of impressive proportions).
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It isn't really giving much away to say that the mansion is a cover for an operationg called The Hive which is a massive secret underground complex underneath Rhubarbville (not quite, but the name isn't much better). So Milla, the military types, and some other people descend into the complex to try to shut down the computer, and battle the living dead.
There are some lovely touches to this film, and it has some big-budget effects, however we can't overlook a somewhat cheesy pre-ending (the bit before the ending, you'll know the bit I mean) and the fact that zombies make me giggle. There's just something really funny about them. And, of course, we can't overlook the cliché of "small group of people enter a seemingly deserted complex", how often has that cropped up?
I can tell you this is a cut above the normal zombie movies, and several magnitudes above some zombie flicks - offering graphics and action scenes and a rock soundtrack. In fact, calling it a zombie flick might even be insulting, as the undead are only part of a wide array of sci-fi adversaries.
Perhaps this generic northern council estate is a little be too clean. Depressing, yes. But also quite clean, perhaps too new looking? This may be part of the effect. Part of the taking the disenfranchised people and squashing them all together to be ignored. It is also interesting to notice the films depiction of "pakis", which is somewhat stereotypical yet somehow in keeping with the time, though quite unlike the England I left in 2003.
My only other criticism is that the eighties was apparently the era when girls all wore court shoes (some call them 'pumps', though I don't know why they're called that). A lot of girls walk around in this film, and there are plenty of hollow plasticky scraping noises from their shoes... either that or the foley team only had one pair of shoes to do everybody's sound effects!
For those, like me, who were bored rigid at school with the pretentious crap that Shakespeare wrote (see, I'm a philistine really!), this is a good modern introduction to his work. For his stories are simple, powerful, and timeless. All Baz has done (I say, making it seem like anybody could do it!) is taken the tragic story of two doomed lovers and given it an ultra-modern setting; yet managed to remain quite faithful to the heart of the story.
I suppose the dialogue delivery is a bit of a gimmick really, but to be fair, speaking the lines like that raises this movie above the sort of B-movie tosh that might otherwise have been playing in theatre two (while everybody was watching something good in theatre one), for the basic story has been done many times over. Romeo + Juliet itself has been done many times over, though perhaps never as memorably as The Troma Team's sick offering. By retaining the delivery, pacing it all at a rather MTV-generation speed, and bringing in two class actors (Leonardo DiCapitated and Claire Danes), Baz has created something rather special.
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Who the hell are these people? There is only one that I recognise - James Van Der Beek, perhaps known for being all 'deep' in "Dawson's Creek". Leading girl 1 is a cross between Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie and leading girl 2 is a Tara Reid wannabe. Somewhere along the way we see Faye Dunnaway. Seriously! I don't know what possessed her to do this.
They, along with some other people, are at a college. Introspective self-obsessed voice-overs are desperately trying to give some sort of emotional meaning to the shagging, the toking, and the widespread alcohol abuse. I'm surprised these guys know what Mid Terms are, never mind attain a decent score.
Or to put it more bluntly, if this is any sort of realistic depiction of American college life, it isn't really surprising that every so often somebody Goes Postal with a semi-automatic. Furthermore, if this lot were slain in a hail of bullets, you probably wouldn't even be surprised. You'd figure "whatever" and enjoy the subsequent adverts more than the film itself.
The EPG says "captures the American Generation X of disaffected, self-centred teens". Not quite. ☺ The proper definition of "Generation X" is the late twenty-somethings, so called because those who are disaffected and still haven't found their niche do not actually have an identity. They are the 'Generation X'. Perhaps this blurring of Xers and teens is in part due to the American obsession for casting older players as teens. It was okay me liking the High School girl called Willow in Buffy because, well... because Alyson is actually my age, not half my age. So maybe when you get a 27 year old playing a 15 year old, it becomes difficult to clearly define the Generation X. These guys aren't Generation X, they are Generation Who-Gives-A-$#!7.
There are a number of innovative touches to this film. The first backwards scene (unwinding from one character to go and follow another) is cute, but it quickly gets annoying. At least they kept with the theme and ran the credits backwards - the only thing in the entire movie that brought a smile to my face. Then there is the split-screen. A bit 24ish perhaps, it allows us to follow two actions taking place at one time. If I thought Van Der Beek getting it on with another bloke was bad enough, they really hit rock bottom with him sitting on the toilet wiping his butt, followed not too long afterwards by a close-up of him picking his nose.
I'm not a prude - I am not 'offended' by sex and drugs. It is just that this seemed to be the principle raison d'être of these characters. Take that away, they'd all drop out. Unlike, say, "Reservoir Dogs", where these things are a part of the characters and help define who the characters are.
There is, of course, a specific reason I quote a Tarantino movie. I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to make the connection.
It is here that we come to the principal problem. Time and again I have said that the key to a good movie is an emotional involvement with the characters. For if there are no glossy stunts or Japanese chicks to look at, no CGI aliens, and no gravity-defying samurai action - why the hell would you watch a film where you could care less about any of the characters? The best films have solid three-dimensional characters. They are likable in "Driving Miss Daisy" and not so likable in "Misery", but in both cases you are compelled to get involved in the story. Even in the complete opposite, "Battle Royale", you wanted to follow the characters - root for your favourites and see if they make it, and if not, how far they got. So back to Rules Of Attraction... the characters were just... annoying. Always high or drunk or getting laid, often all three at once. I guess I should have known right in the beginning during what is effectively a rape (only the girl is too drunk to care) when the man vomits in her hair mid-sex, I guess I should have known to change the channel and watched "Dead Poets Society" on BBC One, again.
I'm not one of these people who is going to whinge pitifully about "losing two hours of my life" like some sad sorry folk on IMDb, after all it is taking yet more time to write this. What I hope to do, at least, is save you wasting your time watching this when there is something better on. Or maybe you'll figure watching anyway to see why I disliked it. Whatever, I won't say I told you so. Life's too short to carry on with this already overly-verbose review...
In closing I shall say only this. The director, Roger Avary, has perhaps done his best with the material. It's from a Brett Easton Ellis novel (according to the EPG), so was this a bad film or a bad story to begin with. Whatever, I don't care. But don't dismiss Avary on the basis of this one film. For a Generation X bank heist caper with people we have heard of, including the sublimely lovely Julie Delpy. Yup, it is none other than "Killing Zoe". How about it, FilmFour?
As with Mostly Martha, it is a damn shame that FilmFour seem to like putting these foreign subtitled films on when only the dead will be watching. This one was on about half one in the morning (British time; half two French time). What was I doing up that late? Pressing the "timed record" button on my VCR, that's what!
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A disturbed young woman (played to psychotic perfection by Maggie Gyllenhaal, left) is looking for her first job. So she becomes a secretary for a power-happy man (James Spader) who is a lawyer by career and a pervy weirdo freak by nature.
And, oh my God, has he ever bitten off more than he can chew with the insane dedication and equal perviness of his new secretary.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a straight 'dark' film, or a sophisticated comedy that doesn't do us the disservice of pausing for laughs. Perhaps it is my sick sense of humour, but I giggled through this film. It was wild, it was weird, it was wicked. And there I'll stop as I think people that describe things using the word 'wicked' (unless talking about evil stepmothers) are twits, but there are only so many 'w' words I can think of at any one time.
This is definitely not one for the kids or the weak minded, what with the self-harm and what the EPG description says are "strong sexual scenes"... comic, more like! Anyway, it's an 18 cert with some heavy stuff.
The rest of us? I suspect you'll either hate it and bitch about how you lost two hours of your life, or you'll find yourself backing up the video tape to give it a deserved second viewing...
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This film was made by Baltimorean John Waters who has made some extremely surreal and, frankly, sick films - a obsession with a "300 pound transvestite" called Divine, who in one movie she eats doggie doo in one take from dog to mouth (I defy you to watch that without feeling your stomach lurch). He started to become somewhat more mainstream with "Hairspray" (also with Ricki Lake), then a more wandery but more polished "Cry-Baby" (oh, look, Ricki Lake again!) starring Johnny Depp. Here, in "Serial Mom", Waters hits the big-time. A film that is, okay, heavy on the obscenities, but with a brilliant sense of humour that can be appreciated by anybody who doesn't buy into the whole "sweet in suburbia" routine. This is a lot less disturbing than David Lynch's creations because, down at heart, we know this probably couldn't happen. But maybe it could. And maybe it would turn out something like this. (the Lynch disturbance is we know his stuff is probably already happening)
The film broadly falls into three acts. The first, Mom goes around dishing out justice including an amusing phone conversation. The second act, mom carries on, only this time the family (and the inept cops) are starting to get a clue. The third, beautiful. I can't say more as it would let you know what is coming. Suffice to say that if I was to collect a selection of "memorable quotes" from this movie, it'd fill some sides of A4.
Above right we can see the family. Look at it. Boring car. Mom (Kathleen Turner) wearing a conventional dress and court shoes. Can't you imagine her part-timing for a "realtor"? Next is Dad (Sam Waterston). Fitted suit and tie. He would work "in the city" doing... who knows what the hell these city workers actually do. Corporate banking? Possibly. Then there are the 2.4 children beginning with Chip (Matthew Lillard). He's got the hots for Birdie, gets into horror movies, and plays at being a little bit bad, a little bit rebellious. But he isn't really. If mom said "stop", he'd stop. This leaves us with the oddly named Misty (Ricki Lake). Buckle-up shoes, flowing dress and alice-band, she is dressed rather like a girl half her age ought to be. Actually, I think she wears a hair-band of some description in every scene she's in, so I guess she is supposed to be "cute" and "fluffy". That reporter bloke certainly likes her.
So there you have the family.
My final recommendation - tape this. If you don't know why I scored it a 9.5, give it a few days then watch it again. Look for all the detail you missed first time around. For a surreal send-up of suburban life gone horribly wrong, it probably won't be possible to top this film...
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As you can guess, I'm no fan of football. Or soccer. Whatever you want to call it. I watched this film purely for seeing how it would develop. I know that Oriental action films are the first to throw the laws of physics out the window, and to pay scant regard to that irritation called gravity. And this film sure doesn't disappoint.
Actually, it reminds me a lot of those weird over-long Indian films. A little bit of everything. Singing, dancing, love, loss... only here we also have lots of football done Kung Fu style. I'll tell you what, this lot aren't going to lie on the pitch bawling their eyes out if they lose.
Loads of CGI, a slapstick sense of humour, and some of the oddest characters you'll see outside of a Coen Brothers film. Awesome!
It is perhaps unusual in that the film is in Cantonese, while it was made in Hong Kong, which I think is a Mandarin speaking area...
Called "Siu Lam Juk Kau" in Cantonese (and "Shao Lin Zu Qiu" in Mandarin). In Cantonese with subtitles.
Siu Lam Juk Kau [is listed as "Shaolin Soccer"]
Basically, our man Keanu Reeves is waging a fight against a crazed bomber (Dennis Hopper). The film starts with a bunch of office workers in some generic LA skyscraper trapped in a lift (sorry, "elevator"!) rigged with explosives. The bomber wants three million quid (three million? only three million?!?) or he'll blow the lot and everybody will die.
Now this on its own could be a movie. But, not here. It's only the opening explanation in Speed. For in moments Keanu and his aging partner (Jeff Daniels) have rigged the lift long enough to get everybody out of it and save the day. As you can imagine, Hopper is not a happy bunny, so he goes out with a bang, fade to black, end of film.
Well, not quite, that was just the opener. Keanu is downtown doing something mundane and boring when a rapid-transit bus explodes into a nicely overstated fireball. A nearby payphone rings. It's our bomber. He is really annoyed now, and as vengence, he has rigged another bus with a bomb that will kick in when the bus passes 50 miles per hour (80kph) and will blow if the speed drops below that.
You might think doing a steady fifty in LA is a breeze if you're used to Beach Boys vids and songs such as "I Love LA". Truth be told, it is like any other city. Even the motorways jam up, whether it be the Rennes "Rocade" périphérique or the M25 "London Orbital"; so merely keeping the bus doing 50 is an exercise in nerves, self-control, and plenty of insurance claims. Along the way, the bus driver is shot by a freaked passenger, so it is up to Sandra Bullock to drive the bus. Luckily her licence was pulled, for speeding...
It's not over yet. There's the little issue of doing something about that bomb.
The plot is, let's face it, pretty silly and way OTT. But it doesn't matter. The characters are multidimensional and not the usual action movie stereotypes. There is an intelligence, and a dark humour to the script (like when the lift bombs blow, we briefly cut to two cops in the lobby - one says to the other "Usually they fall down now"). And if the witty banter doesn't move you, you simply cannot deny the action. It rarely lets up. Even the quiet moments are building for the next big thing. Forget Die Hard and all that Segal EcoWarrior Crap, this is how to make an action movie!
Word of advice - once the whole bus thing is done with, don't get up to pee or make a pizza... there's more. Oh yes! This film doesn't let up until the credits roll and all you'll wanna do is go watch paint dry to get over it all!
Sum Of All Fears, The [is listed as "The Sum Of All Fears"]
This starts off a sophisticated film which quickly dispatches the unwanted characters and throws the two girls into the desired situation - one in trouble and one trying to find some way to extricate them both from the mess. It could have been a great friendship movie...
But... well, that is when it all starts to fall apart and we begin to wonder what psychosis we, the viewer, have been thrown into.
Called "Haute Tension" (High Tension) in French. In French with subtitles.
One of the main points of this film, and the guiding light of where we are going here is not only the pain of lonliness, but also the isolation and the rejection. It is what defines Bickle, it is what defines the film. To a degree, it defines all of us at some time or another, unless we've lived coddled lives. Some people see this as a strong vision of hell, others see this as a cold unredeeming psychopath. I would imagine it depends a lot on whether or not you 'get' that sense of isolation. Whether you feel you've been there, however briefly.
One of the most often quoted phrases is "You talkin' to me?". It makes a lot more sense than a cool quote when you see it in context, when you realise the next line is "Well I'm the only one here" and he is talking to a mirror.
Outstanding performance, not only from De Niro, but also from a young Jodie Foster.
I found it interesting that it said right at the end of the credits "An Italo-Judeo Production".
The plot? As if you don't already know! Okay, there are a bunch of students making a documentary film about a local legend in Burkittsville, Maryland. Pagan effigies, endless woods, and adolescents running around in a panic. You'll either love it, or hate it. But it is definitely not for those who get dizzy watching ER...
The Bradys probably need no introduction - it'd be like introducing The Addams Family. For those stuck in even more of a time warp than this family, there's a woman with three daughters and a man with three sons. They met, married, and had a family with 6.0 children.
Almost annoyingly, this movie has the sort of sentiments as a family-friendly film on one of the 'christian' channels - you know the sort, the 'bad boys' are good, teenage pregnancies and alcoholism are unknown concepts, nobody drives faster than 50 and they always wear seatbelts - so we can perhaps guess that Mr. and Mrs. Brady are widowers and not divorcees. Whatever.
This family is not only vomitatiously squeaky-clean, they are also stuck in a '70s time warp. Back when fashion was bad and hair worse. They find out that they need to come up with $20,000 in tax money or else they'll be kicked out of their house by greedy, slimy, land developers. So they have to think of a Very Brady solution. There have been a number of attempts to mix 'then' with 'now', usually unsuccessfully. This is where the Bradys come into their own. They aren't ripping off the styles of the '70s for effect, they are genuinely living as if the '80s and '90s never happened to these guys. Gee, and just think, Jen could have been a Valley Girl...
FilmFour have placed this into their 'guilty pleasures' category. And in a way that is what it is. A soft film that doesn't pretend to be more than it is, yet is fluffier than one of Willow's fluffy jumpers! [come on, you thought you could read this document and not see a few obligatory Buffy references?]
Perhaps my only real quibble, cheesy campness aside, is the casting of Gary Cole as Mr. Brady. He does well in the role, don't get me wrong, but... well... he's "Jack Killian". He's "Lucas Buck". He's not Mr.-flippin'-Brady!
Called "Neko no ongaeshi" in Japanese. This means 'Kingdom of the cats'. The bit about 'the cat returns' is because the Baron appeared in an earlier film, "Whisper Of The Heart".
"The Cat Returns" is a dopey name (in my opinion!), the literal translation is much better.
How to resolve the problem? A hotch-potch assortment of people are rounded up and charged with the impossible - make a craft that will bore into the Earth's core to drop a few nukes to get the core rotating again. Simple, huh?
Despite the cheesiness of the idea of the Earth's core stopping, this movie pulls itself along on three factors - sheer enthusiasm, decently fleshed out characters, and effects which do justice to the concept.
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As far as the plot goes, essentially the climate is changing. This we know. Where the film picks up is to suggest that there will be a point when everything will spiral out of control extremely quickly - like in a week, like day after tomorrow...
This is not impossible - consider taking small stones out of a big stone wall. There are many many times you can remove a stone with little effect to the wall. But there will come a time when taking down one stone will cause the wall to collapse. And, since this is essentially a disaster movie, it stands to reason that it will be a huge environmental shift that will destroy the United States in no time. Oh, actually this is a global event but you'll find the whole film to be very USA-oriented (save for a snippet in Japan, a snippet in Scotland, and a moment of a Sky News report)...
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This is a must watch, unless you are frightened of small dark places...
The basic plot is an American boy, in a university in Paris, spends his free time at the new cinemathèque that was created to play films - any films, and lots of films, so they never die. This leads to film buffs rioting in the streets of Paris - remember this was the time of the "new wave" and the cinéaste - and somewhere in the middle of it all the boy meets a French couple - brother and sister, and he quickly gets romantically involved with them.
The backdrop to the story is amazingly well put together - if you know of the works of Mallé and Truffaut, and their contribution to cinema, you'll appreciate the attention to detail along with numerous references to old black and white films (the likes of Greta Garbo). Because of this, the plot with the boy and the French couple is almost a let-down.
There is one outstanding scene in which the American is bonking the sister on the kitchen floor, possibly his "first", while the brother watches. He gets fed up, probably thinking it should be him there instead, so he gets up and makes an omlette, while the bonking continues.
A lot in this movie defies convention, the credits are no exception. What was interesting to see in the credits was that this is a "Carbon Neutral" production. With our destruction of the world being a hot topic (I suspect to eke more tax out of us than any actual concern for the environment), some bean-counter has figured out how much 'damage' was caused in the making of the film, and in return a sufficient number of trees have been planted to balance out this perceived damage. While environmentalists and scientists may argue over whether or not this has any actual benefit, it is a nice gesture that - if any of my scripts ever make it to a final product - I hope to replicate myself.
In English, with some dialogue in French with subtitles.
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This is a full-on anti-Capitalist film, a wannabe revolution in cinematic form. A badly conceived idealism wasted on a totally lost cause. Perhaps this is why this film touches a nerve? Perhaps more and more common normal people are fed up at a system where the rich keep getting richer at the expense of, well, us. You and me. That this misplaced idealism isn't actually so bad. How cool it would be to break in to Gordon Brown's pad (aka "Number 10") and rearrange the furniture into an obscure take on modern art. Could we straddle the sofa over the fridge and call it The Angel Of The South?
Rich powerful people have the ability to make, influence, or circumvent laws so while the banks can gleefully hit us with a £50 fine for daring to go £1 overdrawn, we feel powerless to do anything about it. We could write nasty letters but they will always hold the winning hand. "Go seek alternate lenders", while notifying a credit reference agency to ensure that those potential lenders won't want to know. Or maybe just heap on a bunch more charges and then one day send the bailiffs. Why? For fun, I guess. For the Chancellor losing obscene amounts of money by selling the gold reserves at the wrong time and nobody is that bothered, while people are made backrupt daily for a sum barely into five digits. How you or I would be in hot doggy-doo-doo for a few hundred, yet the ineptitude of The City in America got itself bailed out to the tune of $700,000,000,000 (!) with astonishing figures this side of the ocean too - and guess who is going to pay for their cock-up? Will they cough up cash if/when we cock-up?
Makes you wanna find out who is in charge of the bank (not the manager, the owner) and rearange his furniture?
But we can't. For breaking in and rearranging furniture is contrary to a whole heap of laws. Like I said, they always hold the winning hand.
Enter "The Edukators". A film where we get to imagine. A film where we can transcend our stamped-upon existence. A film where we can see a spark of genius lurking amid the disorganised chaos.
Obviously, referring now to the film, the whole thing is going to spin out of control, for the kidnapping, and that little annoyance that goes by the name of "love". There is a plot to this film too, and plenty of meaningful dialogue... it isn't just about trying to open your eyes. But, you know, if it makes you think more carefully about the world around you, it has achieved something.
Called "Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" in German, which means roughly "Your days of plenty are numbered", which are the words written on the note that we see at the start of the film.
In German with subtitles.
 A montage of pictures from a trailer on the "Resurrection Of The Little Matchgirl" DVD. |
This is the story of a woman from Hong Kong (called Mun) who, having lost her sight aged two, is given an operation which allows her to see again. Only, not only can she see more or less what you and I can see, she can see dead people. Dead people who want something.
This film begins with striking similarities to the Val Kilmer/Miro Sorvino film "Second Sight". Mun, having now regained her sight, finds it difficult to relate what she can see to the world of touch that she understands. While "Second Sight" makes this a primary concern, we more of less leave these problems when it starts to become clear to Mun that she can see ghosts.
You may recall an episode of "Twilight Zone" (the early '90s version) where a person who, given cataract surgury in one eye, can see spirits because the cornea acted as a 'shield' and now it has been removed.
As is to be expected with Asian horror films, this is a slow burn; which makes a refreshing change to bodies piling up as
The only thing keeping this film from achieving a full 10 is that the ending feels a little bit rushed. I can understand they needed to find a way to include that part in the film (and it doesn't pull any punches either), but it seems like several logic flaws all crash into each other.
Some say Top Gun was Tom's best film. They obviously never saw this one! It is taut, suspenseful, and had it been made a generation earlier it would have starred Gene Hackman. What more can I say?
I won't say why so as not to give the story away, but we are treated to a number of different interpretations of what actually happened - it is a complex film, and - yet another - to show the power and range of Thora Birch.
This is slick and packed with action, however it has that ring of incredulity much akin to James Bond driving a tank through a town - with much emphasis on the word 'through'.
There are some lovely scenes and impressive stuntwork. Don't be misled by the start of the film which is all 'serious' and 'heavy'. That lasts maybe ten minutes. Then we get into the heart of the film. A dark twisting mess where a lot of stuff gets blown up good and proper, the various mostly inessential short dialogue scenes designed as little more than a bit of breathing space until the next thing happens big-time.
All of that history about my trips to the theatre are an introduction to this stage performance of a sort of ballet for the Christmas story of The Nutcracker.
And, while I'm at it, has anybody actually stopped to consider what exactly the message is? If you believe the Christian myth: Jesus was allowed to be killed by his own omnipotent father in place of a punishment for the sins of mankind. So let's see if we can get this straight...
In Aramaic and Latin with subtitles.
For many, many years American 'spy' movies treaded the old fears about them against the "commies", such films look horribly dated in this post-Cold War era.
However none of this matters. We begin the film with a way-over-the-top car chase sequence that introduces our Transporter, played by Jason Statham, who is dripping cool in a way that even Pierce Brosnan (the best Bond to date, IMHO) is not capable of managing. And unlike Bond, Frank Martin isn't weighed down with a need to save the world. In fact, he'll swing on the other side of the law and take any package anywhere for the right price, according to three simple rules: 1. When an arrangement is made, that arrangment sticks and is never altered; 2. No names, no information, the only thing of importance is the location of the drop; and 3. Never open the package.
It is clear from the outset that this is not so much a film requiring you to suspend belief as it is a film demanding that you take your belief completely offline and revel in the attitude. The fights that Van Damme would lose, the stunts that only Jackie Chan could match, and all with an underlying sense of humour.
Qi Shu (credited as Shu Qi) makes a suitably interesting tag-along (she did a Banderas and learned her lines phonetically); and it will be no surprise to know that an over-blown action film set in France... yup, Besson Luc (oops, I mean Luc Besson ☺) was behind this one.
There is room for a "The Transporter 3", and if it is commissioned, I'd like to see a vibe more in line with "The Bourne Identity".
If I had to level one criticism at this movie, I would say that the main presumption is that Uma Thurman is gorgeous and Janeane Garofalo is not. This is not helped by some of the roles that Janeane has played - where she often comes across as blunt almost to the point of being abusive. However thankfully we can see a warmth, intelligence, and perception in her character in this film. It is just a great shame that we are supposed to believe Janeane isn't so pretty; certainly to the point where she'd be expected to feel that her 'self' comes wrapped in a package that isn't sexy or good looking.
So, ever intrepid, the students find out who they know with a time machine and set out to go back and bring him back to the modern day.
There are plenty of innovative touches in this film, and it is all enthusiastically acted, but there is simply no getting around the time travel machine is like Stargate with the sort of budget that Doctor Who had in the eighties. It is laughable. In fact, a "magical stone" would probably have been a more believable premise.
In English, with some dialogue in French with subtitles.
In Japanese, with subtitles.
There are few generally-watchable Seagal movies. Most fall into the heavily choreographed martial-arts category. We won't even discuss that one where he goes all EcoFriendly with the eskimos, then has an oil refinery blow up (bet THAT wasn't Carbon Neutral).
He is in a car crash. The girl who was in the car with him died. It's up to him to figure out what really happened (with the assistance of Penélope Cruz) as he's about to go down for a murder he felt he didn't commit.
Sound's interesting, doesn't it? So why only 6¼? It's a beautifully surreal film where what's real and what isn't changes a lot, but I think the end - when you finally get to it - is something of a cop-out. Okay, it makes perfect sense and explains everything, but... it just felt too damn cheesy. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it is bordering on awful. I cannot explain exactly why, it just felt wrong. As if we, the viewer, invested all this time and effort in watching the movie and, well, that was it? That was how it ended? Like that?
There is a scene of making up a coffin. Not unexpected, after seeing a group dissecting a number of bodies left "for medical science". There are a number of differences between my understanding of burials, and the Japanese. For example, they are dressed in white and given little slippers to wear. Fair enough. Next, a flower - looks like a lilac but I'm no botanist - is placed on the body. We, in the West, do stuff like that too. Perhaps the thing I'd most like to ask a Japanese person about is a little wooden crutch is placed into the coffin. What's the significance of that?
Appears to be called "Vital" in Japanese! Perhaps something like "Waitaru"? In Japanese with subtitles.
Though there are a multitude of plot holes in this film, it is influential for being one of the first to show the workings inside the mind of a geek. To attempt to explain why sitting for hours staring at a machine can be seen as a fun thing to do. To portray, possibly for the only time in cinematic history, a fairly accurate bit of phone phreaking (instead of some cool-sounding garbage the scriptwriter came up with). And, to show all us geeks that there is hope - we have a young Ally Sheedy in fine form as the girlfriend. Yes, you read that right - an arcade-game-addicted geek who tells his computer (check out those 8-inch floppies!) to dial every number in an area code... has a girlfriend. Whoa!
I have tried to give it a fair review. I, personally, found it to be an influential film. While I had already taken the lid off of the school's BBC micro when I saw this film, it was reassuring to me that I wasn't a crackpot - that other people wanted to get deeper into things. It also introduced me to the concept of computer-to-computer communications (though it would have to wait a further eight years before I could afford a modem of my own). I feel, in a fair review, this film deserves seven and a half. For myself, and mostly for reasons of nostalgia, I'd have been tempted to award it a nine.
As always, the animation is outstanding. Just after the image below right, a car drives by. This serves no real purpose to the plot, yet the illumination of the car's headlights (and the odd firefly) serve to illistrate the depth and quality of the animation.
I had previously suggested the change in colour of the school uniforms may have been an oddity in the film. After a brief bit of research about Japanese girl's school uniforms on Google (erm, and skipping loads of pervy stuff!), it seems that Japanese schoolgirls have two uniforms which are often different colours. One for the winter half of the year, and one for the summer half. This film takes place around the summer holiday, so it makes sense that we'd see her in one uniform at the beginning of the movie, and in a different one at the end (you can see in the upper right picture it is blue, and yellow in the lower pictures). The "sailor outfit" is slowly losing popularity as it is sometimes thought of as being too militarised. It was originally introduced in 1921, and based upon the British naval uniforms of the time. It is called "sērā-fuku" (セーラー服).
Called "Mimi wo sumaseba" in Japanese, which actually means "If you listen closely", the English language title (created by Ghibli) is more lyrical than literal. In Japanese with subtitles.
There are quirks. Evil spirits. Predictions. Other stuff, but essentially this movie is horribly confused, like there is an idea that didn't know how to express itself, and a cluttered ending that just feels tacked on because nobody could think of anything better. Such a missed opportunity.
It's a quiet tale. A young Amish boy witnesses a murder. Ford is the policeman who enters into the Amish family and way of life to try to protect them from the revenge of those who know what happened, and also to gently try to extract the story of what happened from the boy (if you have trouble with the culture clash, Wiki for Amish). Along the way Ford has to come to understand the Amish, try not to fall in love with one of them as she nurses him back to health, while also not corrupting her to the modern world.
Great characterisation, great story, one of the best movie depictions of the Amish put on celuloid (let's pretend we never heard of that Kirstie Alley/Tim Allen one). You will also note with specific glee that the people in this movie are not one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs. There are no "teens in danger". The scenes are not clichés pulled from a thriller-romance identikit.
A beautiful film. Don't miss!
Additional commentary:
So, the ending...
It makes sense. The dead girl couldn't save her village from the cataclysm, and Mun is equally powerless to do anything in the face of an obvious catastrophe. However I have my doubts that an exploding tanker would do that - to achieve a "blevee" you need the heat around a combustible material in a sealed container. We can tell the tanker is not sealed because we see the 'waft' pass around the cars.
Which leads to the second logic fault. Why that one vehicle? The others aren't electric, so why didn't they cause the problem first?
Which leads to the third logic fault. Thailand isn't totally backwards, you'd have thought the police would have evacuated the area rather than simply wave cars to drive on by this little accident!The Firm (8/10)
Tom Cruise is an up-and-coming lawyer. Somehow he stumbles on the mother of all conspiracies, and it seems his entire firm is implicated. Before we know it, it is a messy game of cat and mouse with Tom trying to get the proof to the Feds; only who can he trust? Practically nobody, it seems.
The Good Girl (7/10)
Jennifer Anniston puts in a great performance as a bored and frustrated housewife by nights, innocent and naïve in equal measure, who is an equally bored and frustrated checkout girl by day.
The only respite to this? A younger male co-worker (Jake Gyllenhaal) who lives a little dangerous, a little wild. All of this is a great fascination and diversion.
Of course, such things are bound to fly out of control, aren't they?
The Hole (8/10)
Thora Birch is a schoolgirl at a prestigious private school in England. She and some of her friends find and old WW2 bomb shelter and they decide to spend a weekend there. Then it all goes horribly wrong...
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (5½/10)
A fine bit of period nonsense this. We begin with a (German) tank smashing into the Bank Of England. Only it is the Victorian era and tanks don't exist. This is followed up by a (British) attack on a dock of Hindenburgs using a rocket launcher. A ragtag bunch of people are called together - a guy that can't die, a female vampire, Tom Sawyer as an American agent fond of his guns, an invisible bloke... not to mention Nemo. Not the fish, the literary figure who looks like he is single-handedly keeping the Raj alive. We whizz around the place in an almost-futuristic submarine. We watch them save Venice from the most farcical destruction even inflicted on a city in celluloid history... this is all great for eye-popping visuals, but maybe one tenth of the effects budget could have gone to making a better story. One that could be expanded beyond its one-sentence description ending with "lots of improbable but cool stuff happens along the way"...
The Long Kiss Goodnight (7¾/10)
Way over-the-top actioner sees Geena Davis as soft teacher "Samantha" in Small Town Nowheresville who discovers that her amnesia hides a disturbing past as she starts to remember things following a car crash. A past where she could have probably kicked Rambo's ass up and down town without so much as breaking a nail. She hires a private detective (Samuel L Jackson) to try to figure out who she was when she was known as "Charly". If you think it's a lot going on in this paragraph, it accounts for maybe five seconds of screen time. Okay, five minutes, which isn't long for a film clocking around two hours.
So too with The Long Kiss Goodnight, you'd be best switching off the analytical side of your brain and going along with the ride. Certainly it will be useful not to think too much, else you'd be in danger of realising exactly how proposporous and silly the ending really is. But not thinking, just enjoying, it makes sense in its own way; but don't expect to walk away better because of this film. Exhausted is more likely.
The Nutcracker (5½/10)
I have been to the theatre three times in my life. The first time was a school trip to Covent Garden and it was pouring and we all got completely soaked in both directions. Myself and a few friends were wringing out our uniforms over each other. Don't ask me what the production was, I have no recollection, but the slightly plump girl with the big smile who I think was called Emily was something I did remember. She was wearing her uniform (must be some daft school idea that you can't go out dressed 'normally') and she got rained on too.
Oh my God, what is he wearing?!?
Hey, I'm the girl here, not you!
The second time I went to the theatre was also with school. Dunno what it was, but the lead pair were not backwards about getting their kit off and shagging each other senseless. I guess they'd claim to be doing it for their "art". Unfortunately we had a bible basher crone of a chapeone who tutted and complained all the way back about how "shocking" it all was. I'm sure some of my classmates got good mileage from it, but then I've never been impressed by pornos. A cute girl acting promiscuously, perhaps. Maybe even I'd have some tiny degree of interest is watching lesbians do... whatever it is they do. But some random bloke porking the girl? That's just sick. Why would I want to watch somebody else having sex?
My final visit to the theatre was at the Redgrave or whatever it is called in Farnham. There was a lot of talking in an overly affected way and I think that's about all that happened. I bought myself half a dozen packs of Fruit Pastilles and started counting the different colours.
Once you get over the bizarre sight of Macauley Culkin (aka that brat from "Home Alone") dressed as a masculinised girl, complete with pumps, then you can sit back and enjoy a rather lavish production.
Kudos also to Culkin for taking on a radically different role to that which we were used to, it's all rather reminiscent of Daniel Whats-his-name's foray into theatre with "Equus". I guess making movies is "okaaaay", but you're a proper actor when you do theatre. Whatever, I'll stick with movies. But as far as stuffy tedious boring theatre productions go, this one is actually quite good...
...once you've gotten over his outfit, that is.
The Opposite Of Sex (8/10)
Featuring a sublimely bitchy Lisa Kudrow who is so unlike Phoebe-in-Friends it is unreal, and an amazingly twisted Christina Ricci - this film begins as a lost sister who moves in with her gay brother and sets about seducing his boyfriend. That's about as much as the EPG tells you, and that's about the first ten minutes of the film, with Lisa always ready to say "I told you so!".
There are many twists and turns along the way, and in case we are in any doubt as to what is going on, we get to hear a narration of Ricci's character's perspective on life. This is one of the few films I've seen where a narration works really well.
The Passion Of The Christ (7½/10)
Having now seen the film, I can understand why some people wanted it banned. For it is a gory, violent, and bloodthirsty account of man torturing and finally killing the supposed Son Of God. It does not sit very well with the puritan morals when you consider the ironic truth behind the "Buddy Jesus" featured in "Dogma", and then compare the "Jesus is our friend" symbolism and the empty rhetoric of "he died for our sins" against the reality of what would have happened.
Sure, the bible lays out an account of the story... and, perhaps with about as much poetic licence as the bible itself takes, The Passion Of The Christ would appear to be a fairly accurate telling of the story.
According to the Compuworks Desktop Bible; Matthew chapter 27:
The problem, and what has probably upset many people, is that a story in verses repeated ad infinitum in a monotone by a boring git who doesn't look as if he wants to be there any more than you do... it is easy to lose a sense of what this means. Consider, if you will that the verses of the bible are rather light on the visuals and the crucifiction itself is explained simply by the words "And they crucified him", a roughly similar account in two books (Matthew 27 and Mark 15).
27: Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.
28: And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.
29: And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!
30: And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
31: And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.
32: And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.
33: And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
34: They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
35: And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
36: And sitting down they watched him there;
37: And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
38: Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.
39: And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
40: And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
41: Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,
42: He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
43: He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.
44: The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.
45: Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.
46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
47: Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.
48: And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
49: The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.
50: Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
51: And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
52: And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53: And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
54: Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.
All rather a far cry from the film, which not so much lays it out as hits you across the head with it. The Christ may have had passion, but his persecutors did not, and the film pulls no punches in depicting exactly what this meant.
We can all sin like hell, as some super-omnipotent being will send his son to Earth and then let us sin more by killing him too, as some sort of bizarre atonement.
Or, in other words, it doesn't matter what we do, somebody else will take the heat.
How can we believe in God as being a loving God when one of Jesus' last statements was "El(o)i, El(o)i, lama sabachthani?" (father, father, why have you forsaken me?) [Matthew 27:46 as "Eli"; and Mark 15:34 as "Eloi"]?
The Player (7/10)
This film, some might say one of Robert Altman's finest, is a deeply indulgent slice of Hollywood satire beginning with a crane shot that runs to something like eight minutes.
In a nutshell, Tim Robbins plays a studio exec. A person who has no real function in life, but yet wields a power. The power of No. For he cannot green-light a movie project, but he can toss away the ones he doesn't rate. So his job? Well? He gets to listen to loads of movie pitches. Then one day he gets a message on a postcard. Somebody isn't happy.
I won't go on, you may already know what happens next, but I don't want to spoil it if you don't. One thing is for certain, there is a mass of talkiness in this film. Don't let that put you off, for the dialogue and the things referenced are part of the fun.
The Sum Of All Fears (8/10)
Being based upon a Tom Clancy novel, you'd expect the usual military power-play garbage that so many of his stories contain. And, indeed there is plenty of that in this movie, however what lifts this movie into a 'favourite' category is the story not only makes sense, and is well put together (with only a minor flaw), and is convincingly played by an outstanding cast led by Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman.
Tom Clancy cleverly revisits this once-familiar territory. Basically, a new leader is declared in Russia, and his first move is to slaughter Chechnians with chemical weapons. Actually, it wasn't the new leader, it was some rebel faction. But the new leader would rather say it was him than admit weakness.
This plays right into the hands of a neo-Nazi group, who figure the easiest way to destroy America is not to fight America, but instead to set Russia and America on the warpath. And for that, they need to get a nuclear weapon into America and get the Americans to believe Russia did it. Falling all too easily onto fears and distrust that lasted over half a century, it isn't hard for the two old adversaries to go back to those dark days. Their only hope is not a wise president (no, Morgan Freeman doesn't play the president), instead their only hope is a fairly junior CIA operative (Affleck) putting the pieces of this jigsaw together before the whole thing erupts into World War III.
The Transporter (7½/10)
Let's face it. The plot is lacking... The action scenes are essentially stupid... There are enough continuity errors to keep a film buff up all night... and as if that is not enough, there are these dreadful GCI bullets that make it look like everybody is using laser cannons.
The Transporter 2 (6/10)
The slick cool that made The Transporter so cool is sadly less evident, and the car stunts - while so far over the top it makes the original film seem totally believable - are also less evident.
This film focuses more on the kidnapped kid and his parents, leading on to a plot line that is comically predictable.
The Truth About Cats And Dogs (9/10)
This warm-hearted film is full of cuteness and clever comedy, with many throwaway lines that are really quite perceptive and funny.
Abby, the radio vet (in Santa Monica).
Abby losing her nerve and getting Noelle to pretend to be her.
The central story is that the radio vet Abby (Janeane Garofalo) who takes calls about the sort of things that radio vets will encounter - such as depressed fish. And, then, she helps a photographer Brian (Ben Chaplin) who has to deal with a dog wearing rollerskates. It is surreal to watch this dog skating, and better than I can. As Abby tells him how to deal with the dog, Brian falls for her based upon her voice, its warmth and intelligence. He asks her to meet him. When we learn more about her social life (ha, what social life), we understand why she wants to meet Brian... but she isn't brave enough. She describes her neighbour, a sort of stereotypical dense blonde bombshell (played enthusiastically by Uma Thurman). The thing is, Noelle is exactly what the stereotype suggests, somewhat lacking in cerebral material. So there is a great difference between the dim-wit that goes out with Brian, and the lovely intelligent person that talks to him all night long on the phone.
Essentially, this story is a variation on the theme of Cyrano de Bergerac, but it transcends that to become something a whole lot better. There is a great interestion between all three characters and their situation. I won't say any more, it is up to you to watch the film to see how the social mess resolves itself and who ends up with who.
Put it like this, if I won some sort of competition and got to have a date with Janeane Garofalo or Uma Thurman, I'd pick Janeane - no question. Uma has a lot going for her, as a person (and she looks good with a big-ass sword!), but I think Janeane has the edge.
Noelle (Uma Thurman) and Abby (Janeane Garofalo).
Tell me she isn't pretty, funny, smart, and all-round nice!The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase (6/10)
I first saw this film when I was at boarding school, perhaps 1989? In my mind I mix this up with a number of other films of the genre. I'll tell you why. It is set back in the Victorian era. Two sisters, a younger clueless one and an older smarter one who looks out for her sibling. They have a good life in a big mansion. Suddenly they find themselves in an orphanage which is a wash-house overseen by an evil crank of a woman.
As you can see, it has lifted ideas from "Annie", "101 Dalmations", "Oliver", "The Secret Garden", etc etc and made a film out of all of the bits.
This is a film for children...
Timeline (5½/10) [in English with parts in subtitled French]
A group of students are doing an archaelogical dig at a medieval site in France when their professor vanishes. The clever cute girl pieces together the relics and evidence to determine that their professor went back in time.
Tony Takitani (6/10) [in Japanese, subtitled]
A lonely graphics artist falls in love with, and marries, a pretty woman fifteen years his junior. After purchasing many clothes, she dies in a car crash. The man, Tony, can't quite handle this so he searches out a look-alike to take her place, but somehow it's just not the same. Well, duh!
A slow, deliberate film weighed down by the introspective self-analysis. The girls are quite cute, but I don't think that's why we are supposed to be watching. ☺
とに たきたに [is listed as "Tony Takitani"]
Transporter 2, The [is listed as "The Transporter 2"]
Transporter, The [is listed as "The Transporter"]
Truth About Cats And Dogs, The [is listed as "The Truth About Cats And Dogs"]
Twisted (7½/10)
A suspenseful thriller where Ashley Judd, a detective with plenty of inner demons, is on the trail of a serial killer where her number one suspect is herself.
Under Seige (7½/10)
Steven Seagal is a "cook" on board the Missouri. The ship's last run at sea before being decomissioned. So it is up to the XO (Gary Busey) and a wannabe rocker (Tommy Lee Jones) to assemble a crew for the captains birthday, a good excuse to take the ship and steal the 'newkyewler' weapons - good ol' Tomahawk missiles. Only this "cook" is as handy with a knife as with a whisk.
Here? Well, there is a degree of martial arts but not so much. He actually uses a gun like any normal person-who-saves-the-day. And the martial arts stuff that is in the film... well, how do I put this? There's a lot of arm flapping. It's like two grown men trying to bitch-slap each other.
In this film Seagal plays a sympathetic part. He's all business and gets to the point, but he looks out for the girl, he looks out for his own. And he's not a dummy. So we don't hate him on sight. He is also paired with a good double-act in Jones and Busey. Busey being determined to get what he wants, and Jones likewise but fifty-one cards short...
Underworld (6/10)
Kate Beckinsale, looking pretty good I might add (not that you can exactly believe the part she is playing), stars in this tale of some rather elitist vampires fighting a billion-year-old battle with their enemies - werewolves. And each other, it seems. Then that Kate's character falls for a newly turned sort-of-werewolf, it's all a bit of a mess in the wasted decayed metropolis, and that's something of the problem with this movie, it's a bit of a mess, plotwise...
Urban Legend (7½/10)
It is essentially a teen slasher movie in the "Scream" genre, however what lifts it above the norm is a good cast (the likes of Alicia Witt, Jared Leto, and Rebecca Gayheart), and also the killings are done according to a variety of "urban legends".
There are the obligatory references to other movies of this type, and perhaps the biggest nod in that direction is the casting of Wes Craven as a teacher of... what was his subject exactly? Urban Legends 101?
Basically, if you're looking for "Scream" with a clue, try Urban Legend...
Vanilla Sky (6¼/10)
This is a bizarre and slightly overlong offering starring Tom Cruise in the days when Katie Holmes was the cute sensitive one in "Dawson's Creek", and they didn't have a baby called Suki... Suri... Surimi... Sushi... oh, who cares...
The final three seconds really really really should have been cut from the film.
Vital (7½/10) [in Japanese, subtitled]
This freaky little film follows a brooding long-haired Japanese man who lost his girlfriend in a bad car crash. Sadly for him, he also lost his memory. He was going to drop out of Med. school, however after his memory loss he rediscovers his potential medical career without the realisation of his desire to leave.
After a short stint in the classrooms, the medical students go down into a bright fluorescent-lit room where bodies are laid out. The students will learn the body by 'dissecting' a body. Layer by layer, a form of human resonance by detailed examination.
Along the way, he meets a female student and they become entangled - in more ways than one. When the EPG warns of scenes of "dangerous sexual practice", they are referring to these two getting it on by strangling each other.
While the photography and editing were good, kudos must surely go to the sound. For during the dissection there are an array of delicious slurping noises that brings the film alive.
As I've said a number of times in this document, one of the most interesting things about foreign films is the ability to look at other cultures. Other beliefs. Other ways of doing things.
Volcano (6½/10)
With Anne Heche looking remarkably fetching as a put-upon scientist, and Tommy Lee Jones looking... well, like he usually does, this is perhaps one of the most improbable disaster movies since "Godzilla". Ready for it? People die, toxic fumes and heat. The tar pits bubble more than normal. Why, of course, Los Angeles is about to experience the power of nature as a bloody big volcano erupts in the middle of town and spews burning lava all over the place. Oh, and let's not forget the "little girl in peril".
But don't worry about the plot (which is suprisingly good given its daftness), for this is mostly a chance to watch some famous and not so famous places get trashed with tongue firmly in cheek.
WarGames (7½/10)
So Matthew Broderick, in his "Ferris Bueller" days, is a teenage computer geek. He looks long and hard at ways to 'hack' into the computer systems of games companies to 'test-drive' the new games before they are publically released. He sets his computer to simply dial every phone number in a given area code, looking for other computers - a teachnique known as 'wardialling', possibly named after this film.
He finds a computer. With interesting games. Like Global Thermonuclear War. So he plays, decides to be the Russians and nuke a few major American cities...
...miles away, inside a mountain, the military control room to end all military control rooms flashes up alerts and warnings on the array of screens. Our little hacker may have just started world war three...
Whisper Of The Heart (9/10) [animé in Japanese, subtitled]
A lovely animé from Studio Ghibli blends a rather nice Japanese rendition of the John Denver classic Country Roads with a gentle story about falling in love. It's a bright and carefree schoolgirl (who is translating the song featured into Japanese) who falls for a boy who makes violins and wants to visit Italy. Or not. Or maybe. They're not entirely sure, but love's like that, apparently (ha, like I'd know!).
Singing "Country Roads" in Japanese, and look, it even rhymes in English
!
The embedded cultural references are always interesting: Here, Japanese schoolgirls sit out and eat their packed-lunch with chopsticks.
Because the girl is still young, there's even an element of fantasy, provided by a special statue of a cat.
Forget all the soppy Hollywood rubbish, if you're looking for a perfect feel-good movie, look no further than Whisper Of The Heart.
Eagle-eyed viewers may spot a few trends in this movie - there's a thing about cats (indeed the Studio Ghibli logo has one), and there's an airship too. We can't exactly have a regular schoolgirl flying - we have to wait for Kiki or Princess Nausicaä for that, but flying and airships seem to crop up a lot in the various Studio Ghibli films... as do cats.
The fat mostly-white cat, and the Baron statue will be seen again, in a later film, The Cat Returns, though you can get an idea of it in the girl's dream sequences with the Baron...
Very very eagle-eyed viewers may see "Porco Rosso" on a clock face, as the name of the clock manufacturer. Actually, it (the "pink? pig") is an earlier Studio Ghibli film.
On the right is the statue of the Baron.
Aww, c'mon! It's a love story after all!White Noise (5½/10)
The epitaph for this movie should read "Here lies a great idea for a film". A man loses his wife and, while in a state of grief, he is met by somebody who could communicate with the dead. And so they meet and true enough, you can communicate with dead people. Just stare at an untuned television for long enough, you'll see them... This is perhaps one of the greatest flaws of the movie. It is even more ridiculous than some of the stuff that turned up in the BBC series "Bugs" - for they use televisions and radios, not specialist equipment, so spirits apparently understand how to do frequency modulation and represent themselves in NTSC. Yeah, right.
Witness (9¾/10)
Perhaps Harrison Ford's finest movie, and maybe one of the finest movies of the '80s (asides, perhaps, from "Blade Runner" (also starring Ford)).
Rachel (Kelly McGillis).
And furthermore you can bask in the sumptuousness of the scenery, and the almost-mystical feel that this film offers. It is no surprise that the director, Peter Weir, is the man responsible for bringing "Picnic At Hanging Rock" into being.
Wolves Of Willoughby Chase, The [is listed as "The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase"]
Wrong Turn (6½/10)
Co-starring Eliza Dushku ('Faith' in Buffy, among other roles), this is a modern take on "Deliverance".
I might be tempted to describe this film as slightly formulaic because the "inbred Virginian weirdos that like killing outsiders" genre has been done, and done, and done, and done, and done, and done, and done. Yada, yada, yada...
Thankfully, however, this film includes enough innovation and inspiration to lift it out of the mire lurking between those watchful hills and make it something watchable.
I think what this film suffers from is that it is playing with a genre that has been done so often - rather like one of those horror films that sticks a bunch of teens in a cabin in the woods. I'm not sure this has the bite to have been "Deliverance", but it tries to bring something new to something predictable. Credit, at least, for that.
This document was originally written by hand using Metapad v3.51 (a better 'Notepad').
Now this document is automatically generated using custom software.
Older images captured using an HCCS Vision digitiser on an Acorn RiscPC700,
converted to JPEG using ChangeFSI, and processed on my PC (an Acer
TravelMate 512TXV; Win98SE in 64Mb/2.5MbVRAM) using ULead's PhotoImpact 5.
Newer images captures using a mìroMedia PCTV capture card on a generic looking (MSI) 450MHz
Pentium III PC (WinXP in 128Mb/64MbVRAM), and loaded via TWAIN directly into PhotoImpact 5.
DVD screenshots directly extracted from DVD VOBs using MPEG2 Viewer.
Printed material from various sources. Scanned using a CanoScan FB630U.
Many thanks to FilmFour for making this possible in the first place!
Contact me at heyrick1973 -at- yahoo -dot- co -dot- uk
Content copyright © 2009 Rick Murray
Movie stills taken from broadcasts on FilmFour; copyright to their respective distributors.
Stills of Amélie and The Eye taken from DVD, attribution given.
Still of big-eyed NSPCC girl taken from an advert on ClassicfM TV - since relaunched as 'oMusic TV'..
Additional graphics and editing by Rick Murray.
Additional commentary:
Around the middle, after the introduction of a weird samurai master who dresses like a woman (wearing white - which is the traditional colour of death in Japan (as opposed to our 'black')), the movie seems to veer onto an alternative course - mostly following Azumi trying to leave the bloodshed behind, but it will always find her - as in Azumi looking to leave and go to the home of the travelling player, only to be accosted by some rebels.
The various story arcs come back together for a spectacular fight in a little village. This fight involves many many people, effects, all sorts of things - and some pretty eye-popping footage. Picked up on-line are two useful little pieces of trivia that may enhance your appreciation of the film upon your next viewing: