Film Reviews by griggs

Cat People is a strange beast—slick, stylish, and silly. Paul Schrader took this on mid-writer’s block and mid-affair with his star, Nastassja Kinski, and it shows. The whole thing feels more personal than it should, tangled up in obsession, desire, and half-baked symbolism. Malcolm McDowell devours the scenery, the mood is thick with New Orleans heat, and Bowie’s closing track is the best bit. It doesn’t quite work as horror or erotica, but it’s fascinating in a weird, sweaty way. A film about lust and transformation—by a man clearly going through both behind the camera.

A visually lush, gloriously weird descent into madness that doesn’t quite know when to quit. It starts in the world of cutthroat capitalism and ends somewhere between Shutter Island and Possession, with Cronenberg-lite body horror thrown in for good measure. Looking like a Victorian consumptive, Dane DeHaan is perfectly cast as the soul-sick exec sent to a sinister Swiss spa. The film nails its eerie mood—creaking pipes, pastel walls, menacing bathwater—but loses grip on the plot somewhere around the third eel. Overlong and overindulgent, but at least it’s not afraid to be properly bonkers.

The Tribe is a fascinating attempt to rework silent cinema for the modern age. Told entirely in Ukrainian sign language—without subtitles, narration, or soundtrack—it throws you into its world with no safety net. At first, I felt adrift, but quickly realised that language extends far beyond words. The story unfolds through gesture, expression, and atmosphere. It’s a striking and original approach, but also a tough watch. The brutality is unflinching, and the characters, while compelling, are deeply unlikeable and difficult to connect with. By the end, I was absorbed yet unsettled—moved by the craft, but kept at a distance by the grimness of the world it depicts.

Embrace of the Serpent is a haunting, hypnotic river journey—told through two timelines and one shaman who has seen his world slip away. We meet Karamakate as both a fiery young guardian of lost traditions and an older man, hollowed out by time, unsure of what remains. In both stories, he guides a foreign scientist in search of the sacred yakruna plant—but their actual destination is something far more profound.

The film drifts through the Amazon like a dream, capturing the scars left by colonialism: stolen knowledge, crushed cultures, and spiritual disconnection. It doesn’t shout; it lingers, unsettles, and quietly knocks the wind out of you.

The monochrome visuals are jaw-dropping, the atmosphere otherworldly, and the message—about plundered wisdom, cultural erasure, and the wounds left behind—hits hard. It’s like Heart of Darkness—only told by those left behind. A bold, beautiful reckoning with what memory, time, and tragedy have washed away.

Mr. Nobody is a profound meditation on… everything, apparently. Time, love, death, the cosmos–why pick one theme when you can have them all at once? Jared Leto stares meaningfully into space while the plot folds in on itself. It’s deep, man. Or, at least desperately wants to be.

The Night of Counting the Years really got under my skin—bleak, beautiful, and loaded with historical weight. The story follows a tribe torn between preserving and profiting from the past and the moral murk that comes with that dilemma. The pacing is slow and deliberate, the dialogue sparse, and the tone more austere than hypnotic—but that restraint really worked for me. It never over-explains or holds your hand but trusts you to sit with the dread and work it out for yourself, making it land all the harder.

You can feel producer Rossellini’s influence in the background—this is Egyptian neo-realism that knows the power of silence. Every frame carries a quiet intensity. It’s an absolute shame that The Night of Counting the Years was Shadi Abdel Salam’s only feature-length film. He spent years meticulously researching a follow-up about Queen Nefertiti, but it was never completed. It wasn’t for lack of vision—it was a case of perfectionism, purpose, and priorities.

The biggest shame now is the state of the film itself, especially the sound. The Night of Counting the Years aches for a proper restoration and absolutely deserves one.

Darling feels like Britain trying on the French New Wave for size—full of style, attitude, and sharp Mod fashion—but it’s more gloss than grit. Julie Christie is excellent as Diana (aka “Darling”), drifting from man to man, city to city—rootless, emotionally immature, and seemingly irresistible… until she isn’t.

Beneath the confidence, she’s clearly flailing, full of regret, more posturing than revolution. No surprise she won the Oscar—she nails that mix of charm, bravado, and quiet despair. Dirk Bogarde might be even better—he’s subtle, sharp, and just as deserving of his BAFTA. Whenever he’s on screen, he quietly takes over.

Schlesinger wants us to see Darling as a modern, sex-positive go-getter, but the film doesn’t always know how to treat her. Sometimes, it admires her; sometimes, it sneers. The narration tries to close the gap but ends up reinforcing the distance. I didn’t feel invited in—I felt like I was peering through a shop window at someone trying on identities like outfits—perhaps that's the point.

In the end, Darling is stylish, clever, and occasionally biting—but emotionally, it left me somewhere in no-man’s-land. Intriguing but not quite satisfying. It's a time capsule that’s still trying to work out what it wants to say and how to say it.

Amerikatsi opens with a brilliant blend of whisky and satire–Life is Beautiful by way of Brazil, all charm, visual gags, and bureaucratic absurdity. The first 20 minutes are packed with clever setups and comedic flair before the film becomes more grounded and poignant. As the humour fades, a moving portrait emerges–of life under lock and key and the quiet resilience of the human spirit.

The tonal shift is handled with surprising grace. The film never becomes overly sentimental or preachy; instead, it remains gripping, intimate, and emotionally honest, powered by strong performances and smart writing.

But the real star is the score–a gorgeous fusion of Western and Armenian musical styles that reflects Charlie’s cultural displacement with emotional precision. Amerkatsi stands out for its ability to explore oppression through comedy without dulling its emotional weight. Thoughtful, funny, and deeply humane–it’s well worth your time.

I've been dodging this one for years – traumatied by being forced to read the book in school. But I finally gave in, and honestly... it's better than expected.

Peter Brook drops a bunch of posh schoolboys on an island during a nuclear war and lets the whole thing spiral into tribal chaos. The cast are actual kids, not actors, which means the performances are scrappy – but somehow that makes it feel more real, like you're watching something raw and unpredictable unfold.

It's rough around the edges, sure, but that adds to its unsettling charm. The island setting looks incredibe and the descent into savagery hits hard, even if the message is about as subtle as a rock to the head.

It's not a perfect film, but it sticks with you. A messy, moody take on the book that actually earns its place as a classic.

That said, it's still not as sharp, funny, or weirdly insightful as The Simpsons parody Das Bus.

A stoner noir that fancies itself a cinematic Rosetta Stone but reads more like a paranoid Reddit thread with delusions of grandeur. Under the Silver Lake is all style, no substance—drenched in atmosphere and faux-cleverness but hollow as a Hollywood smile. Andrew Garfield plays a deeply unlikeable deadbeat who mistakes stalking for sleuthing and ends up parroting the film’s half-baked philosophy. It’s an unreliable narrator’s wet dream—except here, the dream just keeps going… and going.

There’s a compelling idea buried somewhere—something about the rot beneath Tinseltown’s glitter—but it’s smothered by lazy symbolism, indulgent detours, and a worldview that feels both smug and suspect. Women are sirens or sex workers, men are pervs or puppets, and the whole thing reeks of male insecurity dressed up as myth-busting satire. Worst of all, it toys with conspiracy tropes that echo antisemitic clichés.

Intentional or not, it’s a mess. It reaches for Lynchian mystery with Kaufman-esque depth—but what it delivers is 140 minutes of cinematic mansplaining.

Bunuel’s final film is pure provocation—a deadpan comedy of erotic frustration where logic takes a holiday, and desire ties itself in Freudian knots. The dual-actress trick is genius: two Conchitas, one obsession, zero resolution. It’s a surreal masterstroke that turns male fantasy into farce and keeps you guessing who’s seducing whom.

Fernando Rey bumbles through like a horny traffic warden with a martyr complex, falling head over pedantic heels for Conchita (both of them), who may or may not be a sex-positive anarchist troll. Every time he gets close—the door slams, the curtain drops, and the train leaves. It’s not so much cat-and-mouse as Kafka with kink.

Terrorists loom, passions smoulder, and the patriarchy gets punked in lace and flamenco. It’s maddening, yes—but gloriously so. A farewell from a filmmaker who never stopped playing with matches, even as the world burned.

Watching it now, it's hard to believe that The Wild One was banned in the UK for over a decade—apparently, it was too "socially dangerous" in 1953. These days, it feels more like a slow burn than a full-blown riot, but you can still sense the cultural shockwaves it must've caused. There's a steady, simmering tension beneath all that leather—proof the film still has bite. This is a proper landmark in the rebel film playbook, Brando barely has to move to command the screen.

Brando's Johnny is rebellion incarnate: all shrugs, stares, and that brooding don't-care energy. He's not deep, but he doesn't need to be—his presence alone does the talking. The plot's basically a western in biker gear: a gang rolls into a sleepy town, things spiral, and it all ends in a standoff between the old order and the outsiders. It's a simple setup, but there's plenty bubbling underneath—fear, control, identity, the works.

It may not feel shocking now, but The Wild One still hits a nerve. It nails that post-war restlessness—the sense of being stuck between what was and what's next. It's sharp, stylish, and still quietly challenging. And that iconic line—"What are you rebelling against?" "Whaddaya got?"—says more than any manifesto ever could.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is where the grit of the wasteland gives way to something far more polished—and not in a good way. This is Mad Max with a Hollywood hair-do, a bloated budget, and a clear nod to George Lucas, especially in the elaborate world-building and those Ewok-adjacent kids.

The Thunderdome sequence is cracking stuff—bonkers, brutal, and genuinely iconic—but the rest wobbles. It’s not without charm, but it’s uneven, oddly tame, and veers dangerously close to silly. Once Max stumbles into a gang of feral children—more Peter Pan than post-apocalypse—the film drifts into fantasy territory. The raw survival edge? Lost somewhere in the sand.

A half-throttle entry that feels more blockbuster than brutal. It's not a total write-off, but it definitely jumps the shark… or at least drives a dune buggy straight over it. A strange, patchy detour in an otherwise legendary series.

Hell Drivers is one hell of a ride—gritty, gripping, and criminally underseen. Directed by Cy Endfield, who fled the U.S. after being blacklisted by HUAC, it burns with righteous anger and sweat-soaked adrenaline. Imagine The Wages of Fear rerouted through post-war Britain's dodgy backroads and gravel pits, swapping nitroglycerine for ballast and sheer desperation.

Noir, melodrama, and action collide in a film that’s rough-edged in all the right ways. The cast is absurdly stacked: Stanley Baker leads, with a rogue’s gallery of future icons in support—Herbert Lom, Patrick McGoohan, Sid James, Gordon Jackson, William Hartnell, David McCallum, and even a baby-faced Sean Connery. It’s tense, muscular stuff, pulsing with working-class fury.

There’s a whole subgenre of road-bound film noirs and noir-adjacent films, from They Drive by Night to Thieves Highway and other than The Wages of Fear, this might be the best of the lot.

John Malkovich slinks through Ripley's Game like a cobra in couture—magnetic, merciless, and surgically precise. This is a sleek, morally rotten thriller: visually sharp, coolly directed, and quietly absorbing. It simmers more than it scorches, and while the pacing falters and the supporting cast doesn't always hold up, there's real satisfaction in its elegant nastiness. It lacks the lush tension of The Talented Mr. Ripley or the strangeness of Purple Noon. Still, it's smoother than The American Friend. It's not quite top-tier Ripley, but Malkovich makes one hell of a deadly dinner guest.