Film Reviews by Alphaville

A young woman on parole gets a job as housemaid to a psychotic wife and her hulky husband. Obviously it’s not going to go well. But if you think you’ve seen it all before, just hang on in there. This is unexpectedly riveting stuff, especially if you don’t know the book on which it’s based. The three leads are great, the script keeps you on edge and the direction is flawless.

After two exciting films, this fourth film in the franchise actually manages to be even worse than the third. Awful script, risible dialogue, amateur direction. The actors stand no chance. It’s for brain-dead gore fans only. Well done if you get through even the first drawn-out sequence of nonsense before reaching for the FF button. And if you can stand an even worse viewing experience, try watching it with ‘super-excited’ director Nia DaCosta’s commentary to discover, like, how amazing she thinks it all is, like.

This is more of a low-budget re-enaction than a feature film, with a single-house location and all dialogue copied from a transcription of a real FBI interrogation. Doesn’t sound like a must-see, but it’s surprisingly engrossing, even thrilling. If you don’t know Reality’s story (Reality is the lead character’s name) it will draw you into her predicament when FB guys (all guys) accost her outside her house. What do they think she’s done? Why doesn’t she ask them? As the reasons unravel, it’s increasingly involving. It’s also fascinating to see how the FBI work in real life - extremely polite but with a menacing edge of steel. Don’t expect a visual treat but, at just over an hour, this is an engrossing watch.

The unforgiveable problem with this absurdist, episodic, scatter-gun satire on modern society is that it doesn’t engage the viewer. The first episodes work – zombified students on their phones, a mother having her murdered son cloned – but the whole is an OTT mess. It’s more of an intellectual exercise than an engaging film, built around a ridiculous guy from the future who’s here to save us. I think he’s meant to be funny but he doesn’t half go on. The whole is certainly to be applauded for making a cinematic effort at having something to say, but unfortunately I’d given up caring long before the ridiculous ending with the giant cat.

I saw this when it first came out in 1972, but even then the tale of a bunch of hippies finding a hidden valley complete with tribespeople in the wilds of New Guinea was a disappointment. The main draw for us in those days was the hippy vibe and the Pink Floyd score. Seeing it again, it hasn’t aged well. It really is amateurish film-making. The plot and direction are virtually non-existent and so is the the Pink Floyd score. Worth a look, maybe, but notable only as a curiosity and, considering its time, for its full-frontal male nudity.

For our standard Japanese anime schoolgirl heroine, everything has a colour aura. This enables the director to play with the film’s colour palette… and it’s well-animated in the typical Japanese school-set lo-key way… but the long talky scenes, expressionless faces and one-note vocals (even in the VO) soon pall. The drawn-out flimsy plot has her joining an electronic band and this eventually leads to the film’s saving grace. If it gets as boring for you as it did for me, FF to the last fifteen minutes, where the band perform a beautifully-realised rock-on concert. If only the rest of the film had such energy.

A shaggy-dog tale of two troubled guys who kidnap a female exec believing she is an alien. Although billed on the DVD sleeve as a comedy, there are no laughs and at times it delves into horror tropes. The main problem is that it’s overlong and the snail-pace plot just can’t fill the time available. Cue long drawn-out dialogue scenes and characters who don’t always act ‘in-character’ in order to inject plot twists. It would probably work better as a theatrical chamber piece. So why as many as three stars? It does make you wonder what’s eventually going to happen next, and the blasts of ironic music certainly perk matters up.

There’s so much wrong with this movie. The in-yer-face camerawork that wears you down, the scattergun plotting, the sleazy characters, the annoying snippets of music… But the main problem is the main character, who is a pain to spend any time with. As for the table tennis, there’s barely any… and swinging a shaky-cam left and right to film the players doesn’t help. Plus it’s far too long. I gave up during the seemingly endless boring central section involving New York gangster types.

Bland, over-acted, laugh-free ‘comedy’ that’s unaccountably billed as a horror film on the DVD sleeve (that’s the only joke that works). Unless you’re into Jack Black pulling faces, stay well clear. As for the anaconda of the title, it barely puts in an appearance.

Introverted Japanese office worker Kumiko becomes obsessed with the film Fargo and with finding the suitcase full of money buried under snow in a Minnesota field. It’s an intriguing premise that fuels an interesting plot as we follow her into the backwoods of a Minnesota winter. Rinko Kikuchi makes an appealing lead and director David Zellner immerses you both in her curious obsession and the wintry wilderness she must explore. A beautifully observed film, both visually and thematically, with a perfectly attuned discordant score.

No spoilers, but the whole story’s in the trailer anyway. Shakespeare gets married, their child dies and that inspires his Hamlet play. How slow is it? It takes half an hour for the pair just to meet and marry. Despite having an acclaimed indie Chinese director (blame Sundance), it’s just as boring as most English ‘heritage’ dramas. One dull static scene follows another, totally devoid of visual flair. The dim lighting (ok, there was no electricity in Will’s day) and the plinky-plonk score don’t help. You have to feel sorry for the cast, who act their socks off to no avail. Well done if you stick around for the last act when the play is performed.

As a Star Trek fan, I can’t believe the glowing reviews on this website. Having watched the first three episodes (eventually resorting to FF to get through them), this is almost as boring as Deep Space Nine. Low-key, talky, lacking action, lacking any interesting characters, devoid of any good SF ideas… I won’t be watching any further to see if it improves.

In a futuristic game show, our clichéd hero, whose only redeeming feature is that he loves his family (yawn), has to avoid being killed by professional assassins-who-can’t-shoot-straight for 30 days. It takes the film half an hour to get to this point. When the month begins, in front of an audience baying for blood (naturally), you’d think he’d just go and hide. Instead he books into a hotel. Do you think the assassins will find him? Do you think any of their bullets will hit him? With action scenes over-edited to shreds, the whole shebang is a mess from start to finish.

Obviously made on a small budget, this 80min attempt at a western is pure TV fare. It’s all about the final titled gunfight, a boring shoot-em-up further ruined by lots of slo-mo and blood spatter. Worth a watch only as an object lesson in how not to make a western. The end credits mention a sequel, so let’s hope the producers get someone in who knows what they’re doing.

This is an engrossing and scenic thriller set in the wintry wilderness of Finland (standing in for Minnesota). It’s Ice Road Truckers country. No muscle-bound superheroes here, just a namneless sixty-something fisherwoman (Emma Thomson) caught up in a kidnapping plot. Sounds flat, but the tense plot never lets up and the beautifully-photographed scenery lifts it to a whole new level. As a bonus, it even packs an unexpected emotional punch.