Film Reviews by GI

With the tones of British folk horror director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have returned to the 'rage' virus that they started with their excellent 28 Day Later (2002). Britain is now an isolated country with foreign coastal patrols spotted to keep both the infected and uninfected in and visitors out as the virus continues to thrive. A small community of survivors has grown on Holy Island off the north east coast protected by a tidal causeway but having to fend for themselves. The centre of the story is a coming-of-age narrative that's sees 12 year old Spike (Alfie Williams) taken to the mainland by his father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in a rite of passage foray to kill any infected they come across. Spike learns there's a crazy but uninfected doctor named Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) living on the mainland relatively close by so against his father's wishes he ventures out with his very ill and mentally confused mother (Jodie Comer) to find him and in the hope he has a cure for his mum. On this journey Spike discovers more than he bargained for! Kelson is a sort of Kurtz figure and the infected (for the first time in the '28' films there is a mention of the word zombie) have evolved with some variants including very fast and big alpha ones. This is a film that confronts death and presents it as a part of life that should be recognised and respected. Spike learns the lesson of death mainly from Kelson but also with the experiences he faces. Technically the film is set around 2030 and so you have to be mindful that events we are all familiar with, some world changing, have not occurred within the film's storyline which will mean the film's ambiguous ending will mean more to British audiences than perhaps to others. I wondered if Boyle and Garland are making some kind of joke with it but it is a set up for the next film in what has been claimed will be a trilogy. But with it's allegory to Brexit and Britain's increased isolation from the world this film is a bold, intriguing and clever horror film.

An amusing Regency romp with just the right amount of comedy that does occasionally threaten to drop into farce. It entertains and will appeal to fans of the TV series Bridgerton especially in its use of the 'alt-history' idea of casting without worrying about the actor's ethnicity. Mr Malcolm (Sope Dirisu) is the most eligible bachelor in town, handsome and rich. He invites Julia (Zawe Ashton) to the opera which she is hopeful will lead to a formal proposal but when she discovers she apparently doesn't match up to his list of character traits that he requires for a bride she feels deeply wounded. So she hatches a plan for revenge that involves her more socially low friend, Selina (Freida Pinto). This involves Selina matching Mr Malcolm's list to the point he proposes and then publicly rejecting him. You can probably guess which way all this goes. There's enough Austenesque features here to appeal to fans of period drama and it's all played with just the right amount of irony whilst being thoroughly preposterous at the same time. Theo James costars as a handsome soldier (there's always one of them in these films!) who becomes embroiled in the shenanigans. It's an ok film that is very watchable.

Typically oddball and peculiar film from director Ken Russell that focuses on the traumatic sex life of famous Russian composer Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain). It's a sumptuous piece of cinema recreating a lively 18th Century Russia for this biopic of the composer who struggles with his homosexuality, plagued by his former lover who constantly reminds him of it so he marries in haste the gold digging and nymphomaniac Nina (Glenda Jackson) with whom he is unable to consummate the marriage. He also has a borderline unhealthy relationship with his sister and is plagued by the memory of the death of his mother from cholera. Whilst the narrative plods on getting evermore bizarre the soundtrack gives you the music that dominates the entire film. Ken Russell has his admirers but this film has indications of the surreal and utterly weird and confrontational style he is famed for. In some ways an interesting example of a unique cinematic style in others a tedious film with extreme characters and no sense of itself.

There is always controversy and mixed views on sexual violence depicted in cinema. The rape/revenge narrative has always been a tricky sub genre to navigate and analyse because of the tendency for it to be focused on the male gaze and a male focused interpretation of rape hence many of the films that go down this road have ended up with very mixed receptions. Revenge has been cited as a subversive take on this mostly based on the fact this is a film directed by a woman. Indeed the sexual violence scene here is not graphic although still impactive and cleverly makes you, the viewer very uncomfortable but the aftermath is certainly tense stuff and not for the faint hearted. Richard (Kevin Janssens) is handsome, married and a rich businessman. He takes the young beautiful Jen (Matilda Lutz) to his remote desert retreat for some extra-marital hanky panky. But his two sleazy friends turn up and when one rapes Jen and she threatens to go to the police they try to kill her. But seriously injured she escapes into the desert and proves to be far more resourceful than the men remotely considered. Yes this is a graphically violent film and also a film with mythical themes of rebirth and beautifully shot utilising vivid colour palette of the desert landscape. There's a survivalist aspect as well as a revenge aspect to the story and it does keep you riveted throughout but it maybe too intense for some. Whatever your tastes I do recommend this, it's a very interesting thriller indeed.

A gentle, heartwarming tale that has a slight oddity in the casting. Set in a working class suburb of Dublin in 1967 and three old friends Lily, Eileen and Dolly played by Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Agnes O'Casey are planning a spiritual trip to Lourdes each for their own reason. Their respective husbands are all opposed to their going but the women are single minded but are not happy when Chrissie (Laura Linney) arrives from the USA and decides to join them. Chrissie was effectively banished for reasons that are obvious forty years ago and has returned for her mother's funeral. On the trip the four women have emotional and cathartic experiences that eventually help them to learn to love one another again. The main problem here is Linney and Bates are supposedly the same age but are clearly not and Linney is somewhat overshadowed by the acting force of the two. But overall this is a pleasant story, unpretentious and with some humour. Stephen Rea costars.

Francis Ford Coppola's passion piece, one he's been planning since the 80s, is an overblown, boring and weird to the point of being an incomprehensible mess. The art deco look of this alternative and/or futuristic look at America is interesting but the narrative that tries to replicate the Catiline plots of Ancient Rome is pretentious and dull. There are many moments when you have to try and unravel what's going on and eventually you just give up. Adam Driver, who seems very self conscious here, plays Cesar, a renowned architect in a New York now renamed New Rome. He has a vision for a new city using a building material he has discovered that also gives him some power over time. There's a conflict amongst the privileged class that is the main focus of the plot and involves such acting talents as Aubrey Plaza (who is the best thing on offer here), Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Nathalie Emmanuel and Dustin Hoffman and a few more. There's a surreal Lynchian element going on and at times I thought I was watching a Wes Anderson film and I suppose it could be argued that a Coppola failure outshines some successes by lesser directors but this is a high production bloated waste of time.

This is a weird revenge drama set in 1790 Scotland although it might as well be a post apocalyptic future world as we only ever see a wilderness and odds and sods of humanity who seem to emerge out of the windswept landscape from nowhere. It's also the Scottish Samurai film we've all been waiting for! It's downbeat, pessimistic and rather strange but quite compelling too. Tornado (Kôki) is a young Japanese girl and part of a traveling circus with her father (Takehiro Hira). They perform a puppet show and put on displays of samurai swordsmanship. But they cross paths with a motley gang of murderous thieves led by Sugarman (Tim Roth). When the gang's stolen loot is taken by a young boy they go after him and Tornado gets involved and is relentlessly pursued by them too until she decides it's time to turn and fight. Jack Lowden plays Sugarman's son (or perhaps he's not!), who is on his own agenda regarding the loot and Joanne Whalley has a cameo as the leader of the circus. There's a timeline shuffle that is unsettling when it happens and the gang don't have horses but just keep walking after their prey in a very menacing way. A perplexing drama almost like a western that rivals the director and writer, John Maclean, has a unique cinematic vision.

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!