Powder Room (2013)

Sam goes to the kind of classy club that has wall-to-wall sluts and gibbering E-heads caressing faux leather chairs. She spends most of the evening in the ladies room attempting to sustain the elaborate fiction she’s created about her life to make it seem less shitty.
I have no doubt that somewhere there’s a seventeen-year-old, possibly waiting for Beauty Therapy class to break for lunch so that she can take a selfie wearing her glittery new Lily Allen t-shirt, who thinks that Powder Room is the best film ever made. For her, it probably is. For me, it’s a glimpse into an alien world with some interesting anecdotes and reveals about the importance of being true to yourself, but with no one to care about.

1 slice of shitcake out of 5

Cold Heaven (1991)

Dir. Nicolas Roeg is skilled at creating expectation and unease, but his films can be challenging. Cold Heaven ticks those boxes.
At the centre of events is a woman struggling with bereavement and a guilty conscience. It’s a downbeat journey that offers little in the way of space to breathe for a very long time. It’s one of the many films that I can see the merits of but have no desire to ever revisit. Someone who holds, or once held, religious beliefs may feel differently about developments and will surely be better equipped to sympathise with the protagonist.
The cover art is slightly misleading; there are some creepy moments but don't expect the kind of horror that it implies.

2½ haunted thoughts out of 5

Harlequin (1980)

aka Dark Forces in the USA

Harlequin freaked me the hell out when I was a kid. It wasn't a monster in the attic or under the bed kind of scare, it was the more terrifying psychological kind that takes a youth’s sheltered worldview and shatters it like glass. Every tiny shard contained within it the reality that some things just can’t be explained, so you better get used to it.
I wasn't expecting it to hold up to adult scrutiny, but in some ways it does and most certainly doesn't in others. You’ll need to disengage the part of your brain that says ‘This is nonsense,’ when the parlour tricks go OTT and instead engage completely with the “deep end” of events.

3½ remissions out of 5

The Return of the King (1980)

The Return of the King is Rankin/Bass’ sequel to their earlier film The Hobbit (1977), but it also shamelessly capitalises on Ralph Bakshi’s more successful Lord of the Rings (1978) feature by doing what he was denied a chance to do: it finishes the story. While the battle of Minas Tirith rages, Frodo and Sam walk and walk some more toward Mount Doom to carry out Tolkien’s disappointing ending that I never really liked.
It’s stylistically similar but thematically darker than The Hobbit, so the happy folk songs fit less comfortably.

2½ lashes out of 5

Tower Block (2012)

A British movie set almost entirely inside a building that’s notorious for its shitty lighting and pissy corners didn't fill me with optimism, but Tower Block squeezed every last drop of urban grit out of the story mop and used the gloomy setting as a tool, so kudos to all involved.
The cast are mostly believable and nicely varied; they represent the smudgy part of the societal spectrum that people in a three bedroom semi-detached with front and rear garden are completely blind to.
It’s aka ‘Thon Big-ass Blocka Flats’ in some parts of the country, probably.

3 monkeys out of 5

The Survivor (1981)

An Aussie drama based on a James Herbert novel of the same name. It’s been twenty years since I read the book, so a comparison is impossible.
It revolves around a plane crash that kills everyone onboard except one man, who walks away unharmed. The questions of why the crash happened and why he alone survived the devastation give rise to an ingrained sense of unease and foreboding that’s difficult to pin down. Some coincidental creepy happenings elsewhere help make things more compelling.
I enjoyed the majority of the film, but only because I fit into a very specific pigeonhole: I'm a fan of both Robert Powell and Jenny Agutter and I loved composer Brian May's atmospheric score and the eerie sound effects.

3½ pieces of event out of 5

My Cousin Vinny (1992)

MCV isn't bursting at the seams with plot, but it makes up for that in spades by having heaps of charm and characters worth caring about. It’s a comedy about two young NY guys who get their asses deep in trouble in Alabama and need a lawyer. They get Vinny. He’s a legal fish out of water but he’s got something to prove, so he throws his heart and soul into the work.
The cast are all excellent. Joe Pesci is his usual self and perfect for the role. Marisa Tomei provides support and sparkle. Seeing the wonderful Fred Gwynne without bolts in his neck is also a rare treat.

3½ rides in the back of the prison bus out of 5

Species: The Awakening (2007)

Fans of crap sci-fi, horror, tits and jumping alien Mexican nuns rejoice, for The Awakening gives you all those things in one place.
To be fair, if the Species connection had been eliminated and the entire thing was recast with real actors things could've been different. There’s a workable central theme that would be a solid basis for a tense, violent sci-fi thriller. Nevertheless, and against all the odds (it's a SyFy original), it trumps the abominable Species III (2004).

2 community relations out of 5

The Aswang Phenomenon (2011)

Jordan Clark's fascinating look at a mythological creature that terrorises the Philippines: the Aswang. It flies at night, kills and eats babies and foetuses. But that’s only one interpretation. The Aswang has many different forms and serves many different functions, including religious control of a population taught from a young age to fear the unknown.
The documentary uncovers the etymology and the origins of the creature that dominates the folklore of ninety-seven million people.
It's not a big budget film, but it makes the best of what it has by balancing the factual and supernatural aspects well.

3½ transformations out of 5

Thinner (1996)

An unscrupulous, overweight lawyer gets cursed by a bitter gypsy hell-bent on extracting vengeance. It’s a serving of just deserts; the bowl in which the serving sits is functional but lacks style.
There’s some black humour scattered but not enough to detract from the detestable nature of everyone involved or spice up the blandness.

2 killer diets out of 5

Futureworld (1976)

A sequel to Westworld (1973) written by people other than Crichton and directed by Richard T. Heffron. It’s been two years since the robots ran amok, but the Delos Corporation is back in business. When there’s money to be made and rich people to exploit, memories are short.
In the time honoured tradition of sequels it aims to be bigger and better but typically achieves only one of those things.
The investigative approach was interesting but it’s wasted, partly because Peter Fonda’s acting is cardboard (that’s a few steps down from wooden).
Yul Brynner’s inclusion smells of contractual obligation; he provides a fun distraction from the rest of the crap but is superfluous to the main plot.

2 human errors out of 5

Westworld (1973)

A futuristic theme park is the setting for the rich hedonist, romanticist or thrill-seeker to indulge in guilt-free jollies in Roman World, Medieval World and West World, respectively. It’s classic 70s 'technology gone wrong' sci-fi written and directed by Michael Crichton.
I've loved the film for over twenty years and it still has me transfixed today even though it's been copied many times since. It was the first time I’d ever seen the western and the sci-fi genre brought together.
The music is dramatic in all the right places and Crichton’s direction is shrewd. Yul Brynner is superb as the menacing, relentless gunslinger; he hardly speaks but you’ll remember him long after the credits roll.

4 perilous LARPs out of 5

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

Natasha Lyonne plays seventeen-year-old Megan, who journeys bravely through a pastel-coloured hell of categorising and group therapy.
Don't be put off by the garish cover art. It's not a damp chick flick. It's a smart coming of age/coming out comedy drama that touches almost all bases and takes a wry look at gender issues along the way. There's a good balance of sentimentality and satire throughout, and even though it'll be a little predictable for some folks it won't matter in the slightest because it does what it does with pom poms held high.

3½ vaginal motifs out of 5

Screaming in High Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen Era (2011)

If you ventured into a shady corner of an independent video store in the 80s, you’d likely have seen colourful boxes on the higher shelves with titles like The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Teenage Exorcist (1991) and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988). You might even have picked one up and tried to look older as you walked sheepishly to the counter. This doc looks at the work of three of the most hard-working women in that genre, women who collectively gave boners to about 50% of the teenage male population: Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer. They shatter the cheap-slut image the media painted them with; they’re respectful and intelligent people that did a job and helped define an era.

3 girls your momma wouldn't like out of 5

Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)

Fuck nostalgia, this was better than the original Heavy Metal (1981). It’s based on a graphic novel that I haven’t read called The Melting Pot (1995) created by Kevin Eastman, Eric Talbot and Simon Bisley. There's some guff about a key in space and eternal life, but there's a shard that glows green so we can at least pretend it's connected to the previous film.
It's not an anthology this time, meaning both the story and art style are more consistent, except for the addition of some crap CGI.
It plays Voivod over the opening credits, so I can’t complain too much.

2½ broken eggs out of 5

Fortress 2: Re-Entry (2000)

Sequel to the adventurous but ultimately average Fortress (1992). By attempting another escape, John Henry (strictly, still guilty) pokes a metaphorical middle finger up the nose of a tyrannical prison supervisor, but first he must find a way to disable the watchful computer eye.
The question you should be asking yourself now is: wasn't that exactly what happened in the previous film? The answer is yes.
Beneath the futuristic paint job it’s a prison movie by numbers; it even has a day one fight in the dining hall. I hate seeing food wasted.

1½ behaviour modifications out of 5

Violent Cop (1989)

Kitano is a pissed-off cop with some unorthodox methods in his directorial début. He uses violence often because he knows it gets results. It's methodical but can appear casual. He’ll bitch-slap and humiliate anyone he feels deserves it, but when events turn personal, when his role as protector is compromised, the level increases and is sustained.
He’s not credited as writer, but his revisions to the original script are clear to see and his persona dominates all parts of it. The transposition of honed comedy timing into filmmaking style makes the changes in tone swift and unexpected, like a good joke or a cutting remark.

4 wild acts out of 5

A Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies (2000)

A revealing look at the Japanese auteur's working method using structured chapters that focus on one aspect of the craft at a time. It was shot by his son Hisao and features input from Akira's daughter Kazuko. It's a kind of 'make films the Kurosawa way' class that'll give you a deeper appreciation of the lengths his cast and crew went to in order to realise the vision.
Of special interest to me was seeing some of the stunning storyboards that he reportedly spent a decade painting in preparation for Ran (1985). If they're not already collected together in a book, they ought to be.

3½ shades of emotion out of 5

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)

Gamera's ninth outing is the first of three in the Heisei era reboot. It's a kaijū movie that builds tension in the usual way by having a small group of humans tracking the destruction left by the beast(s) before the eventual reveal. The beasts are familiar giant, carnivorous, featherless birds.
There’s an ecological message beneath the chaos, but it’s the destruction of model cities that most people want to see and it doesn't disappoint.
Gamera (the creature) is awesome. He looks like a fat, stumpy turd on radar but when he surfaces he’s towering and menacing with none of the bad comedic decisions that were forced upon him in some of the previous films.

3½ shadows of evil out of 5

Castaway (1986)

Who wouldn't want to trade the filth of city life for a desert island? I'm not sure I’d want to do it with Gerald (Ollie Reed), though, especially if I was female. Lucy (Amanda Donohoe) does just that. Gerald’s laziness and increasing desire for sex push their relationship to breaking point.
The two leads give it their all, but the story just isn't very exciting.
It’s Roeg’s cross-cutting technique that surfaces as the most interesting aspect of the film. It’s not his best work, but his contrasts are always interesting to me and the island setting is well-suited to his talents.

2½ stormy nights out of 5

Spider (2007)

A short film about Jack and Jill, a romantically involved couple who've had an argument but are stuck together in a car. I can’t say much more than that, other than there’s some (very) black humour. It doesn't do anything amazing from a technical point of view, but the impact of the story raises it above average.

3 shrieks out of 5

Uzumaki (2000)

Respect to Higuchinsky for attempting to turn Junji Ito’s manga into a film, but the end result isn't very successful. It was a good idea to shuffle some of the episodic stories together, but the structure is still shaky, the dialogue isn't very interesting and the casting of the two leads is poor. But what lets it down the most is the low budget. Money was needed to turn Ito’s warped creations into a reality and they just don’t work without it. Even the occasional flourish in other areas fails to compensate.

2 twisted tales out of 5

I Know That Voice (2013)

A documentary that gives people who voice animated characters the opportunity to voice their views about the business. It touches briefly on anime dubs but it's mostly about American cartoons.
People like John DiMaggio, Billy West, Hank Azaria, Clancy Brown and Tara Strong offer insight. It’s not simply about turning up and talking funny, there’s a lot of creativity involved. The way some of them are able to slip from one voice to another in the same sentence is mind-blowing.

3 timbres out of 5

Naked Soldier (2012)

Naked Killer (1992) was entertaining and Naked Weapon (2002) was tolerable. but Naked Soldier is almost unwatchable. It has some excellent stunt work in the last half hour but it’s wasted because it’s captured so badly; it’s on a par with most cheap American action movies. I miss the days when Chinese action cinema kicked all kinds of ass.
If Jennifer Tse avoids crap like this in future she might go far.
Somehow it also managed to attract the talents of Sammo Hung and Anthony Wong Chau-Sang. I’m a fan of both those guys, but Sammo is the only one of the two that comes out the other side with dignity intact.

1 brainwashing out of 5

Planet Hulk (2010)

An alien world in need of a saviour gets the Hulk. Worst luck.
It’s based on Greg Pak’s comic arc of the same name but has a lot of content missing. That changes how the story fares, as you’d expect, but also in an ironic way. The comic started good but ran out of steam in the second half. The animation starts out decidedly average and steadily climbs. Along the way it dared to do things that I’d not seen in any other lazy Marvel animation. That reward made the journey worth it.

2½ strengths out of 5

Shinjuku Incident (2008)

While far from home, searching for an old flame, Jackie becomes a victim of circumstance, but being a victim isn't in his nature.
It has a Chinese action star on the cover and a Chinese director behind the lens but it resembles a Japanese Yakuza movie 90% of the time.
It was odd seeing Jackie in this kind of film. With none of his trademark kung fu and no comedy the focus shifts to his acting ability. Happily, like the character he plays, he’s upped his game considerably. He proved that his move into serious drama might work. It’s a shame that the film in which he proved it is so forgettable. It drags on for too long and ends leaving a number of unresolved and half-forgotten elements.

3 bad decisions out of 5

At Five in the Afternoon (2003)

The first Iranian film made in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban can’t help but be political, but there’s a woman’s story at the heart of it, so even though most Western viewers will lack the specific knowledge needed to appreciate it fully the universal language of film translates enough for it to be enjoyed by everyone.

Nogreh dreams of becoming President, but tradition dictates that women should not be educated for roles that are the preserve of men. If she wishes to attend school she must do so in secret.

The bickering and study of poverty border on vérité, but there's an almost magical quality, too, for despite the weight of tragedy that pervades, an echo of hope accompanies each of Nogreh’s high-heeled steps.

3 matching brollies out of 5

The Eye 2 (2004)

A desperate cry for help leaves a young woman with the ability to see ghosts. They’re terrifying, shadowy things that occupy empty spaces and invade the personal space of others when they feel like it.
The story is unconnected to The Eye (2002) but came from the same creative team. The addition of a secondary story running alongside the horror adds a new dimension to the scares. The two halves take a long time to find any kind of synergy, but when they do it gifts the narrative with more emotional depth than the first film had.
Some say it's not as chilling as before, but I disagree; there are moments that scared all seven shades of shit out of me.

4 passengers out of 5

Gardens with Red Roses (2009)

Debbie and Dominic are shacked up in Debbie’s grandfather’s cramped council house. Their dream of owning a home of their own drives them, so they do everything they can to realise that dream.
The film effectively highlights the different challenges that daily life presents those with youth and those who've moved into old age. There’s more edge to the story that I won’t reveal, and I fear that by doing so the film will miss its target audience, but that part of it shouldn't be ignored.
To date, it's Richard Oliver’s only entry on IMDB. Hopefully someone will give him lots of condition-free money to make more great works like it.

3½ values out of 5

Sex and Fury (1973)

A more apt title would be ‘Sex, Fury and Politics,’ because they're what the film is unevenly split between. The ‘Fury’ is by far the best of the three aspects but it’s the part that receives the least screen time, which is a great shame, because when the swordplay erupts the frame comes alive and the blood spurts are more than satisfying. When that same principle is taken to the card table, sparks replace the blood. If the conflict of interests that underpins the Meiji era politics had equalled the violence for drama the film would be even more deserving of the praise it currently receives.

3½ bloodstained flower cards out of 5

Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976)

Lyle Wheeler, the ‘outlaw’ of the title, played by Marjoe Gortner, thinks of himself as a modern day Billy the Kid. He’s aware that his actions will have consequences, but he does them anyhow. He robs and cheats his way from State to State and picks up a few companions on the way.
The only notable aspect of the entire film is seeing Lynda Carter being deviant shortly before she became a TV role model for children as the costumed Wonder Woman. Without her it’d likely have slipped forgotten into the place where all films with crappy editing end up.

2½ differences out of 5

Sleeping Bride (2000)

Japanese director Hideo Nakata is best known for his Ringu horror movies, but SB is almost the polar opposite of Ringu. It's based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka and is perhaps best described as a modern fairytale about a sleeping girl and the male high school student who's besotted with her.
It's a sweet film that very occasionally resembles a live-action Ghibli, but unfortunately those moments are mere ballast. If they'd been used more effectively the story would've had more of an impact. As it is now, it's reliant primarily on Kenji Kawai's score to provide any kind of emotional punch beyond Nakata's simplistic sentimentality.

2½ better days out of 5

Sky High (2003)

After seeing potential in the genre-bending Versus (2000) about a decade ago, I hoped that Ryûhei Kitamura would someday get the opportunity to put his talents to better use and make a great film, but this isn't it. It’s a prequel to a TV Series that's based on a manga. If everyone (except Hiromasa Taguchi) had been replaced with cast members who could act and not just look good on a magazine cover, and if Kitamura had taken more risks, the film could've been worth the time invested in it. Perhaps then I wouldn't have spent almost two hours wondering when it was going to get good and why it was even called Sky High. If I'd seen the series I may have felt differently about the story, but a lot of that would still apply.

2 destinations out of 5

BAD WORDS [2014]

Actor Jason Bateman makes his directorial debut with the twisted comedy, Bad Words.
Filled with some hilariously mean-spirited one-liners, the film is sure to offend and disturb anyone who's a bit too light-hearted to indulge in this sort of nasty sarcasm.  Bateman is superb as the vulgar and unlikable lead adult character who pushes his way into a child's national spelling bee contest.  As funny as the film can be, it falls short of anything memorable or a lack of topical conversation afterwards.
To put it simply, Bad Words is just alright.

3 girls without nipples out of 5

Female Prisoner Scorpion #701: Grudge Song (1973)

A new director helmed this fourth entry's return to the WIP camp. It strays awkwardly into theatrical territory on a few occasions, but mostly it stays on a straight path. Matsu gets to share the film with someone else for a time, which is beneficial in giving her character purpose.
Meiko Kaji’s presence means it’s still better than a lot of other exploitation flicks of the era, but the first two films in the series are so good that everything that followed was cast in their shadow, and the addition of some not-quite-Nazi female guards felt like it was pulling the original intent in a different direction.
Grudge Song was the last of the Meiko era films. The series was continued but with a different actress in the Sasori role.

3 lengths of rope out of 5

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Beast Stable (1973)

The third Female Prisoner Scorpion film was Shunya Itō’s last. Again he brought something completely new to the table; none of the entries so far are a simple rehash. The use of sound is as exciting as before, but by taking fewer avant-garde risks visually it lost its edge a little. It more closely resembles a straightforward escaped convict/detective drama, albeit one with incest, scalpel murders and a violent prostitution ring.
There’s a deep melancholy infused in both the environment and the Sasori character; she seems lost when she has no one to outwardly hate.

3 useful prison skills out of 5

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)

In most cases a sequel capitalises on whatever it was that specifically made the original stand out by turning it up to suffocating proportions, but not so with the second Sasori film. Shunya Itō relocates it and then throws in a hefty dollop of ghostly theatrics and experimentalism. The result is a film that’s as surreal as it is violent. Matsu doesn't say very much throughout but her steely gaze reveals more than words could.
The camera doesn't just capture the action, it narrates and participates. Itō proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that in the right hands exploitation cinema can be a genuine art form.

4 bus rides out of 5

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion (1972)

Shunya Itō's début as director was the first in a series of Sasori (Scorpion) films. It has all the elements you’d expect to see in a pinku eiga WIP (Women in Prison) feature, nudity, bondage, sadism, etc, but it has much more to offer than just that: Itō's stylistic framing, symbolism, inventiveness, transitions and sheer disregard for convention is highly entertaining. The brutality of the women toward each other is sometimes hard to watch, but the strength and determination of the Scorpion (Meiko Kaji) needs that kind of struggle in order to be fully explored.

4 grudge melodies out of 5

Zatoichi and the Chess Expert (1965)

In the blind swordsman’s 12th film Ichi’s usual gambling antics get him into real trouble, which incidentally puts more than his own life in danger. The arrival of the titular Chess expert (it’s really Shogi) adds an extra level of danger to an already difficult, heartbreaking situation.
The film rewards fans that have been with the series from the beginning. It can still be enjoyed as a standalone adventure like most of the others, but if you've travelled with the masseur and shared his pain in the early days then the emotional aspect of the story will take on extra weight.

3½ tactical parallels out of 5