Film Reviews by GI

Director Ti West's third of his X series of exploitation horror films here following Mia Goth's Maxine character from the 2022 first film where she is the sole survivor of the massacre of her porn filming colleagues. Now its 1985 in Hollywood and she's still working as a porn star and trying to break into mainstream movies but finds herself stalked by a seedy private eye (Kevin Bacon) and possibly hunted by a serial killer known as The Night Stalker. All this cues very gory deaths which just about sums up the horror elements as the film lacks any real tension, scares or terror. It all seems to be just a homage to the video nasty type horror of the 1980s. West gets to film scenes at the Bates House from Psycho (1960) and there's a daft chase scene and a shoot out around the Hollywood sign. Kevin Bacon is very watchable although his seedy private detective is a little stereotypical; Elizabeth Debicki is also good as a hard-nosed British film director but she's underused as is Michelle Monaghan as the cop hunting the serial killer. This is a dark comedy horror that is ok if you liked X and Pearl (both 2022) but they are all vaguely disappointing.

After the box office success of Emmanuelle (1974) director Just Jaeckin seems to have been given carte blanche to make more soft focus, soft porn films that are totally ridiculous and particularly difficult to watch today. This one is based on a real character. Claude (Françoise Fabian) is a well connected woman with a dark past who runs a stream of high class prostitutes and whose clients are powerful men in big business, government and the judiciary. An annoying photographer (Murray Head) seems to be friends with all the girls and manages to take pictures of their clients for the police so he can get his previous convictions cleared away. On the side the CIA are after the photographs too. Anyway none of this daft plot is at all important as it's just a device to link the various sex scenes which basically consist of different couples writhing around on beds, in baths, on beaches etc etc. They are probably the least sexy sex scenes committed to celluloid. It's a dull, stupid film that despite a recent restoration isn't worth your time. Klaus Kinski has a cameo as does Robert Webber who undoubtedly needed the money!!

Overlong and pointless prequel to the fairly popular and successful Hunger Games series that cemented Jennifer Lawrence as a major star. This new film isn't going to do anything like what the originals did, in fact you can lose the will to live reading the title let alone sit through this mess. A disjointed film set in the dystopian future about 60 years or so before the events of the original series. It's meant to follow the origins of Coriolanus Snow on his eventual progression to the tyrannical President played by Donald Sutherland in the first films. This can't make up its mind what sort of bloke he is, here played by Tom Blyth. Is he naive hero or corrupt player in the fascist state of PanAm? This is a pointless addition to the franchise that takes the series nowhere, although it keeps the silly hairdos and costumes and we have a heroine of sorts played by Rachel Zegler in what is basically the Jennifer Lawrence role. Zegler gets to sing though....a lot.... which drags the film and makes it even longer than it needed to be. Peter Dinklage and Viola Davis get to play the evil baddies and Jason Schwartzman is a slimy TV host. A dull, over produced film and an example of when the Film Industry gets it wrong. We didn't need this at all and I'm guessing there's more to come. Groan!

For me Reservoir Dogs remains Quentin Tarantino's best film even though it's a low budget heist movie it was so innovative and unquestioningly a huge surprise back in 1992. There just hadn't been an American crime film like this and despite its reputation for extreme violence there is in fact little on screen that is shocking or gratuitous. It is a however, by its nature, a violent film and Tarantino the writer cleverly made a heist film in which the heist is never seen. Brilliantly edited with flashback snippets that provide back story it is basically about the aftermath of the crime where the robbers arrive at their rendezvous in an abandoned warehouse after the robbery has apparently gone seriously wrong. The robbers all have codenames based on colours and they suspect one of their number is a 'rat'. Despite it's innovative structure and funny conversations about Madonna songs and whether it's right to tip waitresses this is actually a film with much of its storyline stolen from a Hong Kong film called 'City On Fire' (1987), something Tarantino is loathe to admit to this day! (If you don't believe me watch it and you'll soon see.) In any event I don't mean to take anything away from Reservoir Dogs, it remains a significant crime film and viewed today it is still very powerful even when you know how it pans out. The cast of Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen (superb as the psycho 'Mr Blonde') and Steve Buscemi make this a film that you must see.

Another adaptation of the science fiction novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, the most notable of which is the 1956 classic and the highly interesting 1978 version. This version attempts to update the story but has differences notably doing away with the pods that were a dominant part of the original story and the two previous films. Here a NASA space shuttle explodes on returning to Earth and the wreckage is found to contain an alien organism that begins an epidemic. Persons affected, once asleep, are transformed into emotionless replications of themselves and soon these begin to hunt down those who are yet to succumb. Nicole Kidman is a psychiatrist who suspects what is happening and tries to get to her son before it's too late. The film lacks the tension and the slight horror elements of the other versions of this story although there's a gripping chase sequence in the film's climax. Daniel Craig costars as her Doctor boyfriend and Jeffrey Wright supports. Kidman does her best as the mother trying to save her son and the film has some interesting moments but it's not as good as the other films.

A bizarre relationship drama from director Todd Haynes but with two very committed lead performances from Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. Moore plays Gracie, a neurotic woman living in relative affluence in California with her much younger husband Joe (Charles Melton) and family. Years before when she was in her thirties she had a relationship with Joe when he was 13 years old and was briefly imprisoned for it gaining tabloid notoriety as a result. But the relationship thrived and they are now visited by Elizabeth (Portman), a celebrated actress, who is to play Gracie in a new film about the scandal. Elizabeth wants to study Gracie and find out about the relationship in preparation for the role. Elizabeth hangs around learning about the marriage and in particular Gracie and they form a strange frenemy type bond. But soon she begins to see another side to the family and to the nature of the relationship between Gracie and Joe, who is of similar age to her. Moore is as usually excellent here and gives a performance of various shades as the true nature of this very weird situation begins to unravel. Portman is especially good here and her subtle and gradual mimicking of Gracie is clever and interesting and who is actually a 'controller' is open to debate as the narrative pans out. A well acted, interesting and challenging story about control and attitudes. Well worth checking out.

A psychological horror film with Hugh Grant who brings his disarming romcom persona and turns it into a very creepy character. He plays Mr Reid, an Englishman living in s remote house in the USA. He has expressed an interest in the Mormon church and so they have sent round two of their members, the very naive Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and the only slightly more worldly Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) to discuss their faith with him. Telling them his wife is baking a pie and will join them soon he begins to discuss various religious beliefs with them testing their faith with detailed questions. Beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable the two women quickly find they are locked in the house where eventually Reid offers them a bizarre choice of two doors claiming one leads to freedom. This is a cat and mouse style narrative with the humble house turning out to be a labyrinth. Reid is not your usual cinematic monster or psychopath and Grant's charm and smiling face dominate his character hiding a quite unusual agenda. Their are some neat little, hardly obvious references to other films notably The Silence Of the Lambs (1991) and The Shining (1980) in what is an entertaining and creepy film that is well worth your time.

A loose remake of the 1960 classic western. The basic plot is similar, of a small group of mercenaries hired to take on a bigger gang terrorising a small community, here though the Mexican village and bandits are replaced by an American town and a greedy gold mine owner. The names are changed and the end result regarding who of the Seven lives and dies is different but ultimately this is a 'graphic novel' style of western that is built around lots of silhouette shots often in sunset and big shoot 'em up set pieces the last of which is a full on battle. Denzel Washington hires and leads the group and it's not until the very end you get to understand why he takes the job. Chris Pratt fills the Steve McQueen part, and then an assortment of others all with 'special skills' make up the rest with Ethan Hawke in the Robert Vaughn role as the man with a big reputation but who has lost the will for gunplay. It's a reasonably entertaining modern western for a new audience and comparisons with the original are inevitable and in my view it's not a patch on it. But perhaps such comparisons are unfair and unnecessary because this is an action film that has enough new aspects to be taken on its own merits. It has fun, plenty of shooting and a decent baddie played by Peter Sarsgaard. Despite the body count it's surprisingly bloodless and obviously a film for the mass audience. OK but definitely not a classic!

Director Pablo Larrain's biopic of the last days of opera diva Maria Callas is his third in a loose trilogy of biopics of famous women, following Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021). With Maria he has directed what is a rather strange film with a committed performance from Angelina Jolie in the title role. The narrative follows Callas in her last days in Paris in the 1970s, addicted to the hallucinogenic sedative Mandrax, trying to recover her declining voice and possibly wanting to make a comeback; all the while she hallucinates the drug is a journalist (Kochi Smit-McPhee) to whom she shares her past sadnesses and regrets. At times the film is rather laborious and whilst Jolie is rather good with her facial subtleties and calm put downs of fans who approach her it's the overall story of the woman's failing health and inability to take the advice from her faithful retainers and doctor that is all a bit aimless. The film has a sort of over theatricality to it that reminded me of the expressive performances of the past such as Gloria Swanson. Jolie's commanding performance is worth your time with this film and of course the music is superb as most is actual Callas recordings so you get to hear just how good she was in her heyday.

This pilot TV movie heralded the iconic and classic British TV series The Sweeney which ran from 1974 to 78. This film set the standard for the series with it's location filming, violent depiction of the London underworld and the realism of the police in the 1970s. John Thaw in the title role is a Detective Inspector in the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad, he finds modern team working practices difficult as he's used to following his own instincts. When one of his men is brutally murdered Regan is determined to find out who did it despite being ordered to leave it to the Murder Squad. He seeks out his former Sergeant George Carter (Dennis Waterman) to help him and soon they are embroiled in an organised gangland takeover where loyalties change very rapidly. For anyone who loved the TV series or who remembers the 70s well this is a great nostalgic film, very realistic, brilliantly written and a film that deserves a modern audience.

One of the great westerns and a film that effectively certified John Wayne as an actor of ability and range leading him into bigger and better roles. It's also the film that led Montgomery Clift to stardom. The film balances history with mythology, the key mixture that cemented the western as the signature American genre. Historically the film sets itself on the Chisholm Trail, a famous route by which cattle herds were driven from Texas to Kansas, just after the American Civil War. Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a cattle baron who has built his empire from nothing with the help of his adopted son Matthew (Clift) and his friend Groot (Walter Brennan). To survive they have to move their 10,000 head of longhorn cattle north but Dunson plans on Missouri as his destination not believing that the Kansas railways yet exist. It's a more hazardous journey and he becomes obsessed and more tyrannical along the route. This eventually leads to a mutiny led by Matthew and Dunson vows to kill him as a consequence. Essentially the story is the same as Mutiny On The Bounty and in the hands of a master director like Howard Hawks it's an epic film, filled with great scenes of the drive, one of the key themes for the taming of the frontier, and also a tale of revenge, another theme that has filled the genre. This is a key American movie and definitely one to make sure you see but it is also a majestic, beautiful film with plenty of great characters, action and setting. Admittedly I find the ending a little disappointing but it's hard to beat a film of this quality.

Alfred Hitchcock's dark and sinister adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's fantastic romance novel (well worth reading). Filmed in black and white deliberately creating the sense of dread that looms over the story. Joan Fontaine plays a young, timid and naïve woman who by chance meets the domineering, wealthy and aristocratic Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). After a whirlwind romance they marry and she is thrust into the life of a rich socialite for which she is totally unprepared. Maxim takes her back to his ancestral home, Manderley, in Cornwall. But she finds that Maxim's first wife, Rebecca who drowned in a boat accident, has a dominant presence over her life not least perpetrated by the cold and manipulative housekeeper, Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson), and Maxim harbours a dark secret. For what is essentially a romance this plays out like a gothic thriller and in Hitchcock's hands it has a sense of evil attached making it a really compelling film. Fontaine is suitably meek but eventually finds a steely resolve and Olivier plays Maxim as rather chauvinistic and at times quite unpleasant but the reasons soon reveal themselves. This is a masterwork and a classic of cinema, I definitely recommend you see this if you've missed it.

If you've ever doubted Alfred Hitchcock's credentials as a master of the suspense film then you haven't seen Rear Window. Shot completely on one set this is a classic Hollywood thriller with two top quality stars in James Stewart and Grace Kelly. He is L.B. 'Jeff' Jeffries, a renowned magazine photographer (consequently a snoop!), who has broken his leg and over a hot New York summer he's confined to a wheelchair in his apartment. Out of boredom he watches his neighbours going about their everyday business. Then one night, during a thunderstorm, he sees a man who lives opposite him acting suspiciously and after awhile Jeff begins to conclude the man has murdered and dismembered his nagging wife. As Jeff puts his pieces of the 'crime' together he also manages to convince his socialite girlfriend, Lisa (Kelly) of the murder but the police aren't so easily convinced and decide Jeff is fantasising. Hitchcock keeps you asking yourself did a murder happen or are all the clues innocently explained creating some great tension and with a twist surprise ending which I won't spoil in case you've never seen this wonderful film. With its look at the moral issues of voyeurism and privacy the film was ahead of its time and quite raunchy for an early 1950s film. Stewart is really good here, an actor of great range and proving it here in a role that requires mostly close ups and little movement. A must see film, a true masterpiece of the thriller genre.

Historical drama filmed in an epic style riveting owing to the acting performances which are simply perfection. The cast are so impressive and deliver this rich tale of royal plotting and petty rivalry in a story that despite being confined to castle rooms is richly written and utterly compelling. Peter O'Toole plays Henry II who, aged fifty in 1183, is under pressure to name his heir from his three sons, Richard (Anthony Hopkins, in his first full length film role), Geoffrey (John Castle) and John (Nigel Terry). All three covet the throne and all look to their sly and cunning mother, Eleanor (Katharine Hepburn) for help in persuading the temper tantrum prone Henry to pick them. There are no trappings of wealth seen here and the period is accurately portrayed as dirty, damp and draught riddled and the plot plays out in a grimy castle. Hepburn and O'Toole are at the peak of screen acting here and deliver a charismatic battle of love, hate, respect and loathing for one another throughout. It's a long film that a modern audience may find daunting especially as this is not a film of spectacular set pieces but one that is more Shakespearean in style and delivery. Timothy Dalton also impresses as the visiting French King who slyly manipulates all three sons. Award winning this is historical drama at its best. A film to discover.

This is an unusual and interesting horror film from British director Antonia Bird. Set in 1848 Army Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce), having been decorated during the American/Mexican war is sent to Fort Spencer in the Sierra Nevada mountains. He is racked by guilt and trauma over the battle in which he was declared a hero. His new posting only has eight other soldiers and trackers until on a dark winter night Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) stumbles into the camp and once revived tells them how he's survived in the wilderness after his party was stranded and forced to cannibalism and murder. Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones) orders his men search for survivors but Colqhourn isn't telling them the entire truth and soon things quickly go awry. Whilst this fits into the horror genre there's an originality to this one. Not only in its setting and time but in the hands of Antonia Bird it has fun, scares and a really unpredictable plot, and it certainly twists in unexpected directions. Once you've seen it you can see the clever use of some horror film tropes and it plays on the familiar theme in horror based on insatiable hunger, a theme that drives the vampire film for example and is here used in a unique setting and on a subject that has none of the romanticism that the vampire film holds. Cannabilism is a truly horrific subject and whilst the zombie film indulges in freely here we have rationale humans struggling for survival and yet this is a hugely enjoyable film with a great cast. Bird, now sadly no longer with us, was a highly talented director and could turn her hand to any genre and her other films are worth seeking out. However, even if you aren't normally into horror films try this one it will really surprise you. A fantastic little film, really entertaining and one I guarantee you'll enjoy.