Reviews

Version I saw: UK DVD release (subtitled) Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 6/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 6/10 Overall: 6/10

It's probably a bad sign that, when I came to review this film, I remembered very little of the plot, and needed to look up a synopsis to refresh my memory.

The story follows Momo, a preteen city-girl whose father dies, forcing her and her mother to move to her mother's rural childhood home. There, she accidentally summons three mischievous yokai (mystical creatures from Japanese folklore somewhat akin to fairies or goblins) who shake up her life with their antics, forcing her to confront her unresolved family and other issues.

It's a fairly well-trodden path narratively, but I think it owes most to iconic Studio Ghibli works including Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro. The attempt, it seems, is to create a version of these stories aged up to the tween demographic.

Although Momo and her mother are voiced by fairly inexperienced actors, the three yokai are played by a selection of tried-and-trusted veterans: Cho, Koichi Yamadera and Toshiyuki Nishida. What life and energy there is emerges mainly from this trio of likeable, cartoonish agents of chaos.

The art style, tasked with marrying up magical fantasy with everyday realism, presents what seems an authentic portrayal of the Japanese countryside, but perhaps leans further in the direction of realism and away from the fantastical than I might have liked.

If I have one major criticism though, it is not of the film itself at all, but the subtitles. With white lettering and no border, they became difficult to read against any bright background, and impossible when the background was white, as it often was. To make things worse, they are dubtitles - the script of the English dub, in which extra lines have been added - so on some occasions we see a line of dialogue pop up into complete silence. The only way this can have passed is if nobody at western distributor Anime Limited bothered to watch the finished product before shipping it, and fraknly, it is not good enough.

Aside from the subtitles, I don't honestly think there is a great deal wrong with A Letter To Momo. If it has weaknesses, they are just in extent. On pacing, they erred on the side of slow and gentle. The human characters are recognizable and relatable, to the extent of being humdrum and mundane. The tone is bittersweet, but I might have preferred a bit more of the undeniable charm and warmth that can be seen at times.

The end result, though, is somewhat middle-of-the-road, lacklustre. I enjoyed the 2 hours-ish I spent watching it, but the fact is that there are many better films I could have been watching instead.

Version I saw: UK cinema release (dubbed) Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 5/10 Photography/visual style: 6/10 Music/score: 6/10 Overall: 6/10

Pokemon is a global cultural phenomenon and massive multimedia franchise, but despite being a Japanophile, it has largely passed me by, possibly because my family were more Playstation players than Nintendo.

For the 20th anniversary of the anime TV series, they created this cinema-release movie, editing together some of the key episodes and adding in some new footage that smooths out the joins between them.

At every level, the main contributors are all long-time Pokemon insiderds. The director is Kunihiko Yuyama, who directed the original TV series. Original writers Satoshi Tajiri and Takeshi Shudo are joined by comparative newcomer Shoji Yonemura. On the voice talent side, Sarah Natochenny has been playing Ash for some years, and the likes of Michele Knotz and James Carter Cathcart have ben there, in multiple roles, from the outset.

When it comes to Pokemon, the games are the core, and everything else is arguably advertising for them, so it should not have surprised me as much as it did that this film started (after the certification card, so it is part of the edited film) with an advertisement for a Pokemon toy, and ended with several 5-minute short films which I gather summarize the plots of the various games for new fans (i.e. Potential customers). The whole thing was essentially a 96-minute advert!

Still, they do commit to it. The animation, while unremarkable artistically, is crisp and modern-looking, with new shots integrated smoothly. None of it looked out of place on a big cinema screen, and I could believe they actually did some work on restoring and cleaning up the 90s footage.

The plot is confusing at times, including a dream section that made no sense for more reasons than the expected dream-weirdness, and an apparent resurrection during the climactic battle through means I could not fathom. Would more dedicated fans have the background knowledge to fill in these gaps? Or indeed, would nostalgia for the characters and world carry them through? I don't know, you'd have to ask them... but I can believe it would.

What I, an outsider, got was a fairly entertaining, if unevenly plotted, child-friendly, ordinary shonen adventure story that did not overstay its welcome. Dedicated fans will probably get the required nostalgia hit, but I would not really recommend it to newcomers.

For my full review, see my independent film review blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK cinema release (3D) Actors: 7/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 6/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 7/10

Taika Waititi was midway through a meteoric rise when he made this big-budget effects-laden Marvel blockbuster.

To the already stacked cast he added fellow antipodeans Cate Blanchett, Karl Urban and himself, and brought the production to his native New Zealand for filming. Standouts include Mark Ruffalo in a surprisingly prominent role that makes this a stealth Hulk film, and Jeff Goldblum bringing his idiosyncratic acting style that turns out to be a good match for Waititi's offbeat humour.

While keeping some aspects directly drawn from the comics, Waititi and scriptwriters Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher L. Yost picked and chose what to retain and what to dispose of from previous instalments. Among the elements lost are Thor's trademark 'ye olde' phrasing, and love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), although I am inclined to ascribe this to scheduling conflicts, given her return in Love & Thunder.

Visually it is very much a Marvel film, with crisp photography in bright colours and lots of spectacular settings and action. However, Waititi's wit and sense of silliness are also very much in evidence. Some have actually said this is a bad thing, as it undermines the tension, but I found it very enjoyable.

Thematically, the film deals with ideas around the reassessment of history and how to cope with disaster. I think it has more depth than many give it credit for.

I have not yet seen Love & Thunder, partly because the broad consensus is that it is poor, which is a shame for multiple reasons. I hope we get more in future from Thor and from Waititi.

For my full review, see my independent blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I watched: UK cinema release Actors: 7/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 6/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 7/10

I'm going to say it: Blade Runner 2049 is better than Blade Runner.

It could so easily have gone wrong. Ridley Scott, the director of the original iconic future-noir, also created Alien, and that franchise has very much foundered in recent years.

However, it seems that the semi-legendary talents like composer Hans Zimmer (with Benjamin Wallfisch), cinematographer Roger Deakins and director Denis Villenueve have been careful not to rehash superficial elements for cheap fan satisfaction. Instead, they thought deeply about what made the original so loved in their own areas of expertise, brought that in, and then developed it with their own flourishes into something even greater.

The cast is typical of this approach. Harrison Ford is back, as is Edward James Olmos briefly, and another character who I will not specify for spoiler reasons. However, their contributions are pointed and positive to the story. Joining them are a selection of younger, fresher talent such as current star Ryan Gosling, rising star Ana de Armas, as well as Dave Bautista and Sylvia Hoeks whose talents and abilities are used to great effect.

Yes, it is probably longer than necessary, with specific scenes that could have been cut and others overextended. Yes, some scenes have a voyeuristic attitude specifically towards the women in the film, although that is less fair because calling out that misogyny is a key pillar of the thematic drive, and would not work if the lascivious eye were not there to be challenged. Perhaps it is no accident that the film ends up able to eat its cake and have it: if you wish to look at beautiful people like de Armas and Hoeks (and yes, Gosling too) and don't mind being implicitly and explicitly criticized for your objectification, you will certainly find that here.

Maybe I m the wrong person to make this assessment. I am exactly the kind of person who ought to like Blade Runner, but it has never quite grabbed me despite several watches. I can appreciate its seminal position and the many incredible contributions it made to cinema in general and science fiction in particular...but I cannot quite love it in the way some do. It never immersed me. The story did not fire my intellect at Blade Runner 2049's does. I like it, I just don't... love it, and that leaves room for a sequel like this to take a position above it in my estimation.

All I can say is that, after all these years, this sequel could have been a disaster, and BR2049 is not that!

For my full review, see my independent film blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK cinema release Actors: 7/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 6/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 7/10

Armando Iannucci's background is in satire, and he uses those skills in this farce of beta personalities and impostor syndrome at the very top of one of the great empires of the 20th century.

The title is fairly literal, drawn from Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin's graphic novel, on which the film is loosely based. Even in a comedy, a story like this has to address the brutality of Stalin's regime, and it does so in a couple of ways. There are literal scenes of mass murder, depicted starkly but with deftness that weaves them into the overall narrative. The rest of the film is also underpinned by a sense of peril, as characters dance around the knowledge that any move they make will bring them nearer to or further from death.

It is a very funny film, bringing comedy on several different levels: the surreal, the witty and the merely silly. The cast are drawn from the regulars across the modern comedy greats: main character Syeve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor from the Coen Brothers, Terry Gilliam's close friend Michael Palin, and Edgar Wright regular Paddy Considine, among others. However, Jason Isaacs outshines them all as the brash, fearless, guileless General Zhukov, who (despite only appearing halfway through) dominates every room - and every scene - in which he appears.

If I have a criticism, it is only that I struggle to see much in the film that can be applied to our modern world in Britain or America of 2022 (although, having said that, the machinations at the top of the British Conservative party at the time of writing may bear some comparison). The main take-home lesson for me is an idea that, in their own hearts, even the people in the upper echelons of power know that they don't really know what they are doing, and are just muddling through. In a time when internet conspiracy theories try to claim someone shadowy person or persons play us all like puppets, there is some value in that.

For my full review, see my film review weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: Sony Movie Channel stream Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 8/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 7/10

Tarantino can be great at his best, btu I have no patience for him at his worst, so I was not sure what to expect from this film.

A large part of what I noticed and liked was not actually directly attributable to QT. The legendary Ennio Morricone's Gothic-tinged score. Robert Richardson's excellent cinematography - both in sumptuous landscape photography during the external scenes and he unusual but effective use of extremely wide angle shots in the interior sections. The superb environment that is the Millie's Haberdashery set, dressed to the nines and oozing period atmosphere, into which a large part of the film's narrative comfortably nestles.

Quentin can certainly take direct credit for the script, which bears his distinctive fingerprints all over it. The sharp repartee is there in spades, but what impressed me is how much exposition it concealed. Often the baiting and backbiting between the strangers gathered at this isolated waystation allowed one of them to take up the task of explaining a plot detail for us without it seeming like an infodump.

It helps that many of the cast are Tarantino regulars, and veteran actors to boot. They know exactly where they stand with him, and have the experience to work out the kind of territory into which they have been placed. So, it is no slight on them to say that a lot of them are over-acting their pants off. This is just that kind of movie, and smart performers play up to it. They probably had a lot of fun, in fact. There is a knowing archness to the production, a little like a Wes Anderson film. It is also quite stagey, but in a good way - I admire the craft it takes to bring a drama to life using a very limited number of locations and angles.

The length of the film is a problem, though. At 2 hours and 48 minutes, it is not quite epic, but I still found that it tried my stamina. The problem is not that it contains unnecessary scenes; I cannot honestly say that I spotted any scene that did not need to be there. Instead, I would say that many - perhaps even most - scenes went on too long. He's done it before with Death Proof, although in that case he had the excuse that it was padded out from the intended segment of the larger Grindhouse project. Here, I cannot see that he had any such prior circumstances to blame. It just seems like self-indulgence, a weakness to which he has always been vulnerable.

The irony is that QT very vocally admires, imitates and celebrates a range of sub-genres and categories whose characteristics are formed by their limitations, either in terms of budget or outside interference by studios or censors. Given the kind of creative freedom he has, they would never be stooping to some of the measures in which he appears to revel.

The Hateful Eight is an enjoyable film, well-made and successfully delivered, and nothing else matters anywhere near as much as that. I think better, more disciplined editing could have resulted in a shorter, tighter, better version, but then again that was never going to happen, because it's Tarantino. That's not what he does. This is what he does.

For my full review, see my independent film weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK cinema release (2D) Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 8/10 Overall: 7/10

It seems that each Christopher Nolan film since Inception has seen a decreasing return in plaudits than the previous one, and Dunkirk is no exception, but there is still a large cadre of film fans for whom he has yet to put a foot wrong.

Dunkirk is his war drama about one of the most famous incidents in British history. Nolan depicts it using a trademark of his: non-linear storytelling. He splits the events into three narrative strands, each covering one of the theatres of war, and each set over a different timescale. Harry Styles is a soldier on the land, in events that take place over the course of a week. Mark Rylance is an amateur yachtsman drafted into the effort on the seas, seen over the one day. Tom Hardy is a pilot in the air during the most critical hour of the operation.

Here, Nolan took on a whole range of difficult tasks - managing the timescales, negotiating the challenges of filming in difficult conditions, and more - but on the whole, he makes it look effortless.

Yes, there is a bit of a lull in the middle, especially in the see and air strands, and I can slightly understand some viewers losing enthusiasm over this segment, but I was carried, thanks partly to Hans Zimmer's fantastic score. He weaves a constant ticking sound in and out of the soundscape that maintains and then steadily builds tension to a resounding emotional crescendo.

As all three strands reach their climaxes at the same time, I felt my heart squeezed, thrashed about, and ultimately lifted. As an illustration of a historic event to a modern audience who view it with some distance, Dunkirk is very good. As a nail-biting, tense tale of peril and inspiring heroism, it is superb. You have to focus, and be a bit patient during the initial build-up, but by golly, it is worth it!

For my full review, see my independent film weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: LoveFilm DVD rental Actors: 7/10 Plot/script: 6/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 7/10

At the time of writing, one of the films vying for awards in 2021 is Mank, a movie about those who struggled for recognition around the domineering persona of one Orson Welles. In 2008, Richard Linklater created another such film.

Me and Orson Welles stars teen heartthrob Zac Efron (fresh from High School Musical stardom), former teen heartthrob Claire Danes (Romeo + Juliet, Princess Mononoke) and Zoe Kazan, and yet the title role was given to a total newcomer, Christian McKay.

Linklater is one of the most varied directors around. His core is a set of films obout the everyday, life-defining events from which ordinary lives are constructed. The Before trilogy laid the groundwork that culminated in (for me) the apotheosis of Boyhood, and arguably Slackers is in this category too. Alongside those, though, he has turned his hand to science fiction, comedy, music, crime drama, rotoscoped animation... an incredible variety of genres and media. Linklater knows film, so of course he knows Welles.

Orson Welles holds a privileged position in the annals of cinema history. Citizen Kane is often voted by critics and filmmakers as the best film of all time, and yet it is only one of a handful of Welles classics that redefined the medium. And yet, Me and Orson Welles is not one of those "films about films" that Hollywood loves. Or rather, not exactly.

This film takes us back to Welles' theatre days; he was a legend of stage as well as screen. Zac Efron plays Richard Samuels, a young hopeful caught up in the Welles whirlwind. Orson builds him up, gives him a prominent role in the play he is producing... but all while undermining and dimishing others, so that our hero Richard seems overdue a fall.

I am revealing very little of the plot there, because much of it plays out as you would expect. Everything revolves around, and is ultimately consumed by, Welles' whirlwind ego. And it takes a while to happen too; by the end, I felt little sympathy for Richard, when he faces the same fate as others around him, and yet somehow failed to predict when we, the audience, saw it coming a mile off.

This is not to say the film is bad. The 1930s were a vibrant era for New York, and the film does a great job of bringing this vibrancy to life, in its costume design, set design, music and more. The leads have bags of charisma too, and sell their parts well. We know (and knew) what Efron and Danes can do, and they do not disappoint.

McKay too fits the bill. Welles has been portrayed on screen many times, but often they amount to nothing more than impression. McKay's delivery of Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr.'s debut script is something more. In this film, the narcissist Welles is the arch-manipulator. His mastery of the thespian arts is such that he can make anyone believe anything, and uses it ruthlessly to his advantage. Even when he seems sincere in praise or condemnation, it could just be more dissembly from the master of lies.

I enjoyed the film. If it is a bit lightweight, it is at least light in a good way, tripping through that middle section where not much happens. It gets off to a spicy, snappy start, and continues intelligently with a sharp smartness that reminded me a little of Aaron Sorkin's work.

I feel like Me and Orson Welles is one of those films that flatters to deceive. As producer as well as director, Linklater has put together a slick production, with excellence in most departments. The ultimate point is not a facile one either: theatre is taken as an exemplar of all the collaborative creative industries, as prone as they are to domination by a prima donna. I am just not sure the film says anything you couldn't already have worked out for yourself...

For my full review, see my independent review on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: Netflix stream Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 4/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 5/10 Overall: 5/10

By the time I saw this film on the second day of release, it was already getting very bad word-of-mouth. Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's original manga and the anime adaptation are both widely considered to be high-water marks of their forms, so it seemed an obvious choice for Netflix, and indeed only a matter of time, but... Many of the changes it makes are entirely reasonable, and I have no argument with them. Transplanting the action to America, renaming characters, all par for the course. However, the more subtle changes betray that the director and writers did not have a clue what they had. At its heart, Death Note is a competition of elaborate mind games between two beguiling but amoral genius psychopaths, Light Yagami and the mysterious investigator L. Genius chess, if you will, but with lives on the line. Director Adam Wingard and writers Charley and Vlas Parlapanides and Jeremy Slater reframed their Light Turner as a clever but awkward, emotionally wrought teenager. This might seem like an understandable decision, to make him relatable to a western audience... but that would be fundamentally missing the point of Death Note! We end up with something that is a lot more generic, and a lot more mediocre. There is a lot of good and a lot of bad in the adaptation. Willem Dafoe is superbly cast as the demonic Ryuk, and some of the plot developments are indeed fairly clever. It's visually pretty stylish too, with plenty of visual flair that feeds into the emotional tone from the outset. On the other hand, the soundtrack is very cheesy, and there are some daft decisions regarding props and set dressing too. To be good on balance, a film has to have more good than bad, and this Death Note adaptation simply doesn't. For every good detail or element - and there are plenty of them - it has something rubbish. I can't recommend it at all.

For my full review, see my independent film blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK cinema release (subtitled) Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 6/10 Overall: 6/10

Clarke's Law, originated by the great science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke, states that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Napping Princess is one of an enormous number of works over the decades that have played with this interplay between magic and technology.

Kokone (Mitsuki Takahata) is an ordinary high school girl who gets caught up in industrial espionage machinations when her father is accused of stealing tech for automating of motor vehicles from a previous employer. She goes on the run with his tablet computer and the family motorbike which the father has been tinkering with. Meanwhile, her sleep is overtaken by dreams of a magical kingdom which Princess Ancien (also voiced by Takahata) tries to protect from monstrous behemoths, despite the machinations of an evil vizier, with the aid of... a magic tablet (an alternative title for the movie of 'Ancien and the Magic Tablet' can still be seen in the end credits). Is Ancien a parallel version of Kokone? If not, who is she? What exactly is the technology the father has been developing? As elements of the real world and Kokone's dream world start to bleed into each other, events buld to a climax around the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony (the film was released in 2017, they couldn't have known).

Writer/director Kenji Kamiyama carries over much of the art style from his previous work Eden of the East, as well as innovative use of modern and near-future telecommunications. He is a dab hand with science fiction, having been one of the primary hands in the creation of the acclaimed series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The vibrant energy of the fantasy scenes, complete with a steampunk sensibility that blends in robots and machines seamlessly, contrasts with the mundanity of modern Japan, and the combination is visually arresting.

The concept of a fantasy world that parallels and comments on the real one is hardly new - I could point to The Wizard of Oz or Sucker Punch, or in anime Black Rock Shooter and When Marnie Was There. It's a rich seam for stories though, and far from mined out. I feel that Napping Princess overplays its hand a bit though. It feels like a teenage writer's first excited attempt at playing with a high literary concept, enthusiastic but lacking the methodical discipline that comes with experience, losing its cohesion towards the end. Kamiyama is not a teenager though. He has over 20 years of experience with exactly this kind of work, during which he has been in pretty much constant demand. My theory is that this is actually a story he came up with in his youth and held onto until he could bring it to life, and his affection for it has blinded him to its flaws. That is very much speculation though, and I admit that I have no real evidence to back it up. It could just as well be that the change in story length from the 25-minute TV series episodes he is accustomed to proved his undoing.

As I have said, the visuals are impressive, and the cast and score do their job without standing out. I like the fact that the ideas in the story reach for something bigger, and if only they were stronger, they could have carried the other elements to somewhere really impressive. It's still a good and enjoyable film, as a couple of hours' entertainment, but with the elements it has, I still want to hope for something more...

For my full review, see my independent film review weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK DVD release (subtitled) Actors: 7/10 Plot/script: 6/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 6/10

I watched this one back in 2017, not long after the death of star Jeanne Moureau. In the past, I have found legendary nouvelle vague director François Truffaut to be always interesting, but not that enjoyable. 'Jules et Jim' takes place in the cosmopolitan western Europe of the early 20th century, either side of the First World War. The German Jules (Oskar Werner) and Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre) are friends pursuing art and romance in Bohemian Paris, where they meet and both fall in love with the quixotic Catherine (Moreau), an early prototype of the 21st century's 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' trope. After some hijinks together, they are separated by the War, and when they reunite are burdened by the cares and complications of adulthood, to the anguish of all concerned. Although it characterises the Bohemian times in which it is set, I found it was also very 1960s: 'Free Love', hedonism (including implications to my eyes of a sexual relationship between Jim and Jules too), but also reserved. I can play around, but you can't. We can have fun when we are young, but later we want to settle into a nice, traditional, monogamous family with kids and a house. The film is all about what happens when these clash. I don't think I caught all the subtleties in the script - it felt like they were there, but I could not tease them out. What I saw was a very simple, quite well-worn story about two guys getting dragged around by a woman who knows she is beautiful enough to get whatever she wants... right up until the things she wants contradict each other. While the others analyse their feelings, and agonize over the right thing to do, she keeps living on her whims, and that left her seeming like a much more two-dimensional character to me. It doesn't help that the film makes extensive use of voice-over. Maybe it was meant to clear up the surface themes and leave the mind free to focus on deeper ideas, but it seemed to me more like it was telling me what to think. In a lot of areas, Jules et Jim is excellent - the music lilts along at the start, drawing you into the story with a pacy narrative. All three leads are excellent. The photography is stylish and moody. And yet it never quite knit together, for me. I felt like there was something missing. Maybe it was there, but I am not clever enough to recognize it, but in the absence of that, I can't say I can feel much love for this film. Jules et Jim has garnered praise from many sources over the years. I'm glad. I think it probably deserves that high regard. Unfortunately though, that high regard is not going to come from me.

For my full review, see my independent film review weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK cinema release Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 5/10 Photography/visual style: 8/10 Music/score: 8/10 Overall: 7/10

Baby Driver is essentially a gimmick: heart-thumping action scenes set to music, and literally choreographed to fit the rhythm and tune of the music. Every other aspect of the film is either arrayed to support this, or deprioritized. The plot and characters are a jigsaw of cliches, even given tropey names like 'Baby' (Ansel Elgort), 'Buddy' (John Hamm) and 'Doc' (Kevin Spacey). It's a cookie-cutter heist-gone-wrong story that you have seen many times over. That is all that's required though, because the chases and fights are fantastic. The energy, already high due to writer/director Edgar Wright's expert hand, is enhanced by the music, making it more immersive, and definitely more exciting. I emerged from the cinema practically dancing to the sounds coming out of my MP3 player, just like Baby. I have no problem forgiving the film for what it (to be honest) wasn't even trying to do well, because what it was trying to do well it achieved magnificently!

For my full review, see my independent film review weblog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK cinema release (subtitled) Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 7/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 6/10 Overall: 7/10

It is no surprise given the damage wreaked and the scar they left on the national psyche that Japanese media over the decades has been filled with works influenced by the nuclear attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both literal and allegorical returns to the well of this climactic, catastrophic event in their history are frequent. Some superb works have arisen from it, including anime movies like Grave of the Fireflies and Barefoot Gen.

So when we discover early on that In This Corner of the World is set in the vicinity of Hiroshima during World War II, the entire audience knows where it is going.

This is the context in which we witness the everyday life of Suzu, a young girl who dreams of being an artist. Through her vibrant drawings we see her vibrant inner life in a delightful variety of art styles, although her outer circumstances frustrate her dreams and force her into a more mediocre mode. There are plenty of laughs along the way, and a few tears too, especially as the effects of war on the nation become more pronounced.

All the way through though, The Bomb is there in the background. They don't need to refer to it, we all know it's there. It's like it has already exploded, and we are just waiting for the blast wave to hit them.

The approach of the attack aside, it has to be said that there is a lack of clear narrative direction. Like its main character, the story appears to wander from event to event along a path of least resistance. Suzu has a lack of agency that could be frustrating; one character even voices it when speaking to Suzu: "I am here because of what I have done. You just had things done to you."

Fumiyo Kono, on whose manga the film is based, has a strong track record when it comes to Hiroshima stories. Her best known work is the beautiful one-shot manga 'Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms', which covers the legacy of the attacks and the relationship residents of the area have with it. Director Sunao Katabuchi veers a long way from the action/crime drama work I previously knew him for to draw out the emotional nuance from the story.

The lesson of the film, presented on several levels, appears to be about a broken Japan trying to tie off and leave behind its damage and pain. I am not sure how healthy this urge is, but the message is delivered in a very effective way that does credit to the writing skills of Kono, Katabuchi and co-writer Chie Uratani. And it is important to note that the whole is not just 'interesting' or 'valuable', but yes, enjoyable. Despite everything. A LOT of everything.

For my full review, see Cinema Inferno, my independent film weblog on Blogspot.

Version I saw: UK DVD release (subtitled) Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 4/10 Photography/visual style: 6/10 Music/score: 7/10 Overall: 5/10

The anime series Ah! My Goddess, based on Kosuke Fujishima's source manga, is fairly iconic and formative of its genre, but I haven't seen it, so I went inot this movie cold.

It appears that this is a sequel to the anime series. The classic harem of female characters is there, but main character Keiichi and the titular goddess Belldandy are a firmly established couple. There was a lot left unexplained though, and initially I had to conclude that I was missing information known to fans of the anime.

As the story went on though, more things happened that I could not explain. Unsignalled flashbacks and dream sequences, a hackneyed old amnesia plotline that only works because nobody is open with the amnesiac, a male lead apparently devopid of any personality. It all adds up to a bit of a flop.

It's a shame, because there are moments of quality writing in there. The events surrounding a motorbike crash in particular neatly encapsulate the relationship between characters, developing the story in an understated yet effective way. I note that there are two writers: Yoshihiko Tomizawa, a novie who went onto no great success, and Michiko Yokote, already well established before the film and in constant demand ever since. It is tempting to ascribe any good elements to Yokote and problems top Tomizawa, but I suppose we will never know for sure.

The orchestral soundtrack is impressively lush, with just the right lilt of romcom whimsy, the visuals appear to be an appropriate step up in quality from TV level at the time, and the voice cast is universally solid, if never inspiring enough tostand out... but the writing is a problem.

As the story went on, I got lost, and my interest in the proceedings waned to a sliver. By the time the villain revealed his motivation (a well-worn one that you will probably have seen variants on a dozen times over), I was more interested in my own mental deviation regarding the mythic origins of several character names. The film was lost to me.

Maybe your reaction will be different if you are already on board with this world and set of characters. For me, it is not good.

For my full review, see Cinema Inferno, my independent film weblof on Blogspot.

Version I watched: LoveFilm DVD release Actors: 5/10 Plot/script: 4/10 Photography/visual style: 5/10 Music/score: 5/10 Overall: 5/10

Having seen very few Indian/Pakistani films, I took a punt on this film based on recommendations from Pakistani friends and essentially went in blind. Bol turns out to be a social drama, set in Pakistan but made in India, about a family with pretty much every social issue imaginable. After a beginning which is much darker than I expected, the drama plays out pretty much exactly like you'd expect. The antagonist of the piece is the conservative, religious father, who means well but cannot adapt his mindset to the freedoms his daughters expect in the modern world, with tragic consequences. I was reminded of East Is East, except the only culture clash is between tradition and modernity, and although Manzar Sehbai does a pretty good job, he is not a pattch on Om Puri. Problems abound: massive overuse of voiceover, some bad acting around the fringes of the cast, songs that (although not bad in themselves) are pointlessly inerted, adding nothign to the narrative. However, the thing that struck me most is how *safe* it all is. Maybe I am seeing it too much from a western perspective, but how it plays out is exactly what I would expect in a similar drama made in Britain or America. The way it shapes to court controversy, then says exactly what you would assume about those supposedly controversial issues is quite frustrating. The whole comes across as quite televisual, the kind of story that could have been done perfectly well as a stage play. The production design is far from top notch, and neither is the sound production on the music. I am seeing a lot of overwhelmingly positive reviews on here and elsewhere, which I find curious. Maybe social conservatism is far more entrenched in Indian and Pakistani media than I realized, so that a drama so unsubtle about the points it makes gets credit for making any points at all.

For my full review, see my independent film review weblog, Cinema Inferno.

Version I saw: UK DVD release Actors: 6/10 Plot/script: 6/10 Photography/visual style: 5/10 Music/score: 6/10 Overall: 6/10

Astro Boy is an American film based on the original iconic character created by Japanese legend Osamu Tezuka. The name has drawn a host of stars, led by Freddie Highmore (the biggest child actor of the time) in the title role, and Nicolas Cage as his creator and mentor Dr Tenma. I have to say that it was not part of my childhood though, and I have no real affection for it.

The story takes a while to get going, but once it leaves the coldness of the high city and enters the slums around it, it becomes warmer, more vibrant, more engaging and in fact quite funny.

The music is pretty good in a background way, but the animation is below the standards of the time, and even more substandard today.

The narrative is very child-oriented, with ideas presented in a simplistic way that risks patronizing even older children, and a story with elements of Pinocchio, Frankenstein and Oliver Twist that leaves it a little too familiar (that is, hackneyed) for my liking.

I also have to say that too little of the original 'Tetsuwan Atom' was carried through to this movie for my liking, and fans of anime or manga will come away disappointed.

There's good and bad here, but on balance, I find the film to be like its main character: an inferior copy of a beloved original but with not enough heart to carry it off truly successfully.

Version I saw: UK DVD release 'Collector's Edition' (subtitled) Actors: 5/10 Plot/script: 5/10 Photography/visual style: 7/10 Music/score: 6/10 Overall: 7/10 I like Jackie Chan, the world's greatest circus clown, and Yuen Woo-Ping is probably still the only fight choreographer to achieve note outside a particular narrow fan-base, so I knew there would be something to see in their classic Hong Kong action collaboration Drunken Master. It has to be said, it absolutely delivers on the action front. The fight scenes are impressive, and stylishly implemented, and as that's the main - indeed, pretty much the only - evident goal of the film, it has to be rated highly on that basis. It's important to note, though, that every other aspect of the film is pretty shoddy. Jackie Chan's smile can't make up for bad acting by him and others, for a start. Also, the plot makes no sense, never even attempting to explain (as I assumed it eventually would) how alcohol can increase fighting ability. Even the fights themselves have problems, in a deplorable lack of continuity between shots. It seems odd to say that a film is mostly bad and yet give it such a high rating, but the stunts are really the only important thing here, and the stunts by themselves are more than good enough to justify watching the film.

Version I saw: Netflix live stream

Actors: 5/10

Plot/script: 5/10

Photography/visual style: 7/10

Music/score: 6/10

Overall: 6/10

Spaceballs is possibly the funniest film I have ever seen... that could have been written by an 8-year-old. His career as a director began with plaudits for The Producers and Blazing Saddles, and since then has become steadily more silly and, with some exceptions, less good ever since, and often actively dreadful. Incidentally, it has occurred to me that Woody Allen's career progressed in almost the opposite direction from a very similar start, becoming progressively less comedic and more refined.

Spaceballs is pretty much a straight parody of the first Star Wars movie, although it draws on the others to a lesser extent, as well as other sources. The entire comedic register of Spaceballs, and indeed of his entire catalogue of genre parodies, is utterly juvenile, from the silly character names (Lone Starr, Princess Vespa, Barf, Yogurt) onwards. Don't get me wrong, it's mostly funny, and very funny at times, but films can be funny and also well-constructed, clever and insightful. It speaks to me of a distinct lack of ambition.

There are a couple of aspects of the film that I would single out for praise. The first is the way it calls out Star Wars for its rampant commercialization, and specifically merchandising. This is a tired old joke now, but Spaceballs is the earliest instance of it that I know of. The second is the work on costumes, makeup, sets, props and models, which is genuinely impressive at times, enhancing the comedically bad examples of these things elsewhere in the film. As well as providing an exaggerated contrast for comic effect, it serves to prove that they are not just doing bad work because they are incapable of better.

You could view Mel Brooks as a youthful spirit or as an immature prankster, but all that really matters is whether he is funny enough. Spaceballs is more than funny enough.

Version I saw: LoveFilm Bluray, subtitled

Actors: N/A

Plot/script: 5/10

Photography/visual style: 6/10

Music/score: 7/10

Overall: 6/10

Whatever caught my attention and caused me to add Etre et Avoir to my watch list, I had pretty much forgotten it by the time I came to watch this film, so I had very little expectation beyond an impression of quaint Frenchness. And indeed I got that; the documentary is filmed almost entirely within the classroom of a tiny rural French school. We get to know the kids and teacher by watching them learn, often frustratingly slowly, although that only makes it more satisfying when the light of comprehension dawns in their little eyes.

If there is one thing missing from the film, it is context. I had to read the DVD sleeve notes to find out that the mode of education we see here is considered old-fashioned and under threat. It was only once I knew this that I was able to understand that the message of the film is pro-tradition in the face of cold modernity. I had access to that information, it is true, but truly outstanding documentaries are able to insert the necessary context unobtrusively.

There is a universality here, in that similar situations can be found in any country large enough to have variations in population density. Incidentally, the title is pretty clever, evoking French grammar lessons as well as the huge concepts of being and having. I don't think I really *learned* anything from the film though, as I would normally expect to from a documentary.

I think viewers will get out of Etre et Avoir what they bring in. If the idea of a feature length documentary set entirely in a French classroom sounds charming and heart-warming, you will be charmed and your heart warmed. If it sounds boring, you will be bored.

Version I saw: UK cinema release (HFR 3D IMAX)

Actors: 7/10

Plot/script: 5/10

Photography/visual style: 7/10

Music/score: 7/10

Overall: 7/10

I was a defender of Peter Jackson as the Hobbit films released to disappointed audiences, but it now seems clear that he didn't know what he was doing with the story. The Dol Guldur/Necromancer plot line really was tacked on for no good reason, adding almost nothing except opportunities to foreshadow the events of Lord of the Rings. The over-abundance of characters is a nightmare to manage, and yet they still get corralled into one place at the climax for the battle of the title. Smaug gets killed off before the opening credits. It's all a bit messy.

And yet, the film remains very enjoyable, and I think, very good. The absolute orgy of scenery porn photographed by Andy Serkis' second unit combines with the master craftsmanship of Weta Workshop in both CGI and physical props/costumes/set dressing to make a sumptuous feast for the eyes. I honestly believe that if a viewer spent the whole movie focusing exclusively on the backgrounds, they would come away satisfied.

And the acting is not bad either. Admittedly, none of it (and nothing else in the movie either) has a shred of subtlety, but the cast do a good job of portraying those big, blunt emotional arcs. Thorin's (Richard Armitage) operatic descent into madness and then redemption, Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) fear, suspicion and ultimate bravery, Tauriel's (Evangeline Lilly) pointless romantic sub-plot, all are implemented with gusto, and come across about as well as you could reasonably hope.

As a die-hard Tolkien fan, I am happy to spend as long as I can in this Middle-Earth that Jackson has created. If the films had been 9 hours each, I would be fine with that. With more rigour at the screen writing stage, all three films could have been considerably better, but I am very happy with what we have.

Version I saw: UK cinema release

Actors: 7/10

Plot/script: 7/10

Photography/visual style: 7/10

Music/score: 6/10

Overall: 7/10

I came into 'The Imitation Game' knowing quite a bit about Alan Turing. He comes into conversations about science, mathematics, history and civil rights. I had seen the 1996 BBC drama 'Breaking the Code' starring Derek Jacobi, as had Benedict Cumberbatch, who has said in interviews that Jacobi's performance of the role influenced his own. For this version though, the focus is more on the effects of Turing's autism on his life than of his speech impediment.

This is Cumberbatch's forte: characters who are right all the time, about everything, but communicate poorly. He's got the charisma to be likable even while behaving (on the face of it) badly toward people. In fact, he heads a cast featuring Mark Strong, Keira Knightley and Charles Dance, all doing the exact types of performances at which they excel.

Turning this kind of story into a drama faces an obstacle that doing maths and breaking codes in rooms is not inherently cinematic, but the screenplay does a good job of getting around this by various means. Graham Moore's script is excellent in many regards. Also, I would like to point out some great location scouting and set dressing.

My only hesitation is that... Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think The Imitation Game adds much to the knowledge of even a fairly educated layman. There's very little new information here, and some questions I had remained unanswered. It covers the basics in an engaging, dramatic, insightful way, but if you are coming to this to expand your knowledge of Turing, you might want to look elsewhere instead.

Version I saw: UK DVD Director's Cut (2004)

Actors: 6/10

Plot/script: 4/10

Photography/visual style: 6/10

Music/score: 7/10

Overall: 5/10

I'll be honest, getting an insight on the rise and fall of George Lucas was not the reason I decided to watch his first film, but it was undoubtedly on my mind during the movie.

One element of the director's controversy was immediately apparent: as he did with the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas could not resist going back and tinkering with this film. Beginning at the very start, the 2004 director's cut has several CGI additions to shots. It's unnecessary, intrusive, and quite annoying, and it seemed to me well below the standard of 2004 technology too.

Lucas has always been fascinated by the technical aspects of film-making, and some argue that this is to the exclusion of more human components such as plot, dialogue and characters. It's also evident in the technical companies he founded like sound engineering group THX (named partly after this very film) and visual effects gurus Industrial Light & Magic. It is worth noting that the sound editing and reproduction on this movie is excellent, making great use of Lalo Schifrin's ominous, synth-heavy score.

The story of a dystopian future is laden with satire, very much an angry young man's kind of behaviour. It is interesting to see what became such an establishment figure being so edgy. If the phrase "Wake up sheeples!" had existed then, it would have been applied to THX 1138.

I have to say though, the plot doesn't actually make a lot of sense. The storytelling style is experimental, which is very much forgivable for people at this early stage in their careers, but it doesn't ultimately work, and that fatally handicaps the movie. I wasn't sure what was going on most of the time, why it was going on, or why I should care.

Does all this tell us anything about why the Star Wars prequels failed so disastrously? Not much, to be honest. They are so different in so many ways that comparison is hard. They are at opposite ends of the scale financially (clearly a preoccupation in THX 1138, judging by the number of times 'budgets' are mentioned within the plot), in aims, chronologically and thematically. Perhaps, though, there is some basis for a suggestion of a man who lived his life and career having less of an insight into real people than theoretical people, and much less than into the mechanics of the films he built around them.

Version I saw: DVD release

Actors: 5/10

Plot/script: 5/10

Photography/visual style: 7/10

Music/score: 5/10

Overall: 5/10

Lots of low-budget attempts have been made to film the work of H.P. Lovecraft but, aside from Re-Animator, nothing with any particular profile. Whether studios are scared of his reputation as a racist, or his old-fashioned, stilted prose, we so far have to settle for productions like this German one if we want to see his considerable legacy on screen.

Lovecraft's story 'The Colour Out of Space' is set in a rural New England village where a meteorite crashes, and spreads a malign influence that poisons everything and everyone around it. I remember it striking me that this could be read as a fanciful exaggeration of the way radioactive material can contaminate an area, but I digress.

For this movie, writer/director Huan Vu has retained the New England setting and period, although he makes the questionable decision to add that the community is a German American one, thus allowing them to get away with dialogue in German as well as a wild variation of accent quality on the English lines. The acting in general is not exactly of the highest quality. The period setting does allow a parade of fashionable waistcoats though, and a generally hipsterish look to the costumes.

The decision to film in black and white is part of what seems to me by far the best aspect of the film. In the novella, the very nature of the artifact, its sheer other-worldliness, is what causes its toxic effect, and specifically its never-before-seen colour. Well, we know what colour is now, and what lies at its limits, so filming it is a problem. Vu gets around this by making the object the only thing that has colour in a black-and-white world, a touch of visual invention that I wholeheartedly applaud. It combines with some other cinematic touches to impressive effect.

The pacing is a problem, and I am not sure a feature length film was the right medium for this story. What is added is not unambiguously good either.

All in all, a mixed bag. A good attempt, and I hope they try again, but this is not quite the Lovecraft adaptation we have been waiting for.