Phantasm 4: Oblivion

another dimension, another dimension.

After the first Phantasm, Don made another film every 4 years always ending on a cliffhanger. I have the box set and am watching them one after another which is a nice way to watch them actually, I don't have to wait to find out what happens and the characters start feeling like old friends.

So where were we?   Reggie is being attacked by balls and Mike's gone off to find out why his eyes turned gold. Weirdly the character of Tim the boy has just been erased, they don't even bother killing him off he's gone and never mentioned again.

Mike's tripping out in the desert, developing new powers and changing into something not human. He tries to kill himself but the Tall Man won't let him. He discovers he can materialise dimension gates and does a bit of time travelling.

It's been 12 years since this last film so seems unlikely that there wll be another one with Scrimm, who plays the Tall Man as he's now in his eighties but I wouldn't be surprised to see a remake or reimaginging or whatever the fuck Tim Burton/Marcus Nispel call their vapid projects.

NO - great apocalyptic tone but unless you know these characters you won't care

Phantasm 3: Lord of the Dead

semi colon says it all

After a quick recap we're straight back where we left off in the last film, driving away in the hearse which promptly crashes. Reggie's ok but Mikes unconscious and Liz, who was a main character in the last film, gets her face eaten off by dwarves. Mike recovers in hospital but gets abducted by the Tall Man. Reggie sets out in his trust hemi on a rescue mission accompanied by a silver ball that it actually Mike's dead brother Jody - don't ask - and he soon starts encountering empty towns with empty cemeteries.

This is all getting very familiar now but in a nice soap opera way. I like catching up with Reggie and the Tall Man although Reggie's constant lechering of female characters is wearing a bit thin. Mike is now played by the same actor as the first film which is good and bad. Good because he's not a pretty boy like James LeGros but bad because he has such a distracting nose, really long with a weird line in the end of it.

I like this one better than the 2nd film because Rocky is such a cool character, an ex army nunchuck welding wedge haircut hardarse and it's cool how at the end she just says fuck this I'm out of here and leaves them.

NO - I've mentioned before if the film title has a semi colon in it then it's going to be bad and this film does nothing to disprove my theory.

Phantasm 2

3 years and 11 million dollars later

Mike is now a man, a good looking moody 80s style man, who has just got out of a psychiatric hospital after learning to keep stories of dwarfs, balls and a tall man to himself.

Reggie is bringing Mike home from the hospital when his house blows up as the approach!  they hit the road using Mike's visions to take them to the Tall Man who is back to his old grave robbing, dwarf making tricks.

Don made so much money out of no budget Phantasm that someone pretty much gave him the cash to make the same film again on condition that he replace one of the leads with a well known actor (James LeGros? who?) It's still a lot of fun and retains the enthusiasm of the first film. The Tall Man is such a great creation with his weird white bob haircut and the strange look he does with one eye open and the other squinty while bellowing a threatening "Boy!"

NO - just because you thought it looks awesome doesn't mean you can use the same footage of a house you blew up in the space of 5 minutes for 2 different reasons.

Phantasm

Jason, Freddy, Michael and the Tall Man.

After a funeral Mike notices the undertaker lift the coffin out of the grave single handedly and take it back to the mausoleum. Mike returns later that night to investigate and is attacked by hooded dwarfs and a flying silver ball that can drill into skulls. He convinces his brother Jody and their friend Reggie that somethings up and together they discover that the undertaker isn't human and he's digging up corpses, transforming them into dwarfs and shipping them back to some other dimension.

This all sounds a bit shit but it's handled so competently by Don Coscarelli who wrote and directed this on a tiny budget that you can easily go along for the ride (and what a ride - a black barracuda hemi) with imaginative cg free special effects, awesome theme and mysterious villain this is just as good as Halloween or Friday the 13th but it's also very strange and I think that's what stopped it from becoming as well known as those films.


YES - but just can't make it from B to A

Blow Up

David Hemmings (looking a lot like the boy from the tin drum grown up) is Thomas, a fashion photographer who captures a strange encounter in a park. It's not until later after he plays around with enlarging the photo that he discovers he has taken a photo of a dead body.

He's a bit of a cock but I ended up liking him and you need to because he's in every scene. His fashion shoots are appalling but I love his studio home - black/white/grey an amethyst crystal on his coffee table - cool.

The pace is meandering broken up with some weird scenes a threesome on a giant piece of paper, Thomas diving to answer the phone, a disaffected rock concert and anarchist mime hippies playing mime tennis.

Ultimately the mystery of the photograph goes no where but it underlines the main theme of the film - perception which like memory is personal and mutable. We believe Thomas because we are watching through his eyes but imagine if he showed you the shitty photo and took you to see a dead body that wasn't there - would you believe him?


YES - cold mods

American: The Bill Hicks Story

stay off the fags.

This animated documentary (I found the after effects animation somewhat creepy, old photos of Bill re coloured and inserted into other scenes) tells the story of his comedic beginnings in Houston as a teenager, his love of mushrooms and music, his popularity overseas and his untimely death from cancer at 32.

Bill was smart, charismatic and caring and so were his 90s style black comedy existential rants about Waco, the Persian Gulf war, advertising, abortion, drugs and meeting aliens - he inspired and offended many.

This features his friends and family and also various scenes of his stand up throughout the years.

YES - if you're not familiar with his work this is excellent, if you are it's like looking at an old photo album.

White Lightnin'

Stay off the lighter fluid

Jesco White is a real person made famous by the 1991 documentary the dancing outlaw. The main character is inspired by Jesco, an eccentric tap dancing, lighter fluid sniffing hillbilly - but this film prompty takes a massive departure from reality to religious revenge fantasy.

Carrie Fisher plays his wife and the way they meet in the film is actually true, well according to Jesco, he was hitchhiking and planning to steal the car but when Norma Jean stops to pick him up he falls instantly in love with her and even though she's a lot older than him they marry.

Told mostly in black and white with voice over, this doesn't feel authentic. The Hasil Adkins soundtrack is cool but Elvis Presley would be more fitting.

NO - gothic stereotype

Visioneers

fuck you work.

George Washington has a windowless office job working for the Jeffers corporation. He lives with his self help obsessed wife and a son they never see.

An epidemic of exploding is putting people on edge, no one knows why this is happening but having dreams is one of the symptoms and George is starting to have visions of his namesake. His life coach tries to get him back on track but after he also explodes, George becomes increasingly disillusioned.

This first film by Jared Drake, is not set in our world - there are bizarre toys, neck implants, handsign greetings and a different pronunciation of the word "chaos" but the concerns are familiar. It's a unique satire on work and family life, questioning how we think we should be living compared to how we actually want to live.

YES - brazil with a happy ending

Four Lions

harpo, groucho, gummo and zeppo or maybe hasan, gabir, ghulam and zafar

Chris Morris specialises in smart black humor. His groundbreaking television shows Brass Eye and Jam freaked out 90s viewers looking for relaxing come down tv and inadvertently stumbling across skit shows with themes of incest, the pimping of people with down syndrome and paedophilia.

He's more mainstream these days (Nathan Barley and IT Crowd) however with his first feature film he's returning to controversy by catering to the zeitgeist fears of suicide bombers.

The four lions are Omar, Barry, Ed and Waj who after attending a training camp in Pakistan, plan to use homemade bombs to kill themselves at the London marathon.

There are some very funny scenes; Waj training a crow to bomb a birdhouse, the running style to use while carrying bombs, and Omar indoctrinating his son using the lion king as a metaphor but these characters are too farcical. Omar the most intelligent seems to completely disregard the fact that two of his friends are retarded and the other is an insane sadomasochist.

It's not until the last part of the film where they reluctantly go through with the plan, that this hits home and becomes a moving tragedy.

NO - successful satire but low buffoonery

The Room

I saw a poster for a late night screening of this at the nova in melbourne. The poster features Tommy Wiseaus face looking mysterious in black and white with a lazy eye. I thought it might be some cool lynchy film but instead it's actually a really bad days of our lives drama complete with soft focus sex scenes that go on way too long.

Tommy Wiseau wrote, directed, starred and paid for this film (It cost him $6 million of his own money) that's actually quite a lot of money for a massive piece of shit considering that such gems as American Movie, Cube, Primer, Texas Chainsaw Massacre  and Clerks were made for less than  a mill.

Johnny is engaged to Lisa who is having second thoughts and beings an affair with Johnny's friend. It's high melodrama and low everything else - acting, continuity, sets, lighting, soundtrack, direction, plot, greenscreen effects - all terrible just where the hell did that 6 million go? on Tommy's hair?


YES - bad but strangely mesmerising


You can buy a badge of Tommy's face, he's featured in the philosoface directors series of badges alongside such luminaries as Sergio Leone, Jim Jarmuch and Spike Lee.

Trilogy of Terror

Julie, Therese/Millicent, Amelie.

These are the titles of the 3 stories in this portmanteau horror directed by Dan Curtis and written by Robert Matheson. Dan must love Karen Black as he has her starring in all of them and she sure is awesome to watch, it's her acting that raises this above other movies of this genre.

The first story is about an english teacher menaced by one of her students, the second a tale of twin sisters and the last a doll that comes to life.

It's shot straight up 70s and as usual the 70s dialogue comes across far more adult than todays horror fair, although there's some shonky writing in the weakest second story the last one more than makes up for it.


YES - I'm glad I didn't see this when I was 10, that doll would of scarred me for life.

Day of the Locust

I knew this existed but for some reason never watched it, but wow holy shit I'm glad I finally did.

Directed by John Schesinger (Midnight Cowboy) and based on Nathanael West's book this film is a masterpiece.

Tod Hackett moves to sweltering 1930's hollywood with plans on becoming an art director, however he slowly but surely gets his soul sucked out by the flaky parasites who dwell there.

Karen Black as Faye Greener with her freaky cat eyes and trowel makeup make her a delicious horror to watch but the best performance comes from Donald Sutherland. His sad sack Homer is pathetic and while initially you feel sorry for him it's hard not to finally feel annoyance as the other characters do.  His loneliness has contorted him into a simpering parasite of another kind and watching him sitting in a deck chair, crying silently while his fingers clench and knuckles whiten, you know something bad is going to happen.

This symbolic surreal tapestry slow burns it's way to an unsettling final 20 minutes - where a crowd at a film premiere turns into a murderous mob.

Not a horror film but certainly about the horror of the film industry - the fakeness and desperation, the billions spent on creating illusion. Not a lot has changed really. Maybe plastic surgery.


YES - this is now in my top 10

Summer Wars

Kenji receives a mysterious text message challenging him to break a complex code which he does, inadvertently allowing a rogue AI to break into the massive online world "Oz"

Mamoru Hosoda who made the excellent The Girl Who Lept Through Time follows it with another modern story featuring teen crushes and technology.

The interesting thing about this film is it's massive generation spanning cast, the Jinnouchi clan. They feel like a real extended family and their interactions give this film the warmth it needs to transcend the usual boy saves world fare.

The film looks great and the setting of Oz is nicely contrasted with the edo era house of the Jinnouchi family who have all returned home for their matriarch's 80th birthday.

Has the heart but doesn't quite reach the heights.

YES - family saves world

Kiss of the Spider Woman

I really like the book by Manual Puig and wanted to see how it translates to screen.

It doesn't.

I'm not entirely sure why not. It's got two very meaty main roles but neither Raul Julia or William Hurt nail them and I think William Hurt got his oscar more for daring to play a queen which back in the 80s was a a bit riske, rather than the quality of his acting.

The film takes place mostly in their shared cell which gives the whole film a very theatrical feeling. Raul is a political prisoner who initially finds Luis's effeminate manner and tendency for escapism difficult to respect however this changes and they become intimate friends.

The spider woman of the title only makes a very brief appearance as the character of one of Luis's film stories that he tells Valentin to pass the time and distract them both from their grim circumstance.

NO - gay shawshank without the escaping

The Runaways

Their music is actually a bit shit but the formation of the band makes for an interesting story.

Masterminded by producer Kim Fowley, The Runaways were a 5 girl band in the 70s who were 15, 16, 17, 17 & 20 years old. We see them practise, play for free, get signed and get big in japan before the unsurprising crash and drug burn of singer Cherie Currie.

Stand outs are Michael Shannon as the hilarious nefarious Fowley and Kirsten Stewart as punky Joan Jett.

There's way too many over styled scenes that look like magazine shoots with lingering static shots of Joan posing smoking at sunrise, smoking in the bath or Cherie with sunlight obscuring her face - but this is director Floria Sigismondi's first feature coming from music videos.

YES - Joan Jett is still going strong and if you're wondering what Cherie is up to these days look no further than - chainsawchick

Boy

Just out of prison Alamein or Shogan as he prefers to be called, returns home to the delight of 11 year old Boy who just wants to hang out with his cool dad. Unfortunately his dad is a complete loser, selfish and delusional who is only sticking around long enough to find a package of money he buried.

So Boy learns the hard way that just because someone is an adult it doesn't make them right, honest or capable of looking after themselves let alone their children.

All the young actors are exceptional with the character of Rocky being stand out. I love the beautiful scene of him roller skating out of the darkness to hand his dad a sparkler.

Taika Waititi writes, directs and stars in this lovely film which reminds me a lot of The Bone People by Keri Hulme.

YES - just the right balance of real, fantasy, comedy and wrenching reality.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

I don't know shit about the tv series but I do know that it's a huge deal in Japan and supposedly more convoluted and badly resolved than the x files.

Earth is being systematically attacked by giant entities known as Angels. These things are well realised especially the completely alien floating blue diamond geometric shape shifter. Earth's weapons are giant robot suits called Evangelions which for some reason can only be piloted by teenagers - weird sulky or emotionless ones with red eyes.

There's plenty of scenes of preparing/repairing the robots which are strangely compelling and there's some philosophical musings about free will to make this something more than dress up robots.


NO - but serves as a good crash course on Evangelion mythology

Trash Humpers

make it don't fake it.

It takes a while to settle into the tone but once you do this is really entertaining.

There's no plot or extended conversations just scene after scene of 4 young people with reasonably realistic old peoples masks on singing, riding bikes, drinking, killing, tap dancing, smashing stuff and yes dry humping trash (the trash humping is actually the least interesting part of the film)

This made me cry laugh out loud and also feel a bit sad watching the real old guy doing his pretty good train impression over and over.

YES - if you're after some art but if you want a nice story then this is probably not for you.

Inception

dont believe the hype.

No credits just straight into this relentless film which is a smart and complex mystery but no way near as mindblowing as reviews are making it out to be.

In the future it is possible to enter others dreams. Leo Dicaprio has this ability and uses it to implant or extract information for money. His latest job is to implant an idea into a billionaires mind - he assembles a team, each person with their own particular dream skills and they get to work however there's something that he has neglected to warn them about, someone that he hopes won't be waiting for him in the dream.

Leo is as on form as always but it's Tom Hardy as Eames (the thief) who stands out in this as the character with the most life, everyone else is pretty cold and for a film set in the dream world it's pretty unimaginative, just empty streets and crumbling buildings.

Stand out scenes are the wonderful wideshots of Mombasa, Paris and Osaka and also the flawless no-gravity scenes however the action scenes are pretty shitty - too close, maybe he's going for kinetic but it just comes off as confusing and a chase on snow mobiles? come on whose dreams are that corny.


YES - but it won't be like the first time you saw the matrix.

The Bad Seed

(she burns him alive)

Kristine and Kenneth seem to have the perfect daughter, eight year old Rhoda (played by 11 year old Patty McCormack) however this jewelled sunglass wearing, rollerskating charmer is actually an amoral psychopath.

After a boy drowns at a school picnic and his drunken mother turns up at her house ranting, Kristine begins to suspect that Rhoda may have had something to do with the death.

It's slightly campy but is actually an extremely dark story of a serial killer. So dark that the film makers changed the original books ending and added a light hearted comedy scene during the credits.

Rhoda is an icy calculating shit but seems to have quite modern sensibilities, well maybe without the murders but she's materialistic and an expert at emotional manipulation.

YES - girl hasn't gone bad, girls born bad.

Splice

Just because we can doesn't mean we should.

I went to see this because of the effects really but as soon as the credits started I was thinking jeez this isn't the right tone at all. I was hoping for some David Cronenberg inspired body horror and the effects in this are very good but unfortunately it dissolves into a schlocky mess.

Elsa and Clive (Sarah Polley & Adrien Brody) are geneticists who are creating spliced creatures for the purpose of isolating genes that can be used to cure human diseases.

They secretly add some human dna to one of their creations just to see if it works and it does to Elsa's delight however Clive has strong misgivings. The creature, who Elsa names Dren, grows very quickly into a girl with chicken legs. They lock her in a secluded barn and don't know whether to treat her like a pet, experiment or daughter.

There are some nice scenes - Dren and a cat, Drens really bad drawings of Elsa and Clive, a brief scene in Elsa's childhood bedroom which hints at her unsettling past but then it all turns to shit after Adrien crosses the line. By shit I mean Z grade sex scenes and running around in a forest losing your flashlight in a pond that starts bubbling like a cauldron.

NO - this would have been a million times better if it was a japanese film

Good Hair

Is your hair suitably relaxed?

Chris Rock hosts this short, funny jaunt through hair salons, barber shops, beauty schools and hair battle royales revealing just what woman go through to keep their hair unnaturally straight.

Chris chats with norms and his famous friends about relaxer (sodium hydroxide that damages the hair structure stopping it from curling) and expensive weaves (strips of human hair sewn into plaited hair)

It's all pretty fun but there's dark undertones - the indoctrination of young girls into thinking that getting your hair straightened is just what you do, that an afro is untidy and people wont take you seriously in the business world if your hair isn't eurosmooth.

YES - Pepa's trend setting side hair is a result of relaxer chemical burn.

Predators

Some weird casting going on in this movie.

Method hawk nose Adrien Brody doing his best batman voice just doesn't sit right. I keep picturing him as a skinny punk dancing semi naked for men in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam.

While entertaining enough this is not a film for adults and feels very much like a graphic novel translated panel by panel to screen. It's all about the predators and their outfits, weapons and pets.

This is entertaining enough but somethings missing, some desperation. The human characters seem like they're sleepwalking through this terrifying situation. Maybe because they're all military, murderers and rapists it's just another day in the mysterious jungle on another planet being hunted by large aliens with dreadlocks.

Best thing is about this is an insane Lawrence Fishburn worst thing too much roaring and a gay samurai sword fight.

NO - this season expect to see plenty of customising of the standard predator hunting mask. Items such as bones and tusks will feature heavily.

Stacy's Knights

I bought this for 2 reasons:
a) it has kevin costner in it
b) it was 50c on dvd from Dimmies

The cover is very misleading - this isn't about a glamorous crew of misfits beating the casinos, it's 3 weirdos - shy Stacy, huckery Jean and young Kevin hanging out in a log cabin, drinking and playing blackjack.

The actual sting part that the poster suggests is only in the final 10 minutes and involves Stacy dressing up like a man, who looks a lot like Roach from People Under the Stairs, to sneak into the one casino they were banned from.

Oh and did I mention Stacy's not just good at card counting, she actually has magic powers.

NO - but it was money well spent.

Found Footage Festival 1-4

Low res gold

Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher host the found footage festival, showcasing their vast collection of video found at garage sales and secondhand stores around america - covering such 80s topics as jazzercise, hunks, inline skating and video dating as well as always relevant rapping training videos, how to seduce women, use computers and train your cat to use the toliet.

Look out for superstar appearances including Hulk Hogan, Goldie Hawn (talking to kids about abortion!), Michael Bolton, Corey Haim and the dad from Growing Pains.


Strangers


Hunks


Monkey Jockeys


YES - my code word was "blue ocean" thanks mum!

Animal Kingdom

This incredibly good looking, great sounding, well acted film is written and directed by David Michod. It's so well executed it's hard to believe it's his first feature.

Set in Melbourne, this tells the story of 17 year old Jay (James Frecheville excellent) who moves in with his grandmother "Smurf" and her 3 adult criminal sons. Smurf nurtures this life style and loathes the police who are surveilling their home with the intent of taking them out one by one. Her performance has been highlighted as stand out but it's not as as strong as newcomer Frecheville or craggy Ben Mendelson as the sinister Pope (If you want to see a truly terrifying crime matriarch check out the television series Funland)

Michod has the knack of achieving some very tense scenes, not scary at all - cops checking out a deserted car, Josh asking his girlfriends dad to give him a ride to the shops or Pope carrying a sleeping girl to her bed - I'm not sure how Michod does it but these scenes are all hand sweatingly tense to watch.

YES - from the beginning you know you're watching something special

Tourist Trap

Ah the sunny, slim 70s.

Some friends are on a roadtrip, get a flat tire, one goes missing the rest end up at a weird dudes house who has a lot of mannequins.

This is really strange - yeah there's a crazy guy but he seems to have magic powers as well. He could have just been a psycho who likes to dress up (as a mannequin) and make his victims into mannequins, but they've given him powers as well for some reason, not that he really uses them for anything apart from making mannequins dance around.

YES - guy really likes mannequins

Afghan Star

Afghan Star is the most attractive and rapturous show in Afghanistan (this is from the shows website - Afghan Star)

This documentary follows the finals of the forth session of Afghan Star, an American Idol style tv show. Four finalists, 2 men and 2 woman sing their hearts out and hope they are voted in by viewers to become the next Afghan Star.

It's hard to fathom the differences each generation of Afghanistan must experience from the liberal 80s to an Islamic State controlled by the Taliban where music and dancing is banned. The actual show is terrible, much like all the other versions of it but there's so much more at stake here - just to see men and woman performing together from all different backgrounds and the audience being able to text their vote and it actually counts, this shitty show becomes a catalyst for change.

Entertaining, sad but ultimately hopeful so much can change in such a short time and the population of Afghanistan is youth heavy so the future can only be one filled with music.

YES - I love the awesome lyrics of the songs "the sting of your eyebrow is like a scorpion sting sting sting !"

Cthulu

This is a modern take on the Lovecraft story - The Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which a guy stumbles upon a decrepit town of strange fishmen who worship ocean god Dagon. There's already a film called Dagon however so they had to go with his cousin Cthulu.

It's a first film written and directed by Dan Gildark and it's actually surprisingly ok if somewhat 90s music video towards the end.

Russell returns to his hometown after his mother dies and ends up staying for a while. His father is the (cult) leader of the local church and seems preoccupied with preparations. He runs into an old lover and finds a mysterious object as well as some mysterious fish men.

The most unusual thing about this film is the tender relationship between Russell and Mike. The strangest is Tori Spelling raping a gay guy.

NO - like recent Clive Barker movies but less terribly exquisite.

Tenderness

I hate this type of character that Russell Crowe always seems to play when he's not an alpha male - the older, paunchy mumbler.

He's a retired detective who is convinced that Eric, an 18 year old recently released from prison who murdered his parents and possibly another girl, will do so again. Lori, a lonely trashy girl, is obsessed with Eric and keeps a scrapbook of articles about him. When she finds out he's been released, she engineers a meeting with him. Russell takes it upon himself to keep an eye on Eric and follows them both on a roadtrip to nowhere.

Nice to see Laura Dern albeit briefly, she's great and so is Sophie Laub as Lori initially annoying, strangely unfathomable and ultimately just as much of a psycho as Eric.


NO - a cold but glossy indie

The House of the Devil

I've never heard of this film, got it off a friend who said it was too scary and they had to stop watching it.

On the night of a lunar eclipse, Samantha accepts a last minute baby sitting job for the Ulmers. It turns out they were lying, they don't want her to look after a child but Mr Ulmers' mother who remains in her room. Sam is suspicious but needs the cash. She orders some pizza and explores the house but starts to get more and more paranoid.

Director Ti West made a conscious decision to style this as an 80s film with clothing and music from the era. This is also apparent in the promotion from the 80s style poster and by releasing it on obsolete VHS however this feels more 70s to me. The main actress looks a lot like Margot Kidder, the pacing is slow and even the font of the titles seems 70s.

The build up successfully creates tension and dread but some of the satanist trappings - black robes, skulls, sacrifice in white are too passe to be frightening. The scares come from being sympathetic with Sam and good cuts (film cuts not cuts into people)

YES - it was a bit scary actually

Jack Be Nimble

How did Alexis Arquette end up in this New Zealand film from the 90s? and how does he pull off the a perfect Noo Zelind accent? my theory is he was having a relationship with Garth Maxwell the director who gave him the role as his actual acting is a bit highschool drama.

Alexis is Jack who along with his sister Dora were given up for adoption as children. Dora went to a nice older couple while Jack went to a psycho farm family who abuse him physically and psychologically.

Very gothic but not quite horrific. Best scene is Jack hypnotising his real father to death by making him do sit ups "hey dad why don't you do something about your weight you fat shit!"

YES - I can't get over how good his accent is, if you didn't know he was American you would think he was from NZ.

Until the Light Takes Us

A bunch of friends create an entire music scene.

Not from nothing of course, black metal was influenced by the thrashy 80s but in Norway during the early 90s something came out of the frozen forest - bands like Burzum, Emperor, Mayhem and Darkthrone.

The music is somewhat overlooked due to one of the guys committing suicide and another stabbing his "friend" to death oh and a lot of churches were burnt down.

A misguided section about some art guy who does a show on black metal which includes a gay performance art piece with Frost from Satyricon "I like his look" but I guess like any underground scene the media eventually gets hold of it, the fashion gets adopted and $$$$$ so hopefully these scenes are commentary on those inevitable aspects.

But back to the suicide and murder, let's put this in context,  plenty of people commit suicide and dicks kill their friends everyday over disagreements, It's not something particular to black metal music however anti religious sentiment is (anti religion means all religion including satanism) they're anti organised religion, especially those that force their beliefs on others - many of those stave churches were built by Christians over pagan sites dedicated to norse gods.

YES - these guys are artists not satanists

Deadly Friend

Paul is smart and nerdy and makes his own retarded robot friend BB, retarded because all it can say is it's own name "BB! BB!" and make stupid baby sounds which are supposed to be endearing but because it's voiced by a raspy old man just make him sound like a pervert.

He meets drippy Tom and abused Samantha and it's all fun and games until BB gets shot and Samantha gets killed by her father.

Luckily as well as studying robotics 15 year old Paul is also a whiz at brain surgery and ends up making a Samanatha/BB zombie which doesn't know if it's a girl or a robot and promptly goes on a murdering rampage.

There's 3 gore scenes which seem inserted ad hoc to make this a horror film but it's more sci fi and there's no sex or cussing so seems surprising charming.

Oh and this is directed by Wes Craven.

YES - the track playing over the credits has to be heard to be believed.

Brothers

With their massive blue eyes and weird mouths, Tobey and Jake at least look like real brothers.

Tobey Maguire is a a captain (!) in the marines and is off to Afghanistan for a second tour. Jake Gyllenhaal is his brother who just out of jail, looks after Tobey's family when he goes missing presumed dead.

This is a remake of a film originally made in 2004 by Danish director Susanne Bier, this time directed by Jim Sheriden who made In America and like that film uses real sisters to play his young female siblings.

He really gets amazing performances out of them and they are by far the best actors in this film - naturalistic, warm and truthful, they come across way better than the stricken oscar baiting performance of Tobey Maguire or the wooden Natalie Portman. Jakes fine.

Everything looks and feels icy and calculated and ultimately disappointing, I'm off to find the original.

NO - should be called "Sisters" for the wonderful Isabelle and Maggie Cahill. 

Where the Wild Things Are

I'm not a fan of the much loved children's book this is based on, I'm a fan of Spike Jonze and wanted to see what kind of world he creates with this and it is a beautiful one; forest next to ocean next to desert, wooden forts and a forever sunset light.

Max's parents are divorced and after getting into a fight with his mum he runs aways and ends up amongst the wild things who are essentially his personality split into different aspects. The wild things are looking for a king (parent) and Max takes on this role or tries to, it's hard being a parent.

A mixture of puppet and CG, the wild things are dirty, snotty, a bit ugly and a lot childish which helps Max in his transition to young adult. Max makes the important discovery that the world doesn't actually resolve around him.

The downers are the shitty soundtrack by Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the choice of voice actors for the wild things. I can never understand why directors choose actors with such well known voices for their none human characters. I can in a disney film where it somehow makes them more $ but this is art house and I don't want to see Tony Soprano coming out of a big puppet face.

YES - this is adults only.

Deadly Blessing

Little watched Wes Craven film about country couple Martha and John, whose neighbours are Hitite (not the amish but dressed like the amish and using horse carriages like the amish)

Some weird shit goes down in the barn and the Hitites are muttering about an Incubus. Marthas city friends (including a young saucy Sharon Stone) come and stay with her but this doesn't stop the stabbings, weird dreams and snake in the bath.

Is a person responsible or something else...

This is a strange one almost saved by a completely ridiculous out of nowhere ending that no one would see coming, its the type of ending that comes out of desperation, after all the and then, and thens you just go fuck it - It was all a dream.

NO - what the hell is going on? 

Whip It

Straight to DVD.

How come? It's not that bad and the 2 main characters of Bliss and Pash are the most realistic 17 year old best friends I've ever seen on screen.

Excellent Ellen Page is Bliss who discovers Roller Derby but has to keep it secret from her beauty pageant pushing mother.

I was really getting into the 90’s setting when Bliss' father looks up her team on the internet and I thought hold on a minute if this is 1995 then how come they have a computer and internet in their house? so I don’t actually know when this is set but I enjoyed it more thinking it was the 90s.

Directed by Drew Barrymore it reminds me of Karate Kid that type of training, fighting the villain and falling for someone along the way film. Oh and don't forget the special move which in this film is the "whip it"

NO - I’m sure that real life roller derby players will be horrified. I wouldn't say get it out however if you end up watching it on tv for some reason you'll watch it through to the end.

Black Rain

This terrible film is actually awesome!

Michael is Nick Conklin (Conklin?) an American cop who is escorting a gang member back to Osaka to be arrested but fucks up the hand over and the gang member escapes.

Michael is rude, inept, doesn't even try and speak Japanese or respect the police he's working with and is a massive dick. Along with his partner Andy Garcia, they attempt to hunt down the gang member with or without the help of the Japanese police.

Directed by Ridley Scott, it features all his favourite tricks - lights, smoke and fans. Weirdly he also recreates the smoking silhouette scene from Bladerunner exactly, this time with gaijin hostess Joyce. He also re uses some no doubt expensive wall tile blocks from Bladerunner for good measure (well he couldn't exactly use them in Legend could he?)

YES - motorbikes, smoking, swords, karaoke, lots of cheese but still stylish and enjoyable however I wonder what people from Osaka actually think of this.

Brazil

When I was 17 some friends asked me for movie recommendations, I said I don't know but DONT GET OUT BRAZIL. Somehow they heard this as get out Brazil it's the best movie I've ever seen and like me couldn't watch it all because it's long and boring and they ended up thinking I have terrible taste.

15 years later I thought I'd give it another go....

It is still too long but entertaining enough. A satire on our bureaucratic, youth obsessed society. Civil servant Sam Lowry attempts to correct a paperwork error that sees a Mr Buttle being arrested instead of  Mr Tuttle (an out of place Robert De Niro as a freelance terrorist air conditioner repairman) and ends up becoming an enemy of the state along the way.

Some great buildings and nice design ideas are let down by some shonky effects.

Great scene where Sam attends a funeral for the friend of his plastic surgery obsessed mother. The body has been so destroyed by surgery that the coffin is all that's holding it together and when Sam opens it the body flows out into a meaty puddle of guts (this is much funnier than it sounds)

NO - visually interesting but I'm still saying don't get it out.

Alice in Wonderland

This is my second film I have watched in 3D and the quality is no way near as good as avatar. I'm assuming this is because James used his own 3d camera that he INVENTED and this just converts normal film to 3d as an afterthought.

This is Return to Wonderland but unlike Dorothy, Alice is just not cool and no amount of outfit changes can keep you interested.

Highlights are the air swimming Cheshire cat and the red queens frog footmen. Lowlights unfortunately are Johnny Depp's madhatter and his stupid futterwacken dance at the end which interrupts the tone of the film with it's 90s dance music and is completely unnecessary.

The design is hit and miss. The frames overcrowded and Danny Elfman's soundtrack insipid.

NO - You are old, Tim Burton," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

Antichrist

Chaos reigns.

A woman and man are having sex, meanwhile their young son falls from the window to his death. The woman can't get over her grief and the couple retreat to their cabin where he trys to help her (he's a psychiatrist) but she becomes more unstable.

Lars Von Trier wants to make this about men and woman naming his characters She & He. The couple are adam and eve returning to eden which is no longer a haven, nature is now completely separate from the world of humans and the tree of knowledge is bare and dead.

This film looks great - scenes of their sons death, images of a churning forest and especially haunting are the animals Willem encounters. Actually I'm more disturbed/surprised by those animals than anything Charlotte does and she does some full on shit like snip off her own clitoris.

I enjoyed this because it's confronting and unusual, definitely horrifying but thought provoking as well and that's why it's art not Hostel.

YES - maybe Lars is a scientologist

Shutter Island

Set in the 1950s, Leo is investigating a missing patient at a hospital for the criminally insane.

How does someone go missing on an island? Are the doctors being entirely truthful? What experiments are being performed in the lighthouse?

If you don't realise where this is heading by the time Leo finds the who is patient 67? note then you're a fucking moron, what would be impressive is if you could tell this was a Martin Scorsese film without seeing the credits, but it's not so much the story as the setting and visual style of this film that makes it so interesting. Smoky, stormy, shadowy and slow paced this is a refreshing film to watch amongst all the effects driven 3D hyper action family fare

Great to see always awesome Patricia Clarkson and Mark Ruffalo and Leo is as solid as always (he'll get an oscar one day but not for another 5 years I reckon)

YES - an accomplished adult psychological horror.

Up

The story of a man at the end of his life who has fallen behind the times, his wife is dead and he steadfastly refuses to sell his house which is now surrounded by a huge building site.

Instead of being forced into a retirement home he attaches thousands of helium balloons to his house and takes off to relocate to Paradise Falls, something he and his wife always talked about but never did.

In Paradise Falls he lands in the wrong place and has to "walk" his house over to the waterfall, dragging it like a giant balloon with the help of stowaway Russell, a talking dog and a giant bird. They run into a lost explorer who has been hunting the giant bird for years and will stop at nothing to capture it.

It's about obsession, letting go of the past, realising that your heros may be fallible and reconnecting with young people. This is why Pixar is such a successful studio not because of the high quality of the animation but because it's movies always contain the sad, difficult parts of life along with the goodtimes.

YES - it's true, this is Pixar's best film.

In the Realms of the Unreal

An old man who lives most of his life alone in Chicago spent his time writing and illustrating a 15000 page book. The book tells the story of the 7 Vivian girls who live in the land of Dargannian and are at war with the Glandelinians. Their homeworld is full of dark haired horned girls with giant creatures as their guardians. The 7 Vivian girls are brave, fearless and fight on horseback against the Glandelinian soldiers who are dressed in confederate uniform with leaderboard hats.

It's the type of story school children would write but this incorporates religion and a strong theme of violence against children, with the adults making children their slaves and not letting them have a "normal sleep of the night's season, the right to an education, that we may have an equality of opportunity for developing all that are in us of mind and heart."

Henry Darger just wanted to share his love. Never having a partner or wife he petitioned the church to adopt a child which was rightfully declined as he was extremely poor and had mental health issues. He once asked his landlords how much it cost them to keep their little dog but the 5 dollars a month was too much for him.

Lonely, naive and shy he never shared his work with anyone and it was only when he died that his landlords discovered the hundreds and hundreds of pages of writing and paintings in his room.

There are now many fans of his work and pieces are frequently exhibited and fetch up to $80,000 which is heartbreaking considering if only he had that money when he was alive he could of had his little dog.

YES - if only he had the internet when he was alive.