Film Reviews by JG

Pretty awful, what terrible role models to give young women. And even the dance routines are weak, sloppy affairs.

I too tried in settings to silence the unbelievably stupid voice-over commentary, but couldn’t so had to abandon the film. I’m surprised  that the BFI let their logo be used on this technically poor DVD.

Just to balance out the reviews, this is indeed a prescient satire. Here are Alister Campbell, Boris Johnson etc, and our unfortunate opposition politicians in their original raw form! Also very funny in parts.

On the disc you actually get 3 Suzuki feature length films, all characteristically stylish, and way ahead of most of the teenage outlaw films being made at that time in the West.

A must see movie, so at last we did and found it great but tough going. Remarkable anti-war film given that it was made in Japan in the late ‘50s. It doesn’t hold back on the horrors and crimes committed by the Japanese army, and for that matter the Soviets too. In parts it’s melodramatic and mannered, though this doesn’t detract from its unrelentingly bleak view of humankind in times of war. 

Whilst not Mann’s best movie, it’s still pretty darn good.

Characterisation and plot are really secondary, as they were for Raymond Chandler, but what impresses is style.  Now this is no glib matter, it’s how artists make beautiful works. And it is the formal mastery that makes this such a good film - if you have the concentration and sensibility to appreciate it.  

This umpteenth reworking of The Seven Samurai is just plain nasty. If pointless blood-baths it you thing you might enjoy it, we didn’t.

Hoping for much better having recently seen the terrific The Cranes are Flying, made during the same period. This is saccharine commi kitsch, made to please the Party bosses, full of wholesome patriotic young heroes, filmed in what was by then a diluted and cliched Soviet style.

An unexpectedly tough and finely filmed movie. Often looking like a Hopper painting, the same sunlit, empty locations and oblique characters. Tense throughout.

A muddled film. It attempts a grand historical sweep, but founders on unsimpathetic characters and poor scripting. The lead is so self obsessed it’s almost unbearable...

As one might expect of Wajda, this is a very well made film, but it’s politics are troubling. Given the ruling Socialist ideology of the period, the three main characters, all ruthless capitalists, are little more than caricature oppressors of the downtrodden workers. That one is a stereotyped Jew, is very disturbing given the wartime fate of the Polish Jews.

A very fine homage to the great Italian director by the equally talented Ferrara. Wonderful low light camera work and brilliant screen play based on meticulous research.

Avoids all the cliches this subject could have provoked. A poetic tribute.

This is a pretty dumb cop film with every move signposted and lashing of sentimentality. It has been heralded as a French ‘Heat’ which is absurd. For a start the later had an excellent director and script.