Lifer Movies

Coriolanus

2012-05-17T23:09:00.000-07:00

Title: Coriolanus
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox
Director: Ralph Fiennes

Renowned stage actor Fiennes making a splash with his directorial debut, a tale I regret not managing to see when it first hit the big screen earlier this year for it's limited and short-lived run. It's perhaps not all that surprising given the subject matter, even the title “Coriolanus” giving way to fears from some that some of the language might not be as simple as other contemporary films, and the second you hear it's less action and more talk; political displays of power and manipulation of the masses into doing their bidding, well I expect that's already caused most to tune out. With the current trend of instant gratification from films; of never finding yourself pondering the choice of words or their meaning, or a story where the real strength lies in the use of language and the action is merely there to give it all context, it would seem there is little room for even the most unfamiliar and poorly explored of Shakespeare's work.

Indeed, this is the first film adaptation of Coriolanus to have been made and you could have hardly asked for a better man at the helm than one known for his Shakespearean theatrical work (even if his more recent film work might be better known these days). Caius Martius (Fiennes) is a soldier in a war-torn Rome, the citizens riot out of hunger and it is all he can do to not to kill them where they stand, holding them in contempt for complaining but remaining unwilling to fight for their country. As contemptible as his actions might be, it is when he enters battle that he does so with a ferocity to behold, bleeding and alone he never hesitates in his quest to push back the Volscian army led by Aufidius (Butler); a one man army whose seen battle countless times and never has he failed in his mission. Upon his return to Rome he is hailed a war hero and granted the title of Coriolanus (General), and with his newly found fame is convinced by his mother to enter politics and join the consul.

It is with reluctance that he agrees and it isn't long before he gains the support of the Senate, and at first, it would seem even the commoners were willing to fall in line, but the treacherous Brutus and Sicinius (Nesbitt) fear what his coming to power could mean, and so manipulate the people into turning against him. Pointing out his outward disdain for the common man, the ensuing media frenzy provoke him into speaking out against them, incapable of holding his tongue and denouncing the very concept of ruling through popularity amongst the people, believing fervently in a superiority in those who would fight for their country over those who would refuse. Brandished a traitor he is banished from the city, leaving for the Volsci army to offer his services and fight against his own country and get revenge on those who would betray him.

There are no heroes to behold here, our protagonist remains an arrogant and thoroughly dislikeable character; a name made from the blood of his enemies, unwilling to bow down to the people and listen to their plight and would rather use his power to silence them through force, like a dictator trying to survive in a democracy. Whilst politicians are little different than Coriolanus himself, it is often only through deception that they retain their seat in power – the true power of charisma – yet by virtues of his accomplishments and ability in battle he is constantly found himself atop a throne, worshipped by the masses as a superior being – a point he believes himself – and feared by all those with power should he undermine their authority, for those with power scarcely are happy to see it diminished.

The language is both a blessing and a curse, poetic on the surface but always with a deep meaning to be extracted, and whilst the meaning behind each metaphor may not always go understood, the general tone of the proceedings never fails to make itself apparent. For those familiar with Shakespeare's work you'll find that despite the modern setting very little has changed. There are still grandiose speeches and monologues between the characters, each given their own background and desires; women aren't seen so much as the weaker gender but the manipulative mother of Coriolanus ultimately presents herself as the one wielding the real power in this war. The physicality of their actions and melodramatic way in which they proceed lends a genuine old-fashioned tone to the proceedings; an odd juxtaposition of old and new that would feel out of place if it didn't still feel so damn relevant. The material feels almost untouched from the original script yet breathed new life through the modern setting; a tale telling of the dangers of the inherent corrupting nature of power and the fear of losing that power; of politicians proudly putting on serpentine smiles, pandering to the people whilst plotting behind their backs. Those awaiting the next Branagh to emerge may have found him in Fiennes, but those who still despise Shakespeare from their school days will find little here to persuade them otherwise.

The Other “F” Word

2012-05-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

Title: The Other “F” Word
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Documentary
Starring: Jim Lindberg, Flea, Fat Mike
Director: Andrea Blaugrund Nevins

“When we were younger, we were all nihilistic. Live for today. Live fast. I thought we were going to change the world. Maybe the way we change the world is by raising better kids.” – Mike Freeman, Rancid

This film was first billed to me as about “how punks make better parents because they have more worldly experience,” and I was sold. I was short sighted in thinking this would make a good film; a biased documentary ignoring fundamental difficulties faced by any parent, let alone one that spent their youth heavily involved in an anarchistic, nihilistic movement; no this is better than that. When punk exploded in L.A. it was a rebellion; a movement that ran far deeper than just the music. Divorce rates were at an all time high, Nixon was just involved in the Watergate scandal and fathers were dying in the Vietnam war, all the whilst the factory buildings in their neighbourhood churned out weapons of war. Absentee parenting lead to an aggression towards the society that harboured it manifesting as an entire generation of non-conformity fighting to change the system. Live fast and die young, no responsibilities and no consequences, just do whatever you want. It's funny how when children enter the equation that all this changes.

For the record I don't think any of those featured in the documentary come across as bad parents, though I admit it's difficult to fully assess through a camera lens all the highs and lows of every day life as much as they try, but that's aside from the point. A better point would be not to pass judgement, especially one from someone such as me; I've not lived through the broken homes, desolate streets and abandonment; the drugs and alcohol abuse and sense of hopelessness they faced. I never lived my life in anything less than a comfortable home, never expecting not to make it past the age of thirty. Who am I to pass judgement on a situation I haven't lived through? This film never points fingers or tuts at the decisions made by the parties involved, rather it shines a light on their attitudes towards parenthood, and the problems their past has on trying to be a good role model. How do you explain a tattoo of a woman in bondage to a four year old? How can you try to curb bad language when your own music is full of it? How can a generation who grew up without a father figure become one themselves?

Not everyone came to the same decision. Reyes (Black Flag) left the scene early on, deciding the lifestyles were entirely incompatible; that forming a career that would provide for his family based upon the music was not going to be feasible, whilst Lindberg (Pennywise), whom the film centres upon, took the decision to try and make a career out of it, a move that would see him have to tour extensively and deliver a whole host of new challenges to deal with. The only constant amongst them all was the affect their own upbringing had on their attitudes towards parenting, and that they would never let them have to go through the same childhood that they did. This is a film that really manages to make you think about how fatherhood changes you, in many cases presented here even saved them from the nihilistic and self-destructive path that had claimed so many of their friends, though still resonates with wisdom whether you were a part of the punk movement or not; how you would want to raise your children, the attitudes you would want to instil in them, the balances and changes you would have to make – would want to make – to be there for them, and how well you would accomplish all that. Sometimes moving, sometimes amusing, but always interesting, “The Other F Word” is an inspiring documentary about making a better future by not repeating the mistakes of the past.

Dirt (Dumber than Dirt)

2012-05-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

Title: Dirt (Dumber than Dirt)
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Black Comedy
Starring: Tracy Fraim, Michael Covert, Tara Chocol
Director: Michael Covert, Tracy Fraim

It isn't often that I feel the urge to watch a comedy, and so you'd probably think when the desire swings my way I'd be spoilt for choice. You'd be wrong. Comedies so often seem to re-use stale jokes and I seem to have a very specific – specifically crude – taste in humour. If it's a 'boy meets girl' story it's out. If it's about a talking animal, it's out. If, for any reason there's a frat boy that says 'dude,' out. Is it any wonder the last film reviewed entirely played for laughs was about a junkie elephant with crack in his ass. And so with my very limited choices I come across a promising indie title; a tale of two brothers in their late thirties wholly dependant on their mother to cook and clean for them, and when she passes on it isn't long before they realise they need a woman in their lives. Sadly, they're not really smart enough to know where to find one, and so ensues a desperate quest for survival involving strippers, prostitutes, kidnap, robbery, sadistic sheriffs and love.

Alright, so love isn't exactly integral to the story though certainly plays its role as the film progresses, most of it is all about the other less legal stuff, much of this films charm lying with the charisma of these two brothers, bantering and looking out for each other, both just as clueless on life outside of their own home. On the one hand is the elder brother, Junior, given the task of looking out for his simple minded sibling and keeping him out of trouble, harbouring resentment for being forced into such a situation but with a sense of kinship that runs deeper than any verbal abuse he can spit his way. Shielded even more from the world is Scooter, the less intelligent but less mentally scarred of the two brothers. Amongst all the unknowns is the only recognisable face of the sheriff (Patrick Warburton - Rules of Engagement), delivering a stand out performance in his determination to catch these two fugitives, casually beating people just because it brings a little smile to his face. Despite the film's name there is intelligence on offer here; the characters might be simple minded and naïve but it never descends quite into the depths of “teen comedy,” relying on fart jokes and moronic slapstick to make it's point. There are no caricatures on display here; you never think for a second that these people couldn't exist in some, less exaggerated form, satirically showing negative stereotypes and spinning them into a positive light.

I sometimes get accused of picking on America's flaws and stereotypes a little too heavily, and perhaps that's true, or perhaps they're just overly sensitive to judgement from someone across the pond. Perhaps this comparative lack of sensitivity regarding fellow Americans mocking themselves is what allowed this film to be made, or hell, perhaps the portrayal of dumber than dirt Americans is why this film never became well known in the first place. Inbred beer swilling hicks, armed to the teeth, lost without their momma, and not so much 'willing to resort to violence' as much as violence being the first solution that springs to mind; I doubt it's really a true portrayal of the south these days but part of me likes to think that there are people just like this, who despite it all still manage to have their heart in the right place. Fans of the Coen Brothers should get on this pronto, but for me, it largely just reminded me how few times I laugh at comedies.

The Impossible Kid

2012-05-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

Title: The Impossible Kid
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action, Comedy
Starring: Weng Weng
Director: Eddie Nicart
Language: Filipino (dubbed)

The first from what I expect won't be the last of my 'film nights' streamed directly to my TV to be shared and mocked, a tale from a land of low budgets that takes liberties from James Bond and the Pink Panther and slams them together. A tale of a covert operation to thwart an evil foe who dresses like a member of the Ku Klux Klan, broadcasting himself on TV and demanding one billion peso's – or one million, he can't decide – so he can free the Phillipines. He doesn't ever really get around as to how. Standing in his way is Agent 00 of interpol, a man faced with no short order in stopping him, getting pulled from the operation due to a little mishap and a small lawsuit laid against him. Not that this small matter stops him from pursuing the matter and – ok, I'm running out of bad puns. Yes, what makes this film is the fact that its action star, Weng Weng, is about two feet tall. He's like a midget Bruce Lee.

By virtue of this fact alone, the film is hilarious. I had my doubts but there is something that always remains brilliant about a midget kicking people in the shins until they fall to their knees and he can actually reach high enough to punch them in the face; to be able to evade capture by crawling into small spaces and hide by crouching slightly on the other side of a bed, constantly surprising enemies by jumping out of suitcases and punching them in the nuts in a move that never seems to get old. Women love him, men hate him (because all women love him) and even though he rarely speaks, he always looks up with bulbous baby eyes that make you want to go aww. And then he kicks you in the crotch.

The dubbing just makes all this more hilarious; as if the Filipino guy with a strong Australian accent wasn't bad enough, they can't seem to pick guys from the same country, each one just begging you to guess which accent he'll sport before he speaks, be it English, Scottish, American, or the aforementioned Australian. All it needed was an Irishman and a Mexican and it'd be perfect. Alright, so the plot might not make a whole lot of sense, there's a distinct lack of nudity, the guy donning the KKK uniform might be a little bit too much, the editing is pretty poor, the sound awful (his miniature motorbike sounds like a RC car!) and the direction non-existent, but this is hardly the sort of film one should be taking seriously. This is a film about midget Filipino James Bond who uses kung-fu to thwart the KKK to the 'Pink Panther' theme tune. I think you already know whether or not you want to watch this film.

The Avengers

2012-05-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

Title: The Avengers
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston
Director: Joss Whedon

It would seem the build up to this has been monolithic, above and beyond anything else in recent memory and rivalled perhaps only by “The Dark Knight” and the ensuing circle jerking that surrounded that. It comes at perhaps a perfect time as well, after being saturated with little hints at the end of films and after two Iron Man films, two Hulk films (because they didn't like the first one), Thor, Captain America, and numerous others 'outside the Avengers mythology,' if they'd waited much longer the anticipation would have fizzled out and people would have stopped caring. I stopped caring in fact, skipping the last couple of hero origin stories and only returning because of my inherent “Joss Whedon” fanaticism (I'm not sure how many can lay claim to owning “Dr. Horrible” on DVD and to have watched it quite so many times as myself). I've already seen the start of people exclaiming how incredible the film is, but like “The Dark Knight” it doesn't live up to the ridiculous hype. Don't get me wrong, both are good films, but not great, and there's still plenty of room for improvement.

The ride isn't a short one, but there are a lot of characters to fit into this film and it couldn't be done any other way. It's also commendable how quickly someone such as myself can come to grips with them all (excluding Hawkeye, I still don't really have a clue who he is apart from being an archer with good eyesight, Legolas with less hair); someone who hasn't seen all the preceding films and isn't a major comic book nerd, their personalities quickly came to light and allowed things to get moving. And returning from his joust with Thor is Loki, a scrawny looking Asgardian god returning to waltz off with the tesseract, a cube of infinite energy that nobody seems quite able to figure out how it freakin' works, and use it to open a portal to another world and allow aliens to arrive and decimate the Earth for Loki to rule, in return for giving them the tesseract to do whatever with, and it's up to a ragtag group of 'Avengers' to stop him. Got that? A god stealing a magical cube to open a portal for aliens to blow stuff up, facing off against an angry guy in green, a philanthropist billionairre weapons contractor, a spy, an archer, an army experiment from the 40's and another god. It honestly seems less bizarre when you're watching it. The plot does come with it's own set of problems, however. It was always going to be a difficult task to create a tale involving all parties equally, including enough screen time for each actor – a task I must admit he dealt with deftly – but there are more than a few head scratching moments that detract from the end result.

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There weren't quite as many quips as I'd have liked either, Iron Man (Downey Jr.) steals much of the screen time with the eccentric persona that made his own films so enjoyable to watch and whilst it felt there was a couple of missed opportunities, Thor (Hemsworth) got a few good lines about his brother and the 'pathetic humans' in there, the irony of a man protecting humanity whilst mocking them perhaps never quite used to it's full potential but present nonetheless. Black Widow (Johansson) gets a couple of moments too, and Hulk (Ruffalo) gets perhaps the biggest laugh compensating for his rather bland alter ego. Heading further down the ladder lies Fury (Jackson) and the lack of decent lines, used more as a pivot for the rest of the cast to revolve around, and at the bottom lies Loki (Hiddleston) and Captain America (Evans), the latter playing too much of a wussy caricature of a hero going “lets talk this out guys” that comes close to being grating, and the former never really coming across as menacing at all. His small stature and slow movement rather than come across dark and mysterious, as though he has the strength and confidence that he doesn't really need to try despite facing off against more than just his brother this time, using words spat with venom, well it all falls a little flat; closer to a rebellious teenager sent to the naughty corner to think about what he's done than an evil genius.

It's fortunate that despite all this negativity it truly works where it counts: the action. From the opening moments it's set piece after set piece, bordering on a sense of a 'beat 'em up' video game, pitting hero against hero one after the other and letting their abilities come to surface, showing the audience just what they can do and where their strengths lie. And when push finally comes to shove, and it's time for them all to work together and get past their personal differences, they all find themselves with roles to perform, tasks they are capable of doing better than any other; Hulk's strength and ability to cause chaos for the enemy, Iron Man's speed and agility coupled with Hawkeye's ability to act as a human radar, scouting the area for the rest to follow. It's not all random explosions and shaky camera's (though they do still feature heavily), the group behave as a team, fighting intelligently utilising one another for support, and that sense of camaraderie does not go amiss.

Nothing here feels as though it's re-inventing the wheel, it's a comic-based action film like all the rest; we are introduced to a threat, we poke at the flaws of our hero, they learn something and combine that knowledge with too much CGI to win, the lesson in this instance being how to play well with others. It's ultimately the same formula that the rest have adhered to, complete with the bloodless action and light tone to the proceedings. No doubt fans who love this style will find much to their liking here, and with good reason, it is genuinely amongst the best of its kind, but for those that became tired of the predictable format it doesn't quite match up. I half imagine Marvel as a real life “Loki” at this point, mind controlling pivotal figures and yelling at the masses to kneel before him, and dutifully we do, unaware that we ever had much of a choice to begin with. For me there are too many plot holes and not enough puns; an all-star cast has been assembled for an all out action film and none of them feel as though they were put to good use. Fix that and we'll have something genuinely great on our hands.

The Deadly Spawn

2012-05-04T18:09:00.001-07:00

Title: The Deadly Spawn
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror
Starring: Charles George Hildebrandt, Tom DeFranco, Richard Lee Porter
Director: Douglas McKeown

Another cult classic from the glory days of America's indie horror peak; where idea's came from genre fanatics and technology had moved on enough that anyone with the drive could get it onto a film, albeit in a low budget format, and “The Deadly Spawn” is one of those classic cases of a film that ticks all the right boxes: Lousy acting, an unlikely hero, plenty of gore and violence, tongue in cheek humour and a deadly monster with a large amount of teeth. And the premise seems so simple, a meteor lands dragging with it a monster from the very far reaches of space; a creature with no desire but to feed, procreate and increase in size, with no second thoughts about resorting to cannibalism, and bearing the brunt of the attack are a single all-American family doing all they can to repel this alien invasion.

It's what they then go on to do with this simple format that makes all the difference, the little details that many writers forget about that make it so engaging to watch. Everyone in the film is normal, mundane; we see a cat running around getting under peoples feet (as they always seem to do), a mother making breakfast and a young child acting like a young child. The characters are all real; we get the dumb blonde, the just as dumb male blonde, the pompous ass and the intelligent woman who are all studying for their biology exam when this thing falls into their laps, and it creates this sense of believability without long sequences where we get to know them, instead letting it develop as we get right into the action, delivering scene upon scene of aliens smacking their lips and the prospect of another tasty treat.

The level of violence is enough to make many modern films blush; it almost feels like a modern throwback to the era rather than being from the era itself, such is the level of blood on display that you wonder how it got approved when things like “I Spit On Your Grave” was considered a 'nasty.' People will have their heads ripped off and legs gnawed at like a dog with a bone. Even when you consider the technical side of things; the sound, lighting and cinematography, you realise it's beautifully shot in 16mm with the capability of fully immersing you in the tale being told. Yes, it's low budget; no, the acting isn't particularly good and no, the alien doesn't look realistic in the slightest, but none of that matters. Like the best of the era; the “Gremlins,” “Tremors” and “Braindead” horror flicks, “The Deadly Spawn” is a B-Movie romp ranking amongst the best of it's kind.

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

2012-05-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

Title: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Demene Hall, William Russ, Julie Ritter
Director: George Barry

Ah, the low budget schlock haven for horror that is the 70s USA; it might be the Japanese that hold the title for 'weird as fuck flicks' these days but it was once the proud Americans that tossed a few thousand dollars into a blender to see what weird shit floated to the surface, and this – along with “The Refrigerator,” – has to come up on top for some of the weirdest shit of the day. When a demon falls in love with a women, he gets all upset when she dies on a bed he made for her and runs away to become a tree. Sadly, his tears of blood fell on the four-poster and brought it to life with an insatiable appetite, eating anything that decided to nap on it's white fluffy sheets of doom. It doesn't have a siren or mating call, it doesn't release a pheromone to lure it's prey, it just just sits there waiting for someone to think, 'why, doesn't that look like a cosy place to sleep.' As a predator, given the inherent lack of teeth and mobility dwarfed by sloths, it must be said it's not particularly menacing, and that's the crux of the plot; people sleep in a bed then get eaten, relying on the fact that nobody in their right mind would suspect the reason their buddy is missing is because a freakin' bed ate it.

You'd think with a plot like this it'd end up like some sort of extended 'Monty Python' sketch, but it's oddly deadpan and serious in how it goes about it's business – well, save for one scene where a man calmly contemplates the fact he has no flesh on his hands any more – which is a little unexpected for a film with such a ridiculous premise. Whilst the effects themselves and how the bed consumes it's victims in a simple but effective manner, carefully letting the viewers mind do much of the work whilst using enough effects work to lead them to that conclusion, goes a long way in promoting this serious tone to the film, it is really the unusual inclusion of a haunted painting, delivering the narrative for the tale, that adds an artistic Shakespearean sense of elegance to the darkness. At times it seemed to have potential as a dark psychological study of the mind of this mysterious painting; a “Dorian Gray” archetype forced to watch in silence as the demonic entity devours victim after victim before his very eyes. Then you snap out of it and think, this is a film about a bed that fucking eats. Hell within the first five minutes we witness him devour some fried chicken.

It would have worked better had the director acknowledged just how bizarre his idea was but as it stands it's little more than one long joke that wasn't really that amusing the first time it was told; by the end it elicits that same response as when your friend tells you that only amusing anecdote he's got from a decade ago for the third time that month and you're able to recite his own story word for word knowing he probably made it up in the first place. It's a repeated sequence of person after person dying to a bed, and by the third or fourth victim you're wondering when something interesting is going to happen. Spoiler alert: it never does. It may well be unique but that in itself doesn't make a good film; if you're a fan of films that try to beat you to death with the same joke that none of the cast are aware of (fans of “the office” for example) there might be something in all this, but to my mind this was pretty disappointing.

Guilty of Romance

2012-05-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

Title: Guilty of Romance
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Avant-Garde, Dark Drama, Horror, Sexploitation
Starring: Makoto Togashi, Megumi Kagurazaka
Director: Sion Sono
Language: Japanese

Now emerging with the final part of his “Hate Trilogy,” (the first two being “Love Exposure” and “Cold Fish” respectively) Sion Sono is one of those few directors on my list that no longer requires me to read anything about their newest work to already want to see it; his style so unique and outside of the conventions of modern cinema that whatever he's up to you can be assured it'll be strange, thought-provoking, and if you're lucky, actually make sense first time. The works aren't mindfucks; they aren't puzzles waiting for you to mentally find the piece to put everything else into context, they just require attention to the details as he rapidly descends the viewer into his chaotic visions of darkness. This film is no different, I didn't read the back of the box but have no idea how it would have been described; yes there is a little violence and a lot of sex and nudity, some psychological analysis of madness – arguably everyone in the film is insane in their own way – and a fair dollop of darkness in every aspect, but really the best description perhaps comes from the title. This is a film telling the story of a woman who is guilty of desiring romance.

Make sense? No, I guessed it probably wouldn't; “Guilty of Romance” tells the story of one woman's brutal murder deep within the love hotel (a 'hotel' you pay for by the hour with the intention of having sex) district of Tokyo, and the events leading up to her inevitable demise. Surrounding it all is Izumi (Kagurazaka), a devoted wife to a famous novelist; his writings full of passion his home doesn't yield; her life guided by repetition and routine. Searching for something more, for a sense of romantic fulfilment that she doesn't receive at home, it isn't long before she's picked up by a talent scout for a nude modelling agency, an avenue that soon leads her to a greater sense of confidence and empowerment,* her new found sexual freedom leading her down the dark path of sexual promiscuity and prostitution. Guided by her new found friend in the split personality of Mitsuko; University Professor by day, prostitute by night, she is shown the frightening reality of where a life of such perversion inevitably leads.

There is a horror element which certainly comes through in the use of lighting and locations, a darkened mood of the madness gripping some of our more thoroughly demonic characters but it doesn't emerge as some villain or physical entity but as an idea, and the power of this idea is surely enough to make some viewers squirm. It's the idea of unrelenting desire; of being so pushed and restrained that it can no longer be contained, emotions flowing out uncontrollably in an effigy that leaves little room for conscious thought but only raw, maddening neccessity for fulfilment in whatever manner is left available, regardless of how depraved it might be. It is through Mitsuko (Togashi) that perhaps this comes through most strongly; her twisted persona capable of switching between the respectable and despicable in a moment, seeming to allow her desires to be confined whilst her normal day resumes. Every character here feels a deep desire for something to fulfil their lives, though it may take the course of the film for you to fully realise what that might be.

I'm all for a film trying to take strides into new ground, of not focussing on a specific style but borrowing elements to suit the purposes of the film, but here it doesn't quite seem to do that. Yes, much of it does make sense, particularly as the final moments come to dawn; the foreshadowing of what came before slotting into place as only an intelligent author could place, repeating critical points for the audiences benefit, leaving little thought-provoking suggestions to be picked up again on multiple viewings (now knowing more of each of the characters), but what's missing is a final moral. It all feels as though it's leading up to a point; the film feeling like a dark parable with a message to convey to the audience, but through perhaps just a little bit of self-indulgence in his love of picturesque shots, that message never quite makes it. The theme of desire running at the films core never asks what the correct path is, merely showing the equally depressing consequences of both, and so certainly never answers the matter. It seems to both objectify women and point out just how insane you have to be to descend into the darkness of the Tokyo underworld, and then tries to glorify prostitution, using grandiose classical musical to contrast that very ideal. Whilst the film's plot makes perfect sense, the message behind it all does not.

*Since many would be mortified at the implication that women modelling nude could be considered 'empowering,' let me clarify and say that this is simply the closest term I could come up with. It isn't quite accurate, rather it's depicted as a stark contrast to her normal routine and is liberating in that sense, allowing for her wilder side to be set free from the shackles of passionless and monotonous repetition.

A Lure: Teen Fight Club

2012-03-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

Title: A Lure: Teen Fight Club
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Crime, Drama
Starring: Jessica Sonneborn, Michael McLafferty, Paulie Rojas
Director: Bill McAdams Jr.

You'd think with a title like that it'd be pretty hard to go too far wrong; a film about a fight club with teenage girls beating the crap out of each other. What part of this sounds bad? Malicious bad guys dressing them and giving them fun persona's; it's not too far removed from what made “Sucker Punch” so fun to watch, except here they're fighting one another! Or at least, that's what I expected. When young teenagers are mysteriously disappearing from a local high school, it's down to Maggie, a local cop, to go undercover and infiltrate the school to uncover the dark truth. Donning her hockey uniform, she impressively manages to convince the school effortlessly that she's new in town and not a woman of her early thirties, finding herself the target of the local popular clique of teens because she has a car and can drive them to a rave. Except things go wrong, and it isn't long before they find themselves the prey of a malicious underground fight club, forced to do battle against one another for their captors.

Actually that last bit's a lie, it is long, taking more than half the film for us to see anything resembling the film I was expecting it to be, and not a teen drama in the vein of “Gilmore Girls” or “One Tree Hill,” except more predictable. In all fairness it does start out a little exploitation-like with a couple of gratuitous nudity shots, though over the course of the film this cheap trick gets largely forgotten leaving less tits on show than you'd like, and of course never the pair you wanted to actually see. If the characters actually had personalities too, we were given ample build up to get to know them properly so there's certainly that. And perhaps this is indeed what high school teenagers in the states really are like; caricatures of actual people with the character clichés of the rich bitch, her dumb blonde 'bestie,' the slutty mexican, and the only likeable one of the bunch being the one faking being friends with them, putting up with a constant barrage of insults and allowing herself to be treated like a slave because she has self esteem issues and likes being able to call herself one of the 'popular kids.' Which now that I think about it isn't all that likeable and probably a contributing factor to why I still didn't care about her.

For an independent film on a low budget, many of the technical details were done superbly; there is no complaint with regards to the shots that were used, the post-production, effects work, and most of the other aspects that they had done well given their budget. The sound being the sole exception, and even here it was only that the volume was poorly normalised in the opening scenes and occasionally dialogue became lost, but this is a fairly minor complaint. The real problem with this film is just about everything else; the title suggests a comical pun (“A Lure” or “Allure”) giving rise to the idea that there will be plenty of sleaze and jokes in the coming 90 minutes. The implication of there being a fight club which plays a central plot point, too, is false, with there only being a couple of minutes dedicated to fighting, and even that was done with such a poor execution it's impressive; the 'mysterious bad guy' obvious from the first time we see him and one of the most blindingly obvious plot hole's I've ever seen arriving in the form of a magically healing thigh which gets stabbed and slashed, regenerating perfectly each time. If they called it “Striptease: A Teen Drama,” I doubt I'd have bothered. The hour of listening to whining teenagers is only just compensated for by watching them get punched in the face.

Hanger

2012-03-08T08:42:00.001-08:00

Title: Hanger
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror, Exploitation
Starring: Dan Ellis, Nathan Dashwood, Wade Gibb
Director: Ryan Nicholson

Sometimes you get a craving that nothing short of full blown gore-laden depravity will be able to fill. It's times like these that you need to look to the trash of the film world; the low-budget films that may not have the cash to splash around on detailed effects, but the idea's for a story that would never make it past the studio's desk. Another straight from Nicholson's chest of Troma worship, the man who previously gave us a film (Gutterballs) about a bowling pin slasher massacre returns with a tale even more depraved than ever. Starting out with a backroom abortion with a coat hanger, things only progress as he throws in casual racism, Santa's fun with GHB and tampon tea bags in as an aside to the main story. You see, the abortion of a baby manages to survive; her whore mother's main customer taking it upon himself to make sure this horrifically disfigured child, affectionately named Hanger, survives on the streets until the day of his 18th birthday where he is taught the truth. Given a job at a local scrapyard, working with other horrifically disfigured men – just about everyone in this film has severe facial deformities unless they're a woman – and with his mothers pimp just released from jail, he's told it's time for them to get their revenge. Luckily his hard upbringing has given him something of a bloodlust. That, and a weird love for his teddy bear.

As you might not expect, a lot of time is spent in and around the scrapyard getting to know it's inhabitants. Taking the primary position is Russell, a quirky Chinese man whom he quickly befriends, and Phil, the wheezing freak in denial of his violent homosexual urges. Whilst witnessing Hanger and his attempts to fit in to the meagre opportunity at life that has presented itself, we are presented the other side of the tale; the side of 'The John' and his quest to take revenge for the atrocity's the pimp, Leroy, has committed. Key scenes, or 'set pieces' really, as the manner they are worked in seems to be little more than build-up and context for what he really wanted to show us, are given a classic Heavy Metal back beat, and as the film progresses, his sick sense of humour steadily becomes more apparent. 'Dirty Leroy's,' doing exactly what all of us have wanted to do at some point to those annoying Johovah's Witnesses knocking on your door and Russell's constant child-like glee at the bloodshed that seems to be a part of his daily life form just a few highlights presented.

There are times, however, where it feels as though he gets a little too distracted with all the side stories, working in characters with little purpose in the tale and forgetting that this is, at it's core, a revenge story. It's certainly admirable that he managed to work in so much depravity and violence; that he never forgets that the name of the game is 'exploitation,' and does so with so much vigour that it puts other contemporaries to shame, but the story itself feels a little of a cluster of idea's that he's tried to tie into a neat package. The sense of humour required to enjoy this is about as depraved as you can imagine, with certain scenes even a little too much for the gore hound in me to get behind, but the fact that he doesn't hold back is both a blessing and a curse. To say this isn't a film for everyone would probably be stating the obvious right about now, this is a flick that is beyond the realms of bad taste, but when you get the hunger for some mayhem, this film certainly manages to fit the bill.

Doug Stanhope – Deadbeat Hero

2012-03-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

Title: Doug Stanhope – Deadbeat Hero
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Comedy (Stand-Up)
Starring: Doug Stanhope

Through the black and white video we're slowly taken from the city lights to the back alleys of whatever US City this really is; a brief dictionary definition of the meaning of the word “Liberty,” a major point to be addressed in correlation to how little of it anyone really has, is briefly flashed up before descending us into the darkness. Past the dumpster we follow our hero as he grabs himself another beer, finishes his cigarette and emerges on the stage of a small, underground, smoke filled venue. Between the dishevelled look on his face and the dirtied overcoat you might have mistaken him for a homeless guy looking for warmth, and anyone would have thought from the appearance of the place that the prohibition had never ended, and maybe in Doug's eyes it never really had. Sometimes disclaimers appear in reviews, “not for the easily offended,” when dealing with such crass subject matter. Doug Stanhope's work probably should go one step further: “not for the offendable.” In the opening moments he describes the show as something of a battle; not everyone in the crowd is gonna make it to the end. I'd suggest you take the advice.

In fact, even calling it comedy at times feels a little inaccurate. He doesn't go up, put on a smile and tell a few jokes; no, he drinks his beer and starts his long winded ranting about fucked up the world is; how we've deluded ourselves and closed our eyes and covered our ears to the other side of things. That he's naturally amusing to listen to is just a delightful coincidence, else he'd probably just be that depressed drunk slumped at at the bar ranting at anyone who'll listen; the kind of guy you actively avoid in the fear that you'll otherwise become trapped in a conversation with him. He never feels under the delusion that his rants are anything but his opinion, but don't you go expecting him to sugar coat anything. He doesn't just tackle subjects others would consider avoiding, he dives into them and emerges triumphant with a rape joke. Liberty is literally defined as the state of being free from government restrictions, and in the middle of a country that prides itself on this value, as he steadily makes his case that the US might have some of the least liberty in the world; well it's a bitter pill to swallow. It's all rather lucky that he words it in such an amusing manner.

Andromeda Strain

2012-02-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

Title: Andromeda Strain (remake)
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci-fi, Drama, Thriller
Starring: Benjamin Bratt, Daniel Dae-Kim, Eric McCormack
Director: Ridley Scott, Tony Scott

A review I wasn't gonna write until I realised just how slow work was going to be; whether you want to call this a film or a mini-series is up to you. Certainly there are budgetary concerns with many of those involved more used to TV work over feature films, and the expected midpoint cliffhanger, but at just under 3 hours long, happily works as a long film. And it's not slow and drawn out like you may expect from a long film, rather it takes inspiration from the original, as well as the Michael Crichton book and tries to do them both justice in terms of tone and atmosphere, also taking liberties with the original story (a sure fire way to disgruntle many a fan of the original), asking questions around the subject and this mysterious disease and then consequently answering them (for better or for worse), and perhaps most importantly, carefully considers the role of technology - the lab taking a character of its own - and adapting and updating it for what we now know to exist.

On the surface it might seem a little simplistic; a foreign satellite crashing near Utah, taken to a small town and then unwittingly opened allowing for this disease, Andromeda, to spark a national threat, but this is only the skeleton of whats on display here. Killing all in its path in a matter of moments, its up to wildfire; a team of voluntary scientists sent off to a secret underground laboratory with the intent of preventing unknown biological threats, to try to kill it before its too late.

As you might expect, much of the script takes place in the lab which could easily get monotonous if not for the second story thread taking us to the action; a journalist fighting the government for any scrap of information he can glean from this deadly threat thats being swept under the carpet by the government. Yes, this does feel a little unnecessary, as if fearing all the science talk would offend viewers so decides to compensate by allowing for a man to run between various deadly situations and explosions when really what they needed was a scientist on the team to yell at the writers (using 'lightyears' as a measure of time, I mean really), and whilst it doesn't constitute a deal breaker, some of the constant 'government conspiracy' theories can sound like you're listening to the rants of a lone conspiracy nut claiming the president is an alien lizard man from the second moon of jupiter sent to infiltrate mankind or something.

It tries to do a lot with the subject matter, from the rather blunt moral of preserving natural resources to the ultimately subtler subplot surrounding the freedom of the press and the powers available to them in this power play between journalist and government, one trying to contain the secret and another trying to reveal it to the people. Both sides have their reasons for doing so, and so you never quite manage to figure out which one can lay claim to the moral high ground. The fact that it elaborates on the disease, constantly tossing up question after question and adding to the mystery of what andromeda truly is makes the whole piece so intensely enjoyable to watch and hence such a shame to see fall apart so completely at the last hurdle. Things I assume they couldn't explain got forgotten, subplots were ignored, killing people off for no apparent reason; its as though they forgot to include scenes explaining whats going on, like this was just a draft that needed editing for slip ups before being shown to the public. The final explanation for andromeda, too, feels like the writers were trying too hard to find a reason for its existence and results in a twist that feels too far fetched to maintain the illusion. Its just there to tie up some loose ends when it would be better to leave it unanswered as in the original, to let the audience think and decide for themselves. Its a solid remake with a strong cast and up to this point a well paced script. Its a shame that it all went tits up in the end.

Nightmare on Elm Street

2012-02-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

Title: Nightmare on Elm Street (remake)
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner
Director: Samuel Bayer

Ah glorious is the day I discover we get all the movie channels at work, and still this is the best I can come up with; a remake of a film that, if I'm honest, I was never too enamoured with though I wont deny its position as a quintessential slasher flick that went a long way to defining the genre. Just one of a number of horror films that have been revisited by Hollywood in recent years, it's not an idea i've ever enjoyed much, just proving the lack of cinematic ideas and the drive for a cash in, making a film they know at worst will make its money back due to sheer morbid curiousity as to how badly they'll screw up this time. The premise for those who don't remember it is simple; the mass murderer Freddy Kroeger already met his grizzly fate, but even in death manages to find his revenge on all those who wronged him by attacking them in their dreams. And thus the stage is set for young teens to be killed in horrific ways, and there is no way to stop him, or so it seems...

Credit where its due, the cast of unknowns, many of which have now gone onto bigger and better things, and relatively budget appearance feels very fitting to the original, and in keeping with the times there's no shying away from bloodshed; knives used in a menacing display to strike fear into our hearts, or y'know... look cool. The fact that half the cast are only there to end up as gory victims for our real protagonist means learning a backstory becomes unneccesary and gladly it dispenses with such formalities as quickly as possible (save for Kroegers history which gets strung out over the course of the film) so we can get on with it. The lighting and atmosphere feels constant, creating a tension that never really dissipates though fails to become any the more climactic as time goes by. Much of the skeleton elements for the first film is present, but it's where the meat of the classic becomes considered that everything spirals downhill.

It's a sad state of what horror has become that a film can be considered fitting by having a man jump out and yell 'boo' - and I mean quite literally saying 'boo' here - in an effort to make you jump and that this can be deemed enough to suffice. It wastes no time getting to the scares but the actual scares themselves when limited to this aren't particularly frightening. Kroeger has lost his demonic persona, using the iconic image but never coming across as particularly evil, save for the fact he's killing seemingly without reason. There's no attempt to build him up, to create a larger than life nemesis to be faced, and as a result theres no sense of emergency, or attempt at weaving a tale of suspense. The audience doesn't care for their fate, except in some cases we pray for their death to be sooner rather than later due to their bad acting, and so it fails to invoke a sense of terror on pretty much any level.

Likewise, the film has been stripped from the camp cheesiness that makes much of these 80s flicks so much fun to revisit, particularly as we get to the later entries in this series. I don't often watch these sorts of films because I know what to expect, and this seems like another great example. They're trying to remake a film in all its glory with a new cast, bigger budget, and no new ideas. It can at best be almost as good as the original, but this isn't even that. The death sequences at mostly just remind you how great the originals were by comparison, the new Kroeger pales in comparison to Robert Englund's iconic character, the gore is generic and limited to CGI and blood packs, and everything in between feels like just an interlude between what we came to see. There may be some fun deaths, if nothing particularly unique, and it may not be slow paced, but you never do shake the feeling that you're just waiting for the good bit to happen.

The Descent Part Two

2012-02-15T14:49:00.000-08:00

Title: The Descent Part Two
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Shauna McDonald, Michael Reynolds, Jessika Williams
Director: Jon Harris

Despite my usual apparent dislike for many mainstream efforts, the first part of this saga proved itself to be well thought out, and whilst being a shade predictable, never quite pandered to cliché. Quite impressive considering it was a film about women - none of who get their tits out - trying to escape a cave with what can only be called 'rock monsters' on their tail. Perhaps it was that they seem to have made something good out of what looked like a worrying premise that kept me away from this film. Perhaps it was the dreaded sequel syndrome. I honestly can't remember, but picking up where the last one left off, it certainly does feel like... well a sequel, with all the usual problems.

When our sole survivor emerges, she quickly finds herself in a hospital bed being treated for her relatively minor wounds; traumatised by her ordeal, her memory of the events that transpired have fallen prey to her resultant amnesia and all that's known is that she emerged mysteriously covered in blood, and that her friends must still be down there. When search parties return empty handed, they resolve to take her down with an experienced team, hoping she will remember the way back to find her missing friends. Ignoring the fact that, y'know, most of the caves look pretty much the same. And that she was covered in someone elses blood gave nothing away as to what might have happened to them and why they should let it lie. But moving swiftly on.

The problems here should already be fairly apparent: new cast but an old story. They'd already made glorious use of the dark and shadows in the first and here feels lacking by comparison, the tunnels are now often as flat and wide as a motorway, complete with road lights, with just a bit of rubble either side of these supposed underground caverns, but if you liked the first then this one certainly ain't too bad an effort. They haven't revamped the cave dwellers to try and 'top their last,' which sadly seems commendable given how often people fall into this particular trap, but its major downfall is that it simply isn't original. There's nothing new that's really brought to the table, it's to the original what 'Hostel Part 2' was to 'Hostel;' same shit, different people. They've taken a formula and not fucked around with it. Yes it's a bit of a cash in, trying to scare you in the same way twice, and that it's so unoriginal is perhaps why they haven't asked for a third. The new director has made a decent imitation of the first and certainly it could have been worse, but that's largely what it is. An imitation. Someone trying to recreate the original, and in the process forgetting the claustrophobia and suspenseful character development to cut right to the chase. If you've seen the first then there's nothing new to be found here. Sequel syndrome strikes again...

2012

2012-02-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

Title: 2012
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Apocalyptic Action Adventure
Starring: John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Eijerfor
Director: Roland Emmerich

Lets for the sake of argument ignore that the entire initial premise of this is pretty much a load of bollocks; that the Mayans predicted the end of anything except their calender (though that was only one throwaway line admittedly) or that the sun will ever randomly decide to start firing mutated neutrino's - whatever the hell they meant by that - that act like microwaves but only to the earths core, and not the surface. Lets gloss over this plot that a remedial high schooler could pick apart and move right on to all the other problems with this film that ought to be mentioned.

It follows the story of a number of people; a limo driver for a Russian Billionnaire - his daughter sporting an accent so bad it borders on the offensive - and their families, one of which who discovers the secret thanks to a madman in the woods called Charlie whose ramblings about space are just a stroke short of claiming it was all aliens. There's also the required tale of the scientist who made the discovery, the 'Jeff Goldblum' from 'Independance Day' who gets to play the good guy trying to save the world, in this case played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who delivered one of the only good performances - Woody Harrelson perhaps being the only other exception - speaking about the nature of humanity in a way that would almost make you stop and think if the writers had given him a line that actually meant anything and a setting that wasn't quite so ridiculous, and I seriously hope he was well paid for this blemish on his career.

The rest of the plot is, well there is none. It's a combination of melodrama, bad puns and a CGI enthusiast's wet dream. In fairness, the effects are often quite impressively done from a technical standpoint, demonstrating they had no shortage of money to toss into their laps, each time a distance shot of some landmark toppling over, exploding nonsensically, sinking, or otherwise being destroyed. Something like a dozen such landmarks get demolished, each time in a similar looking fashion using whatever method they established looked good enough from a distance.

What should have been the focus, and indeed is the critical component of such films is the human aspect; when the end of the world approaches, how people react, sharing their final moments with loved ones, people coming together as one or abusing the ensuing chaos to benefit themselves. This is the tale that makes such apocalyptic films so powerful to watch, and how well they balance the severity of the situation with the melodrama; coming off as tense but ultimately realistic, finding the joy in the little things, and the strength to persevere onwards. Not a man looking at a screen going 'this is the new reason we're all fucked' every 5 minutes before cutting to the next scene of explosions, and near misses, at best showing some cliche shot meant to show that the characters give a crap about each other, as if to say 'we know what we should have done but blowing shit up is more fun.'

It can't decide whether it wants to be serious or - as I suspect some of the writers thought it was intended to be - a joke, with little puns such as a running gag about a pilot who isn't actually a pilot. They aren't particularly amusing but certainly seem a lot more fitting than trying to go for a sense of mass drama despite in hollywood style, nobody we're meant to really care about dying and everyone we're meant to care about surviving through long sequences of one-in-a-million miracles, crazy idea's and a healthy dose of luck. I spent half the film waiting for R.E.M. to jump out and start singing 'It's the End of the World as We Know it,' signifying that the director isn't this talentless; that he didn't accidentally wipe his ass with so many dollar bills and hire an all star cast for anything less than the most elaborate 2 and a half hour joke Hollywood has ever devised, a true 'gotcha' moment that would spin you around, make you realise that it was intended to be this bad from the very beginning. Alas, this moment never came. Yup, it's pretty bad...

Sky High

2012-02-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

Title: Sky High
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Action, Horror
Starring: Yumiko Shaku, Takao Osawa, Shôsuke Tanihara
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Language: Japanese

Helmed by the man responsible for both 'Versus' and 'Azumi,' two of my favourite Japanese action flicks, I decided to save this one, sure that once again he would deliver the goods. But actually, far from being epic it's rather disappointing, and there's nobody else that can really take the blame for this one. Let me get on with describing the plot and perhaps you'll see what I mean.

It all opens promising enough; a wedding between a young detective and his bride to be all goes tits up when she walks down the aisle with her heart removed. After much deliberating about 'how could such a thing happen' - though in the case of the doctor, literally how could she walk so far without a heart - we begin to learn of Kudo and his dark plan. Head of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, this young billionnaire realised that all his wealth and power couldn't bring the dead back to life. So he did what any sane man with all the power available to them would do and started dabbling in the dark arts for some more. This is the real reason his wife had to die, so that Kudo could have his way in summoning the forces of darkness from the bowels of hell to do his bidding and revive his beloved wife. You still following me? Cos I ain't done yet.

You see, this dark rite requires far more than anyones heart, it requires the heart of a guardian of the gate of resentment, or at least an ex-guardian once again born into this world. These are the guardians tasked with taking care of the gate to hell, and of those who have died at anothers hand to offer them the choice: to accept their fate and go to heaven and await the rebirth, to roam the earth as a ghost, or to curse another and send you both to the fiery pits of hell. But first you get a couple of weeks to check up on the world without you. And so they watch as Kudo roams the earth, getting his secretary to do the actual killing - well he doesn't want to go to hell does he - and taking the hearts of all those he needs to in his sinister plan to bring hell on earth in the name of love, each new victim bringing him closer to his goal, and its only our young detective who can stop him.

Believe it or not, none of this ever feels too complicated. Information is unveiled in an obvious manner at a steady pace such that you never once get lost in the script for whats going on, which with a plot as detailed as this is fairly impressive. It's just that there's so much of it, they have to spend so long getting the plot details out of the way that they forget that this is intended to be an action film! For almost 90mins we are given nothing but the preparation for the finale, a couple of 10 second sequences tossed in occasionally to tease the audience and remind us that they're getting to the good bits. A cheesy joke gets tossed in occasionally to try to break things up a bit further but for a good portion of the film it feels as though you're twiddling your thumbs, waiting for something to happen.

And when things finally do kick off, it all seems over too quickly, fights ending with all talk and then a quick finish. There is some great use of lighting on the ghosts and also of sound, making use of the evidently minimal budget at his disposal, but this is no excuse for the rather lousy swordplay. It lacks the defined elegance of the classics, nor the high octane frenetic nature of his other work. It's neither realistic nor tension inducing, the participants clumsily carrying out their choregraphed moves in a slow, obvious and unconvincing manner - it's clear only one of them had ever picked up a sword before, why they didn't give the rest some training is beyond me - spending more time posing like some sort of model rather than giving us a decent fight, and this is frankly the last problem i'd have expected from him. Shrouded in this detailed excuse for an action film are some half-baked messages about the corruption of power and the limitations of our humanity, wrapped up in a plot that ties in a number of old ideas to make it seems as complex as possible; ultimately this was a pretty disappointing result.

Doghouse

2012-02-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

Title: Doghouse
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Starring: Danny Dyer, Noel Clarke, Stephen Graham, Emily Booth
Director: Jake West

One of those films that once you'd heard about knew it was only a matter of time, from the man who gave us the hilarious low budget flick 'Evil Aliens' comes another tale so depraved and sordid you'd think it would be Japanese, if y'know, Danny Dyer wasn't in it. Instead it's gloriously British; a film following in the footsteps of '28 days later' and 'Shaun of the Dead' yet of a different breed once again, happily spoofing the genre and giving rise to plenty of puns at womens expense. It all kicks off with Vince and his messy divorce, down and depressed and so it's up to his mates to cheer him up, dragging him out on a lads weekend to a town in the middle of nowhere, where the women outnumber the men 4:1, but when they arrive they quickly realise somethings wrong, as these women have quite a literal take on a 'bloody' good time...

The zombies - or zombirds as they get dubbed - all have their own personalities (despite never actually speaking) and far from the usual fields of faceless walking dead, here he focusses on only a few who are given roles to portray, albeit simplistic ones; the hairdresser (played by Emily Booth, a gorgeous young woman with a thing for horror whose steadily stealing my heart), lollipop ladies, the slutty girl from the bar, the elderly and so on. Another side effect of using fewer minor cast members is the ability to have detailed and varied costumes, each one superbly crafted; half decent actresses and not just extra's, allowing for them to do a range of stuntwork and other scenes which could otherwise prove difficult. Likewise, they don't particularly feel compelled to stick to the convention of zombies not attacking one another; when foods on the table, they're quite happy to beat one another for him. The result of all this makes it perfect for slapstick comedy purposes, and alright they've slapped a half-assed 'army experiment' tag to it all but given that this is a film about misogyny and lad culture, that hardly becomes a problem.

The puns come thick and fast with a good portion of them making their mark and they waste no time setting the scene, getting down to the dirty inside of 15 minutes. Sadly, much of the violence is rather tame; a lot of blood but little more may leave gorehounds feeling as though its missing something. That he's constrained by a budget does make itself apparent on a few select scenes but for the most part, what he's succeeded in creating is nothing short of what you'd expect from a more mainstream flick. There is a strong sense of trying to avoid the use of CGI in favour of physical effects and the result serves as a good reminder as to why it should serve as a last resort rather than a general purpose answer which it often seems to be treated as these days. In fact, the mainstream seems to be precisely what he's aiming for, but for all the polish and refined elements, and maybe holding back just a little, he's still going to do it his own way. The very concept is one that feels unique - a virus that only affects one gender - and here gets used to great effect. There are an ever growing number of zombie comedies, and whilst doing nothing too groundbreaking, fans of the genre have nothing to lose by adding this one to the list.

Frostbite

2012-02-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

Title: Frostbite
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Starring: Petra Nielsen, Grete Havnesköld, Carl-Åke Eriksson
Director: Anders Banke
Language: Swedish

Is it like "30 Days of Night?" Or is it another "Twilight?" This is the sort of question that every vampire flick gets asked these days, and despite pre-dating them both, the closest answer is that it's actually a little bit of each. Vampires are probably the most common mythical creature employed by horror films, except perhaps zombies for the perceived lack of thought required to make a zombie flick (not if you dont want it to be shit dumbass!) because of the versatility they can represent. The mysterious entity living in the shadows, hiding from man but plaguing us without our knowledge. It's this that keeps vampire films alive and this that you'd think might have something to do with this films creation. But no, this is far too much fun for that. Set in the arctic northern wastelands of Sweden, where the month of darkness reigns and vampires can come out to play, and where better than at a high school, taking advantage of all the pretty high school girls? When the new girl, Saga, is forced to move to this town in the middle of nowhere by her mother hoping to study under the guidance of a brilliant geneticist. Fortunately Saga is quickly shown around and invited to a party by new goth friend Vega; a party to end all parties. Well she was certainly right about that...

It's nothing if not a spectacularly ambitious effort from the Swedes, doing for vampires what Dead Snow managed for zombies, and what may appear to be a budget film to many is actually the most ambitious effects work the country's done to date. There is more blood pumping out, more CGI and more prosthetics used in this film that a small number is bound to feel unrealistic by Hollywood standards, but this is part of what makes it fun. The fact it's unrealistic at times makes otherwise ordinary moments look cheesy and hilarious, and the whole film panders to that, coming across as gloriously camp without resorting to dousing the cast in glitter. There's glorious gore, albeit often sometimes a little uninspired, slapping blood in creativities stead; the teenagers actually behave like teenagers and not like actors in their mid-thirties or lovestruck morons; and more than a handful of jokes that make their mark.

There are a lot of aspects this film handles well, but it at times feels a touch confused as to what it wanted to be. The comical lines - outside of the occasional accidentally bad appearance of the effects - are sporadic enough to feel closer to the witty lines of an action film than something more integral, yet the horror aspect which seems to dominate often feels a little light on the actual horror. Despite a large cast of attractive Swedes, theres no nudity whatsoever, which i thought was half the point in casting adults to play teenagers, and nothing in the script ever comes closes to feeling shocking. The best I can compare it to is those so called 'horror' flicks that get a 12 rating; if there was anything even remotely horrific here it's long since been removed. The result is that this film feels just a little pointless, and ends far too abruptly, but as a fun film to watch with friends (assuming you have friends who don't make arguments like 'why would I pay to read?' when you mention it has subtitles) and throw popcorn at, it'll hold up pretty well. Frostbite is defiantly a thought free zone...

Cowboys Vs Aliens

2012-02-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

Title: Cowboys Vs Aliens
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Action, Adventure
Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell
Director: Jon Favreau

A film title can often tell you an awful lot about the kind of flick you can expect; a cheesy one, artsy, depressing, pretentious. The title here seems pretty obvious what sort of film this should be. It's not got a pretentious name, it's motherfucking cowboys vs motherfuckin' aliens; more 'Fast and the Furious' or 'Snakes on a Plane than anything that takes itself too seriously, and this is exactly what I was hoping for. Plenty of comic moments, cheesy one liners and manic mayhem in this unusual match-up, but it doesn't seem as though everyone was on the same page.

Much of the film concerns ourselves with these three protagonists, the cowboy Jake (Craig) and cowgirl (Wilde) searching for their missing friends, abducted by the aliens, forming an uneasy truce with the local town owner trying to get his son back, and the rest of the locals in battling their deadly foe, largely because Craig managed to get himself an alien weapon which he cant get off his wrist and is about the only thing that can dent the aliens ships. The thing is, a lot of time is spent on, what are admittedly glorious sets, travelling from location to location on horseback and riding into the sunset, every so often stopping to give us a little snippet of information about our characters past. And when the action finally does arrive it feels very 'Hollywood;' a lot more 'Battle: LA' or 'Transformers,' abusing explosions, CGI and bright lights than the more stylised sequences I was expecting, though at times certainly does deliver the goods, particularly from Craig who shows that his Bond experience has taught him a thing or two. Sadly, there's ultimately just a lot of talking involved in a film that sounds like a WWF grudge match from hell, and it takes a good 45mins before we see much of the aliens at all.

Two of the main stars in particular, big names right now, seem to be miscast. Daniel Craig as the dangerous man with a hidden past shows he can do action scenes but plays them too deadpan and straight faced, though there is the occasional comedy choreographed into them but it elicits no response from him and usually ends up taking a more serious nature. Much of the same can be said for the role of Olivia Wilde's character whom despite the outrageous premise seems to take the role far too seriously (though i'm not ruling out her just being a lousy actress with a pretty face), whose only reason for being is to add the love interest every American film seems to need these days. Instead the shining light here should go to the aging Harrison Ford, who despite getting on a bit now, has forged a career from making these cheesy action flicks and playing the gunslinging comic relief, and here gets given a grumpy, old and wisened man, desensitised to violence through the civil war in which he served as a general, and even now seems to strike an excellent balance between playing into the cheesy and cliche moments without going over the top. Sam Rockwell as the ever troubled barkeep also plays his role well - I would expect nothing less of the man behind 'Moon' - though with such a minor role is only able to have a limited impact on the film.

This is a film where I wasn't expecting perfect performances or a profound message, I just wanted what it said on the tin, but they've tried to do so much more. They've added intricate if perhaps cliche and under-developed motivations and relationships between characters, something which I would usually applaud, each with a backstory to be unveiled in a 'memento' like series of flashbacks as our protagonist pieces together what happened. There's a romantic interest to conflict with a mans search for his past love, revelations and new encounters as we learn the desires of their new menace; quite frankly I wanted none of this, I just wanted to see a sci-fi vs western mash-up and sadly, what should have been its main purpose feels lacking until those final moments. The concept is cheesy, impossibly, absurdly unrealistic by it's very nature and it's played with such serious conviction that it seems silly, like a joke nobody let them in on. It's by no means a bad film, I just think they should have picked a direction; I was expecting a mindless fun filled action flick, but instead they've tried to make it into an epic and dramatic action/adventure. By spreading themselves so broad, it tends to at times feel a little inconsistent. The result? It could have been better, but it certainly could have just as easily been a lot worse.

The Shinjuku Incident

2012-02-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

Title: The Shinjuku Incident
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Starring: Jackie Chan
Director: Derek Yee
Language: Chinese / Japanese

I'll admit I never really followed Jackie Chan's career so what was news to me might not be to others; that he hadn't abandoned Chinese cinema for Hollywood tripe but rather was still active in both worlds, producing and starring in this film. Surprisingly, it never feels as self-indulgent as it easily could have, re-living his classic martial arts days, but instead there is not a karate kick in sight. In fact this is a very different role for him from what we would expect, as what he's created is a Chinese film about a side of Asia not too unfamiliar to a Western audience, based on actual events that occurred in Shinjuku, and hence has an almost Hollywood vibe to it all as he tackles an issue unique to no single country.

For this is a tale about immigrants, following the path of one as he navigates his way to Tokyo and getting stranded in the process, all in the hopes of finding his childhood love and ensuring she's made her way. But it isn't long before he finds her married to a Yakuza boss, and now heartbroken, as he sees his fellow Chinese brothers abused by the other gangs controlling the district, he gradually descends into the Tokyo underworld. Standing up for his friends, things begin to spiral out of control as he finds himself involved in gangland warfare, becoming the unwitting and unwilling leader, rising to power over Shinjuku, all the whilst other gangs lie watching. The power now yielded by him and his brethren quickly going to their heads, they begin doing illegal trade and garnering the attention of those who seek to remove him from his lofty position, leading to all out warfare for control of the district.

The scope of this film and all the factions; the Taiwanese, Yakuza and the key members balancing on the knife edge of civil war, how the police factor in amidst the rise of the Chinese gang; it's all remarkably complex, and all too easy to lose a snippet of conversation or forget a face and be lost in all the politics, whose doing deals with who and which faction they're keeping it from. It's an interesting and - without knowing the details of the underground crime syndicates in Tokyo - certainly plausible, the immigrant sector flooding with small pockets vying for control, but not enough is done to make it all any the less confusing.

And this isn't the only part that feels rushed, the entire film feels like there are huge expanses of time missing. So much of what happens seems based on many coincidences in a short time frame; finding his wife lost for years in a day, saving a mob boss the next day and then finding yourself head of one of the largest gangs before the weekend. Then instantly the power they receive triggers people to go nuts and stop caring about anyone? The love triangle given a handful of scenes to establish? For what purpose? It all happens too quickly; What took most gangs years to accomplish happens here in what seems like a week!

The pacing might feel rushed but that's not to say this is a bad film. It neither shies from violence nor exploits it, using graphic images to get make his point without ever becoming self-indulgent. Much of the cast, with a particular mention of Daniel Wu who plays the role of Jie perfectly, does what they could with the script never allowing them enough as characters; the trade off of it being cut shorter is that the action is never far away, hurtling forward with an impressive frenetic momentum. There may not be the karate kicks of what we would usually expect but this just improves the tension; that our protagonist is human, fighting and getting injured in a realistic manner and lending a certain unpredictable element to how things unfold. This film at times feels like it could have been the Chinese' answer to 'Scarface;' the immigrants rise to power, how that power corrupts, and the invariable perils that ensue. It's a difficult film to follow, and whilst not bad, never feels like it's adding anything particularly new and falls short of everything it could have been.

I Saw The Devil

2012-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

Title: I Saw The Devil
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Crime, Horror, Thriller
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik Choi, Gook-hwan Jeon
Director: Kim Jee-Woon

Korea might not have the largest film industry, they may not have the most money to flash around on CGI, or the greatest number of films being released, but once again i've discovered proof that they have one of the strongest film industries and much of that is thanks to just three directors; Chan Wook-Park, Joon Bong-Ho, and this films very own Kim Jee-Woon, who is perhaps the weakest link in all of this and still capable of producing works others would be proud to call their magnum opus. This is the depraved tale of a serial killer whom the police have failed to catch, letting him roam free to commit atrocity again and again, choosing young women as his target of choice, except it was bound to be only a matter of time before he chose the wrong woman. Fiancée to a man on the other side, a special agent who devotes his attention to delivering the exact same punishment to him as he dealt to his darling beloved. On ensues the bloody game of cat and mouse, the serial killer now a dangerous prey for our hunter, catching him and releasing him, toying and playing with his catch in his sadistic revenge.

Some circles are bound to draw comparisons to the recently released 'Cold Fish;' one of the most highly regarded Japanese directors, Sion Sono, apparently deciding to take a similar idea under their wing and see what they could come up with, but despite the similar premise in taking a serial killer and introducing another into their world, the two couldn't play out any more differently. Where 'Cold Fish' was subtle in its build up of the characters, developing them and showing both sides to their personality and using blood to emphasise the point, this takes a far more violent nature. From the very beginning the gore rears its head and it never feels too far around the corner; bloodhounds will find plenty in this department to satisfy their cravings, all shot without CGI where possible and taking care over the cinematography, yielding a dark sense of realism and never shying away to show you as many of the gritty details as you bare see through the gaps in your fingers. Things like character development all but get thrown out the window in this unrelenting quest for brutality; our serial killer given no real motive for his actions, just that these are his actions and the consequences they have brought down upon himself. There's no mention of their past or their lives previous to their fateful encounter; the characters are woefully underdeveloped and as a result struggles to try to compensate by its sheer visceral nature.

And sadly, this is what seperates the good from the best in the genre; 'Oldboy' certainly had its violent moments, but the reason that it was such a mesmerising film to watch was the mystery element to it all, trying to unravel the pieces that held everything together. There's an element of the dark sadism inherent in Chan Wook-Park's 'Revenge Trilogy,' certainly in our lead's drive for revenge, and Fincher's Se7en - and indeed a comparison to the TV show 'Dexter' feels fitting, albeit to a lesser extent - too has no qualms about showing you scenes of a hellish chaos but behind the carnage was a detailed character study into what just made these men tick; why do they carry out such atrocities, and sadly neither of these aspects are presented. All we get is a shade of grey between who the real monster is said to be; the serial killer or the man toying with him, but it never feels to become any the more fleshed out from those opening moments. There is a flood of good films taking similar revenge premises, and whilst it proudly stands amongst them, does little to truly make it stand apart as one of the best.

Nothing bad can be said about Choi Min-Sik's portrayal of this monster, but it seems he's given little opportunity in the script to demonstrate any real depth to the character. It's a perfect example of a dark thriller; a horror by it's nature and an action by equal right, but the film needs to be taken in context. The pace never slows down so you can catch your breath and travels at a blistering speed that can never be said to be boring, and the blood is gloriously gratuitous, but if you're looking for anything just a little more detailed and serious, then 'I Saw The Devil' just falls short of the mark.

Star Trek

2012-02-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

Title: Star Trek
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Karl Urban, Eric Bana
Director: J. J. Abrams

This is a film I intended to review a long time ago, way back when i first saw it at the cinemas but decided it needed to be watched again, just to make sure it really was that awesome and not just a pleasant surprise. For with reboots always comes more than a little dread at soiling the memory of great films, and the casual star trek fan in me acknowledges just how painful this could have been. The star trek legacy - whether you're a fan or not - is one unparalleled today; it's futuristic sci-fi still limited in what can be done and still bound by conventional physics, and still a dream of scientists worldwide trying to make it a reality. Its lore, history, politics and overarching mythos so in depth it makes lord of the rings look shallow. And through it all lies a human core, taking the action and excitement of exploring the unknown, showing the promise of a future free from racism - an unheard of idea in the 60s, having Russians, Americans and Japanese fighting side by side - and philosophising on what it truly means to be human. To reboot all this is more than just taking a new look on a dude who makes spiderwebs or a monster in an arctic base, it's entering a rich and detailed world and re-imagining all that. It's no wonder so many die hard fans were weeping when it was announced.

But as i mentioned, I am something of a casual fan. I admit i've seen almost all the films, know the enterprise's license plate, probably watched every episode of the original series and a healthy portion of 'The Next Generation,' but I came late to the scene, my young attention span brought up on the later series involving too much talking in DS9 and an annoying woman in Voyager. Along the way something got lost; the exploration of alien anatomy and captains getting their hands dirty in battle, the puns in the face of danger and headstrong attitude that screams 'fuck it, lets ignore starfleet command and go poke it with a stick.' The element that formed its core and what made it fun steadily became more serious as time went on, and it seems I wasn't the only one thinking this as Abrams' reboot has tackled precisely that.

It takes things right back to the beginning, before Kirk even became the captain - in many ways this is the story of him becoming the captain - kicking off his troubled childhood, his father dying in battle, and life in the academy, but really things get going when we get to the Enterprise. Kirk butting heads with Spock aboard the starship whilst doing battle with a deadly foe; Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan filled with anger has arrived from the future in a ship with advanced technology to capture Spock and destroy the Federation.

But this is also an origins story, showing Kirk back when he was reckless and violent, filled with wit and with no regard for rules. Chris Pine, the unknown actor playing the role, plays it like a sci-fi 'Indiana Jones,' constantly cracking jokes until its time to be serious, encapsulating the original William Shatner character perfectly. Zachary Quinto, the actor playing Spock, was no slouch either, immediately putting behind any thought that you're actually watching 'Sylar' from 'Heroes' and gets into the mindset of Spock so well you forget he could be anyone else, battling between his Human and Vulcan sides in a way that contrasts the older Leonard Nimoy version and showing how he changes with time, gently philosophising on the value of his human traits. The rest of the classic cast are introduced too; Uhura gets the sex jokes, we mock Chekov's accent, Sulu makes a memorable entrance and Scotty (Simon Pegg) gets to say all his classic lines. They're all there and everything is spot on.

I was half expecting this to flop - though it would be impressive if it was as bad as the last two. I was expecting it to once again involve Borg, because we all know how fun emotionless cyborgs spouting a single phrase can be. I was expecting Kirk to be acted poorly by this newcomer and to completely ignore the recklessness of the original character. I could go on but suffice to say I was wrong on every count. It even manages to fit in with all the current mythology (well, cheating a little) to keep die hards happy. This film is so good it makes me want to go back and watch the series again; so good Leanord Nimoy (Spock) who previously said would never do Star Trek again changed his mind when he saw how awesome the script was. This film doesn't need you to already be familiar with all the lore and history, it literally does start over and will introduce it all to you. Filled with all the action and comic moments that made the classics fun, paying homage to them and yet remaining feeling completely fresh, this is a lesson in how reboots should be done and is probably one of the best action films to come out in the past decade. Who said you couldn't teach an old dog some new tricks?

ADDRESSING THE COMPLAINTS

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

It's completely destroyed the original timeline!

Yes, it has. It avoids all concerns about accuracy with regards to every episode by creating an original reality. People complain he cheated - ironically one of the lessons Spock learns from Kirk - but die hard fans would also complain if things were inaccurate. In a no-win scenario, Abrams has side-stepped the issue and started over; it's a reboot in more ways than one and a perfect solution.

Why did Nero hold Spock soley responsible?

Remember he was on a mining vessel watching from afar, and Spock was in a small ship. My interpretation was that he didn't see him at all and just let the planet die, rather than see him actually try and fail. We don't even know how much Nero knew about the situation, all we know is he knew the planet was dying, Spock had promised to save it, and then he didn't. I'd be pissed at him too...

Why didn't Nero go warn the other Romulans?

Now this part of the story is a little vague, the cop-out response would me 'it's a movie' but I hate cop outs so lets think about this logically. A man arrives and screams about the end of the world. It happens here all the time, but we call them mad and ignore them. Since he does have advanced technology he might get more influence but it's still a bit uncertain.

What about the feasibility of getting there? He's tossed in the middle of nowhere, we have no idea how far it is to Romulus or how fast a mining vessel can go - do they need to be fast? - so can he even get there? Does he even know where the hell he is? A black hole connects two points in space time, it sends you somewhere and sometime almost at random. It makes sense one ship entering shortly after another could emerge shortly after the other a short distance away (relative to the universal time and size). He doesn't have time travel, that he goes back in time is just a coincidence. We don't know what his scanners are like, perhaps waiting around in one spot waiting for the bastard (and using his superior navigational capabilities?) was the best bet.

But lets assume he can, as much of that is based on speculation of unknowns, what about the mindset of a Romulan? In a sense they are the anthesis of Vulcans; rather than purging emotion they embrace it and are driven by it. Filled with anger at what happened, emotions festering for quarter of a century, he isn't acting based on logic and to do the logical thing would contradict the very nature of being Romulan. Long story short, we aren't given the information to know for sure.

He ripped off Star Wars!

I hate it when people say this ripped off that, no film is wholly original. I get annoyed when the idea's sources aren't accredited, but Abrams is known to be a Star Wars fan. A few similar plot details doesn't mean he ripped it off, especially seeing as the two films are very different. Star Wars has very little character development, a core aspect here. There is no 'force' or religious parallel, there's no droids; there's a lot more driving them apart than together.

OMG! [insert futuristic item] doesn't exist!

Really? You're angry about things like the existence of red matter in a film where people are instantly moved between locations to shoot beams of raw energy at one another? Where moving faster than light using something called 'dilithium crystals' is par for the course? Should it come with a warning? ' This futuristic Sci-Fi film may contain science in advance of our own.' Well duh...

Kwaidan

2012-02-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Title: Kwaidan
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Period Drama / Supernatural Horror
Starring: Rentarô Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Language: Japanese

It doesn't happen very often, but once in a while a film will come across your path that leaves you speechless. Kwaidan is a perfect example of such a film; a 3 hour horror epic that i'm at a loss to describe; a masterpiece of film making that by its end will make you want to watch it again so as to re-live those immaculately filmed moments. Released back in '64, when most of Japan was still fawning over "Godzilla," their modern horror film origins were starting to take form. For Japan has a long history of ghost stories, and through this man's masterful vision, he's brought to life 4 classic horror tales penned in the 19th century by a Greek man, Lafcadio Hearn, who lived most of his life in the states before becoming obsessed with Japan - perhaps the original otaku - writing down the folklore tales passed down over the generations for the world to read. Now his work has been transcribed for the world to see; films that by any stretch of the imagination would be challenging now, impossibly ambitious back then, and yet somehow he's succeeded in creating a classic that is still mesmerising almost half a century on.

The classic notion of a ghost story is often plagued with that cliche tale about someone who died and now jumps out and goes boo, but not here. Everything takes on a more complex and poetic nature, the use of minimal dialogue emphasising the point being made, or rapidly progressing the plot as required. He never creates characters filled with pure evil and malice to be the nemesis but instead develops protagonists that are all too human, capable of mistakes and causing harm, lightly philosophising on the nature of human desire and its consequences. Even the very nature of the ghosts takes a decisive twist from the usual western interpretation; not invisible spectres but corporeal shadows of their former selves, manipulating your mind to see what isn't truly there to incredible effect.

In fact, he seems fairly determined to defy convention wherever possible and the script is only a small part of that, with the cinematography and effects forming another critical component. The sound as often collides with the visuals as it does as expected, offering a haunting silence or a disconcerting backing score utilising traditional instrumentation in line with the period the fables are set, but even this is far from his most potent tool. The acting takes on a theatrical - if at times perhaps melodramatic - tone; the movements precise but again, like the dialogue, is often minimal lending a decisive feel to them, their importance in both their subtleties and extrovert nature juxtaposing one another and lending a powerful emphasis.

The effects work feels as potent as ever at drawing you in and ensnaring you in the parable being told. The subtle visuals on the characters themselves; their make up and the effects on them, even the details in the scenery changes, backdrops used to show the far off distance conjuring subtle images, combining realism with surrealism all in accordance with the atmosphere aimed for. Neither does he feel compelled to limit himself to the darkness with barely visible creatures using cheap shock tactics to make you jump. He builds up the tension and atmosphere gradually, making use of far more than light and dark but overgrown wildlife and the elements, and anything else he can think of to set the scene.

This feels like a pinnacle of the asian horror industry, the ripples of influence perpetuating out and still influencing the films made today. There are so many classic moments that stand out in the mind; the finale of the 'The Black Hair;' visuals of the woman in 'The Woman of the Snow;' the iconic image of the priest covered in holy scripture for 'Hoichi the Earless;' or the sinister nature of the unfinished work 'In a Cup of Tea.' A traditional horror tale of the highest order; it's as though the greatest work penned by Lovecraft or Poe had found itself not just transcribed into film form but given perfect justice in the process. This is a film that came off the heels of the flick that made this man known and it nearly bankrupted his production company, and it's probably one of the best horror films ever made.

Tokyo Godfathers

2012-02-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

Title: Tokyo Godfathers
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Mystery, Drama, Anime
Starring: Toru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki, Aya Okamoto
Director: Satoshi Kon
Language: Japanese

Its one of those casual conversations that continued to plague the mind I was having recently: why are there so few decent christmas films? Racking my brains for something more than just "Die Hard" or "Gremlins," it was only until I saw my shelf and remembered this lesser known Satoshi Kon flick yet to be watched that I saw hope or another entry to the list.

If you've seen much of his other work, you'd notice a strong theme in how they're devised, but not here. With this film he's gone for a more accesible tone of film making, telling us a simple (for Satoshi Kon) tale of three homeless people in tokyo on the journey to the end of the year, discovering a newborn baby on christmas eve and resolving to become its carers until the real parents can be found.

As we get to know our homeless characters; the elderly man who sent his family into poverty; the gay man who shamed his mother; and the young girl who ran away from home, we come to care for them in their plight, running away from the families they once knew rather than bear the shame of what they've done. Living life on the fringes, forgotten by society, they are brought together by this new life, forming a dysfunctional family, and in trying to offer this child the best they can, find themselves being forced to confront their fears.

Unveiling more would be robbing the film of its impact as it's all in how it steadily unfurls that it finds its greatest strength. Its a winding tale filled with heartache for these complex characters with their humanity left all too exposed, filled with morality about the forgivefulness of others, unconditional love, and above all, the importance of family. But it's never done in a cliche manner; it never feels as though its rubbing your face in his views or comes across like so many tired and predictable stories with the same theme.

At its core is a sense of realism to the plights they face, never believing that their stories are beyond the scope of realism or just a little too coincidental. The animation is as you'd expect from such a feature, and whilst it's far from this man's finest work, for those tired of the usual trash on during the holiday season, "Tokyo Godfathers" offers something a little different.

Species IV: The Awakening

2011-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Title: Species IV: The Awakening
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, Drama
Starring: Edy Arellano, Helena Mattsson, Marco Bacuzzi, Marlene Favela
Director: Nick Lyon

Call it my guilty pleasure if you will, particularly if you consider im rarely one to follow a series past the first couple of films, but I do hold a soft spot for this quadrilogy. The debut cult classic hitting all the right notes; a sexy and seductive alien wanting nothing more than to bed you and procreate the alien species. The sequel then delivers much the same, and quite frankly the less said about the atrocity that was the third the better, but this one seems to have snuck under the radar. Another episode in this gory sci fi flick about beautiful women wanting to sleep around. I mean surely for the premise alone most guys would be sold.

But as the films developed, they quickly realised they couldnt just rehash old concepts, and so returning to the tale years later we find ourselves not dealing with aliens but human-alien hybrids; their DNA mismatched leaving them with a terminal illness and personalities where both sides collide. A scientist, fully aware of one young woman's origins wishes for nothing more than to save her from the torment he's bestowed upon her, for inside her mind lies a dangerous killer instinct and whilst fighting her urges, its not just time until her demise shes racing against, but hordes of other hybrids lurking around every corner, just waiting to strike.

Its quite impressive how a simple horror premise can evolve into a concept that feels so much more developed, and 'species,' in all its low budget straight-to-dvd glory is a shining example of that. No longer is it so easy to define in a few words; the new script adding an altogether human aspect whilst never forgetting its origins, show some tits and then someone dies in a gruesome fashion (the tried and tested formula for all budget horror flicks). Though as with the rest of the series, there never does seem to be quite enough sex and violence to truly fill my cravings, but thats not to say they haven't used their time constructively.

Now i'd be lying if I said the acting was great, but Forbes plays a fun character and we have two young beauties to ogle, your preference depending on whether you prefer blondes or brunettes (gimme Azura, yum!). Its not the acting that makes this flick stand out but the script; it always seems to be moving, unveiling some new development whilst dealing with the tricky juggling act of all the different aspects. The time spent since the debut has also worked wonders for the special effects, never abandoning their minimal CGI origins but refining them and improving it to the extent that at times you'd forgive mistaking it for a major cinematic release, finally delivering on one scene that should have been shot years ago, no longer just having it as humans vs aliens but showing us an alien duel to the death. Yes its a budget flick, the dreaded final part to a series milked for too long, but i'll be damned if isn't the best one since the very first more than a decade ago.