Film Reviews by LC

Partly a homage to the Godzilla movies of old, Big Man Japan is a strange part-documentary, part monster-movie comedy. The effects are fairly low budget, which add to the bizareness of the situations. The ending kind of loses the plot a bit, but it's a fun ride.

A beautifully shot portmanteau of ancient Japanese ghost stories. It's pretty long, and slow and ponderous, but this all adds to the atmosphere. The stages interiors are beautiful to look at, and it also has a wonderful soundtrack that adds to the other worldliness of the film. Not one for "horror" fans, but definately worth watching.

The new cast do a good job at portraying the characters, but the script is dull and lifeless, with very little humour. Disappointing.

The story is an interesting one, and the recovered footage of the lost film is good to see, but the documentary is really about the whole history of the town, from it's inception during the gold rush, up to the 70's when the films were rediscovered. Not a problem, but the story does tend to meander quite a lot. Also, the music is pretty terrible, long and droning. A good film, but should have been much shorter (and with a different soundtrack).

I watched this on the back of the directors other movie; "The Greasy Strangler", which is highly recommended for those nostalgic of the trash cinema of John Walters. Sadly this film doesn't live up to the previous experience. It's dotted with some good oddball seedy characters, but the plot is too thin, and the payoff of the final performance is, although bizarre, disappointing.

There's not a lot to like about this film. The characters are generally unlikeable, and get more so as the film goes on. The dialogue is absurd, with witty repartee being mandatory to anything anyone says. There's a lot of misery, illness and death. the poetry is OK, but you'd probably be better off buying a book of poetry than sitting through this film.

Have to agree with the other reviewer here. The first part about the plight of Portuguese dockworkers and wasp killers was too dull to make it worth continuing. The style of filming and narrative was unfocused and not engaging. Not recommended.