Reviews

This film is outstanding.

One of the things about North Korean coverage in general is the tendency for major news brands to craft a somewhat sanitized story about the personality cult of Kim Jong-Un (a fat, spoilt dictator) and his powerful sister (creepy, bloodless, etc).

The issue here is that it evades the real issue with North Korea, namely the suffering public that have endured famine followed further food shortages, public executions and lived in undeveloped squalor amid the sham of fascist indoctrination and state powers that prolong the poverty and repressive nature of the place but require utmost respect from the citizenry.

Throughout the film, without spoiling details, we see the complexities, danger and, at times, heroism of real people escaping the ruins of the Kim dynasty, including rarely seen footage of the state that, not surprisingly, is kept from public view.

The family in much of the narrative leaves in unison, meaning that young children and grandparents also must cross rivers, mountainous terrain and deal with possibly deceptive fixers (or "brokers") that can arrange the network of vans and safe-houses allowing North Koreans to travel thousands of kilometers across Asia to find land where they can be classified as defectors.

At the viewing I attended, audiences were obviously moved by the repressiveness and deprivation of North Korean lives and the relatable humanity of it's victims.

In this particular feature documentary, a South Korean pastor who'd long ago left the North is able to assist with their travels. Having lost a family member in an earlier personal tragedy, Pastor Sengeun Kim risks life and limb helping other family members to improve their lives.

It's not well understood (or perhaps believed) how repressive the North's rules are - defectors risk being shot or may receive severe physical beatings, at worst they may die in the nation's gulag system. Others leave only to be sold into sex trafficking or other exploitative schemes. Some defectors wish to get family members out but are unable to, as the information ban and threat level from the state severely complicates freedom of movement and basic human rights.

Something lasting about seeing this item is that it's human qualities are moving, and authentic. As mentioned, much of the "coverage" we receive of North Korea is factual but also fabricated from motion graphics, recycled news footage, alternately tourists are sometimes allowed by rail from China for brief stage-managed visits of the brighter buildings of Pyongyang where visitors are led to well-maintained memorial statues of their permanent head of state and his offspring. Beyond Utopia actually examines the predicament of lives being lived in North Korea.

This budgeted would-be festival short features some nice photography and vfx touches, however there's something amiss about this Sci-Fi allegory about colonialism and alienation in the South Pacific.

Mhaireid Connor, the producer/presenter came off as pretentious at the screening, claiming to be part of an established film movement which didn't exist.

At 17 minutes running time, would rather see a competent and engaging set up and pay off but the filmmakers seem more interested in indulging their interests in cinematography and post production to concern themselves with saying anything memorable.

Finding negative reviews of EWS from major outlets is not difficult.

Though famous for cohesive, absorbing and sometimes thoroughly unsettling drama with inexplicable endings, here Kubrick spends a fortune and (inexplicably) fifteen months shooting a film that is, at heart, a type of bad TV drama or inoffensive mystery drama about a Doctor (Tom Cruise, apparently) drifting around at night consumed by the idea his wife had thoughts for another man a year before.

The story, rather than evolving out of it's character naturally, seems rather mannered and stilted in it's story. The main problem is the character's motivation feels unlikely, and the "mysterious, sinister sex cult" he encounters via some details from an old friend at a jazz club aren't truly sinister, or explained. They just don't feel motivated properly - more in keeping with the polite scares and episodic nature of fairly bad TV drama, uninintentionally funny in places plus Eyes Wide Shut contains endless shots of naked women and references to sex - the film feels oddly distant and slight of plot however.

Other zingers that are very anti-Kubrick include a very obvious one-note "spooky piano" score and, really, no outstanding set design or visual compositions. I mean, yes, the film's professionally made but for the hundreds of takes involved you basically get Tom Cruise playing Tom Cruise - a bad casting choice for the part although he "looks good on camera" and recurring themes about infidelity, rich vs poor, secrecy and threats.

The film is a BIT like Scorsese's After Hours film but with a lot of boobs. Boobs boobs boobs. Everywhere. Plus, a rather goofy "sex cult" who are apparently mask-wearing elites that desperately want their identity kept secret.

The film lacks real depth, subtext, plotting or emotional impact - some exchanges between Cruise and Kidman are very well done but the production's oddly self-indulgent, slow pace make it apparent that Kubrick had lost whatever compelling and original style he had; I suspect without his name on the credits this flick would be very much an emperors new clothes sort of thing, ie "why are these rich famous people making such a silly, low budget sort of film?".

I don't know what to say about this film, to be honest.

It's basically a group of (adult) fanboys with costly video production gear (they have at least one production spec camera, a crane, audio gear, LED lighting, post staff, etc) to create a very "polished" - frankly middle class/pro-am version - of a Friday the 13th movie. Updated, if you will, for the expanded storage and technical abilities of 2020 era videography. The film clearly passes for professional cinematography (or rather, they used a legit cine-cam and post workflow) but the film also has odd focus-pulling errors, some very odd lighting effect compositing and inexplicably shows shots of "awe" to establish Jason Vorhees' presence in the film - here attempting to stab someone in the snow without motive, character, context, emotion or even humor. (I guess they got that bit right.) - it all sort of begs the question - WHY DOESN'T THIS PRO-LEVEL INDIE FILM CREW THINK OF THEIR OWN MONSTER STORY?

The issue being - these films weren't any good to begin with! Except for the 80s kitsch/nostalgia value they are strictly disposable sequels without classic characters, sets, locations. Being "able" to create a higher production value version of these (often inept) movies via crowdfunding says little creatively.

HAD THEY actually come up with their own monster idea and sold that, it could have pulled me in - besides that, I feel the film is overwhelmingly an attempt to sell "real, cinematic quality" shots and postproduction work on a no-concept film with acting that is often lacking compared to real studio acting.

This doesn't mean "fan films suck" - if they're satirical or engaging somehow, sure - but there's an odd feeling the whole point here is to make money or profile for Womp Stomp film productions instead of taking chances and doing something creative (or even: SCARY, which this film isn't) - THERE IS NO STUDIO OR MARKETING EXPECTATION for them to make a decent movie here, yet they act as if there is? What are they trying to do, exactly? Get the attention of Platinum Dunes productions?

Give the film a solid 7-9 out of ten for craft, 4 for performances, 2 for concept.

This film matches Villeneuve's classic, classy and above all MYSTERIOUS and otherworldly style to a classic High Stakes drama that's part Shakespearean, part modern day Lawrence of Arabia, part pulp science fiction details.

Luckily, the story isn't overly concerned with "science", more appealing to audience interest in character development, world building and stunning, flawless design elements.

The epic nature of the storyline means auds see the film, only to find out the story continues in a year or so, besides that, it's still a masterful example of modern - probably classic - film making. Recommended.

As (everybody) knows, Disney are too interested in franchise-based continuum and wide audience "four quadrant" sales to actually do anything creative, and the monopoly owns, schedules and legally deploys over half of what appears at "the movies" these days.

So they created this film - which, whether they wanted it or not, just solidifies why so many people dislike Superhero Movies in the CGI era.

1) The film has no heart. Literally plays as an ad for previous installments, features a winding plot about goodies vs baddies and GUESS what happens at the end?

2) Downey Jr takes home about 50 mil in global residuals and fees while some 60,000 people outside in LA live in tents, have no basic water or sanitation.

3) Film is actually the product of previous installations to milk the Avengers like putting a cow thru a blender. Why not create three concise, successful films (like the original Star Wars or Lord of the Rings trilogy) that are equally mainstream, and has a sense of heart, emotion and inspiration? The characters were getting so overfamiliar by the time this umpteenth sequel rolled around, I felt somewhat stale and weary before even going into the cinema.

4) Chris Pratt.

Here Rocco Siffredi - assumed name - discusses the "industry" and "expertise" he has gained from putting his penis into various female body parts and selling the video footage.

Siffredi - a man that eternally looks either weak, untrustworthy, vengeful, crooked or just trashy - here allegedly runs a "porno academy" in Hungary, a country with more social deprivation than other European centers, presumably for sex workers willing to move to the US for savings or other incentives.

Ultimately, the US video sex industry is populated by sub-par "model houses", and there are certainly instances where controller/manager/driver figures are actually engaged in sex trafficking.

While I have no problem with legal sex workers, and Siffredi's life story and opinions may be worth recording, this show doesn't really explain anything of much substance.

These films are (presumably) aimed at teens and other "lonely guys" that want to jack off to filmed sex scenes, but occasionally someone from the (mob-connected) adult video community of the 80s and 90s would try to get above their station and presume that an entry in the "Comedy Porn Parody" pantheon will turn up some "mad bank", I'm yet to hear of any convincing stats suggesting these films make more money than other entries in the genre.

NOR that they were "fun to do", 80s porn mainstays Mike Horner (the regular guy), Joey Silvera (the blank, creepy guy) and Randy Spears (the angry, controlling looking guy) get directed in a series of very, very inert and tasteless comedy situations, sometimes revolving around lowbrow bodily-function type gags. If you can't get your actors to improvise well, or think of any dialogue worth remembering, perhaps this should have been, I don't know, a comedy-porn-tribute musical? At least having the cast pretend to sing to a miming track would have worked better. Inevitably viewers will fast forward through the sets and dialogue to the sex scenes, due to the lack of quality material elsewhere.

Overall though, far more entertaining than the nominal "Star Trek" motion picture series from Paramount released during the previous decade.

Made on a low budget with a lot of brains, laughs and a complete disregard for good taste, this film finally makes a landing from the previously faceless Troma film group - becoming a flagship character of sorts.

The picture features a nerdy, hopeless outcast who is reborn as a muscular, mutated green warrior with a profound, theatrical delivery. Stylized violence, mainstream attitudes about beauty and success and simplistic "Hollywood" moralizing are fodder for satire in this well made, and frankly bizarre film from Lloyd Kaufman's company.

This film shows "Ron Jeremy", a man with a larger-than-usual penis, appearing in sex films because he mistakenly thinks it will lead to celebrity parties, lucrative motion picture appearances, acknowledgement of his 'status' on television etc . . .

Which of course never happens. But his pathology is what drives him to have sex infront of camera, later stocked in video rental stores, then internet porn websites all over the world. While most would find this intrusive, stressful, impossible, Ron Jeremy embraces the form; his mother died when he was ten, so by making marketed sex tapes and using the notoriety to attend fan events, he acts out denial over his underprivileged childhood. Oh, he's also an imprisoned and convicted sex offender.

Not entirely underprivileged, either; Ron's father was a wealthy professional, but the loss of his mother, and his (fairly useless) drama studies certainly contributed to his later appearance in "adult" releases.

What I don't get about this film, is that it makes no mention of the mafia/organized crime influence in porn cinemas of the 1970s and beyond, also it tends to focus on the idea of Jeremy as not JUST a porn star, but someone that pursues a career as a legit standup comedian or actor, when the only thing famous about him is his penis length and greasy, piggy eyed, mulleted visage, black t-shirt, tub gut, gold chains and track pants. He does of course get a lot of sex in his life, but seemingly little affection, little recognition, and little lasting happiness, which is perhaps the unintended point of this lighthearted doco/puff piece about the man and his life.

Making back four times it's investment, this very 1980s sequel was the last big Elm Street picture for a long time, followed by the under-performing Elm Street 5.

The picture focuses on physical design elements, animatronics, and general body horror (and "surreal" dreamland horror) with elements of humour. Cast are audience-age 'young adults', and story makes little sense, other than that, yet again, an evil demon is in your dreams (sans Dokken) and if you don't defeat him . . . your friends will keep dying.

Needless to say, this isn't a scary premise, and no amount of VFX weirdness can create genuine horror in the picture, acting skills are mostly OK - a few excellent touches - Freddy emerges from a stream of 'sinister' fiery dog urine, also Kruger stalks a helpless, struggling girl along a beach in broad daylight, trapped in her own lethargic nightmare responses.

Is the film good? No. It's so shallow it's nearly disposable, and of course, the idea of actually "killing" the (not-living) antagonist seems unlikely as he's the most marketable, identifiable thing New Line Cinema had going at that point.

Slick and likable compared to most low budget 80s trash horror, but as usual, the writing and direction leaves a lot to be desired. If you watch the "Never Sleep Again" Elm Street doco series, it explains how the company spent the money on visual design rather than narrative or directorial talent.

A pointless, unoriginal film with bad pacing, zero stakes conflict, flat dialogue, a borrowed ending from a well established cinema classic, weak score (somehow) and a massive rush of VFX and quick cuts that fail to generate drama, adrenaline, pathos, really anything - the film fails to connect emotionally and seems to occur at arms length from the viewer.

The story also fails badly due to a lot of Elm Street style "fantasy" confrontation between characters in different locations, and a Michael Bay inspired series of endless explosions and wide screen shots of fake scenery without a dramatic setup or powerful characterization. Most/many secondary characters die, then come back to life. Main antagonist has been killed and bought back to life previously also, making this eighth sequel his second onscreen death, repeated purely to suggest some legitimacy about this fairly disposable good-vs-evil VFX release. Star Wars has largely been a disappointing failure since 1983, and this entry confirms the lack of quality in the highly marketable visual production series.

Two points: Comic Book movies are overplayed, as non-union CGI 'teams' pipeline the shots and the company makes off with most of the money.

Second point: Joker is NOT a CGI/superhero type movie! It's a 'drama' about a loner who's gritty, depressive, troubled life leads to accidental freak acts of urban violence; the alienated counterculture (who in this case, are not liberal-democratic progressives, but basically nihilistic alt.right losers) cheer him on.

Needless to say, the film is 'daring' for confronting the vast income divide, alienation and random violence in American life in 2019. Now for the the reason I give the movie six out of ten: I'M NOT A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD!! I've already seen the outstanding film King of Comedy, which is just wonderful, and many, many film critics have plastered analysis, superlatives and screen shots from Taxi Driver in magazines everywhere. Interviews where Joaquin Phoenix claims there was 'no mention of these films during production' or 'no intentional references in the movie' are just polite lies. The film is NOT original, despite it's retro genre styling and the fact that it is basically repellent, signalling to auds that this is a (bleurgghh!) comic-book movie that isn't afraid to totally break with commercial conventions.

Is the film great? No. It's narrow, manipulative and secondary characters get occasionally lazy narrative threads. Is Phoenix good? YES - he does some weird stuff, like getting into a fridge, or doing a little interpretive dance in a grimy public bathroom near a subway. The main reason this film is selling well is lack of important material during it's release date.

This movie has thousands of visual effects shots - and except for a few tiny moments, they are all designed, rendered and composited very professionally. You can't get much better.

But now for the bad part - I always had reservations that Disney corp. would make superhero films neutered of real menace, too franchise-ey and too polished/bland and that, in effect, is what's wrong with the film.

The script is frequently tone-deaf, as in totally unrelated to the onscreen action or dramatic conflict, which was an issue with previous entries, and the overstuffed "Civil War" (this film's ending is ripped from Birth of a Nation, but so are hundreds of titles in the action/adventure/fantasy genre).

Basically, the best parts of the film are supposed to be balls-out breathless action sequences between the Marvel hero's cast and Thanos, a demon-like intergalactic warrior, except Disney, in all it's marketing "wisdom", rob ALL the action scenes of drama with inappropriate, flat "quips" to carefully telegraph to parents that this is just a 'fun movie' with nothing more at stake than a bit of fun and some wiz-bang VFX. That, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with the film - in an attempt to please an audience who are increasingly exhausted from forty-five previous sequels in the tights-and-CGI genre, they put EVERYTHING into the movie from the Marvel comics canon, but then rob the movie of any real charm or menace with an awful script. Isolated scenes throughout play really well, but whenever the movie's supposed to hit overdrive and turn into a real "ride", the dialogue is annoyingly lame. I rate the film at a "six" instead of a "three" because of the artful VFX, backdrops, sci-fi props and digital camera moves.

Oh - I forgot to mention; the bad guys plan is super-lame also! Great animation, great costume, great backdrop. Lame dramatic goal, therefore the entire film is tainted with an undying lameness that you can't quite shake off, no matter how much key scenes impress. Worth pirating, if you can push a few buttons and it's raining outside . . .

Tim Burton has a heart of cardboard - can his friend Johnny Depp save him in this "dark" children's remake about consumerism? Dunno bro, ask Batman!! That sucked too, especially in the "plot" department. This movie is worth seeing for some attractive set design, ostentatious costumes and Danny Elfman's energetic, whimsical-yet-gothic musical approach. Parts of this film break down in to MTV style music video montage, which is another sign of how shallow and distracting Burton is as a creative force, and storyteller. He has made some SOME great films, but this is like half of one, in a sense. I enjoyed the CG furry animals though!

Harmony Korine has hung onto some kind of entirely constructed "hipster" status since the 1990's, based on his claim that while skateboarding he met someone big in film and pitched an edgy, youth- oriented story idea, and secondly through verbally offered association with art film directors and appearing in advertising/youth culture handout's like VICE magazine.

Harmony Korine's film "Gummo" is: a non-narrative black comedy about poverty and alienation in a very small town in Ohio, destroyed by freak weather incidents.

The film is, also, neither funny or emotionally moving. Occasionally models or other *hipsters* (if that's still a valid term) name drop his films among better quality releases, as if his solidarity with poverty and American suffering is somehow valid.

The truth is that Harmony Korine is a social conservative: his films all play off of the same riffs and themes that the Youth of Today are mislead, transgressive, shocking, out of control, unloved etc. He might as well be making films for a conservative family values center.

Films are valid if the emotional and dramatic reward is there for an audience, not because of the directors posturing and this film is particularly slight in it's construction, and somewhat forgettable.

DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE!!

I'm serious - if you want to, I can't stop you, so here's the premise: Zuckerberg is an everyman and underdog, a grinning, charmless suburban geek that wants to "change the world", by connecting people - the villains of the piece are US blue-blooded preppies that believe they are the rightful lead in a type of tech/social media platform race that becomes what we know of as Facebook.

But what is Facebook? It's an omnipresent, surveillance-based global software that relies enormously on the sharing of "content" for which it, nor consumers ever pay. This film, although handled with excellent balance and dramatic treatment, and no shortage of wit, seems to make no mention of the fact that our best journalists, artists, musicians, documentarians, animators and designers are paid nothing ($0.00) for a media sharing platform that earns nearly 40 billion dollars a year in revenue, and directs United States government policy-making, and collects all your personal data for marketing algorithms and public surveillance.

The image of Zuckerberg in his hooded sweater grinning naively with a soft-drink in hand is actually the sound of the Western arts and media economy being flushed down the toilet, and while there is "an angle" to this film, it makes little sense for any thinking individual to respect it's purported "little guy makes good" myth.

Smug mega-nerd Peter Jackson and co have decided to avoid the source material all together in favour of making three-hour installments of crude humor, overdressed cast members, over-designed backdrops and massive, complex action sequences that all look, and feel, like computer game cinematics created by Blur Studios, complete with virtual camera moves and impressive but utterly unrealistic narrative.

At no point does the Hobbit really fit into the piece, he doesn't even like the dwarfs, nor want to go on an adventure with them. The basic dramatic tension between him, the dwarfs, the elves and the orcs never has any feeling or emotion and the last shot is a set up for a sequel instead of a story ending.

Ironically, it's a type of overproduced b-grade trash that you'd think you'd see from New Line or the old Canon Group company. An impressive movie visually, but forgettable, mishandled and meaningless. In my humble opinion, the Pixar writers and and directors should have been brought in to improve the material, as many of the "acting" scenes in this long-form computer graphics movie feel extraneous or empty.

Lastly, I object to this films exclusively white male cast and narrative, and the fact that the New Zealand public contributed nearly 200 million dollars in tax relief for the Warners production to be made in their trade territory, despite mixed reviews and the overall impression that it ruined enthusiasm for the older classic pictures. The New Zealand public also faces a housing crisis and mounting homelessness due to opportunistic immigration policies and other serious issues due to earthquake damage. Coughing up incentives for wealthy Hollywood producers is hardly a shared priority.

Sorry, I just couldn't fully get behind this film; Canon group littered video stores of the 80's with bad taste action, horror and camp teen-comedy B-movies, a few of them will stand the test of misty nostalgia (if you were fourteen when you saw American Ninja, or Barbarian, or whatever) but the films are mostly garbage. This documentaries third act gets all sentimental about Canon's rise and demise but, honestly, the only thing the producers were interested in was money; they raised enough money to run overseas distribution, invest in cinema chains and also obtain the rights to a classic film library, but then it all collapsed because, like the bad filmmakers they were, they made the classic bad business decision of over- investing, over-expanding and over-predicting how well their (terrible, embarrassing, sexist, cheap looking) movies were going to do at the box office.

It DOES stand to reason that Canon are sometimes hilarious, and their one surprise mega-hit of a one million dollar budget earned about 74 million worldwide. This is unusual, and is a success story, but then the film was also nasty, derivative, mindless and probably more sexist than most other video releases of it's year. Why the interviewees claim at the films end that the Canon legacy is important is unclear; they paved the way for lowest-common denominator interests over intelligence and substance, and of course pre-sales, a concept that means a film will usually be generic in type, but the rights to distribute a movie are sold before it's actually made. Typically Menahem Golan would make up strings of improbable rubbish at meetings to try and please anyone anywhere that would finance a picture, based on the evidence of a gaudy poster and the "star quality" of people like Chuck Norris, or Michael Dudikoff. Time wastey.

You have to put aside your preconceptions of Hitchcock as creating "pure cinema gold" in terms of this film; it exhibits some of the worst contrivances of classic screen writing, with some decent dialogue and approximately three (3) scenes of nerve-wracking tension. That aren't actually all that tense.

Boilerplate thriller/whodunnit plot features a retired tennis pro planning to kill his glamorous, beautiful Hollywood star wife for cash, who's played by Grace Kelly. In the movie, she's just beautiful and glamorous, but is more of a socialite, and her husband is played by ever-so-well-spoken Ray Milland, a Cambridge grad who loves details, logic, and lying all the time. Just the right type of guy to plot a purely filmic murder trope.

He plans to frame the murder on an old college pal, that he manipulates and blackmails after digging up some dirt (that's hardly life threatening), in exchange for a thousand pounds Sterling. Which, by the way, is nearly $32,000 in today's US currency.

The film then turns into a series of unfortunate sexist tropes. After Grace Kelly's attempted murder fails, she spends the rest of the film alternately sobbing, collapsing, near-retching or near-fainting, whilst capable, repressed, emotionally dead men wearing impeccably ironed suits and hair oil discuss the facts, counterfactuals, allegations, timing and probability of her attempted murder with about as much emotion and involvement as a bunch of guys trying to isolate what part of a car engine is faulty.

It's not an involving film, and Ray Milland's initial murder plot is so contrived and hair-brained it's inevitable something, somewhere will go wrong. I guess, in a kind of clever/failed way you could suggest that out of the psychopathology of planning to commit murder he planned to fail, as the possibility of killing his estranged, adulterous wife is too painful to actually commit to, but he plans it anyway out of selfishness and a kind of appalling, smarmy pride which oozes from every line of his screen time like the thick fifties hair oil that so sharply reflects the studio lighting in most scenes throughout.

Pseudo-sophistication was the lingua franca of these cheeseball 50's era crime pics, and this movie is right up there with the Hepburn/Cary Grant vehicle "Charade" in terms of suits, polished little European sports cars, glamorous socialite blondes, and scheming, evil men in suits. Oh yeah, there's a suitcase full of money also.

The worst thing about the film, despite it's wonderfully phrased dialogue is that there's just too much of it, and elderly John Williams appears as suave-but-forceful Chief Inspector Hubbard, literally a patriarch that treats everyone with polite contempt, utters homophobic asides that would make most people cringe today, and of course nearly sentences a woman to death for a crime she didn't commit but never apologizes. Thanks to his intervention and "good skills" as a cop we find out that the scheming upper class morality vandals have been dipped in the cow turd by act three.

Pseudo-classic film, features great costume work and photography from the seventies era crew, instead of the slick, commercial-appeal look of 80's action and fantasy era pictures. As has been said before, film flirts with distinctly fascist overtones throughout - eugenics, the breeding of an illiterate warrior class, fundamentalist cults, quotes from Nietzsche on the power and dominance of strength.

The film's great score and visual style aren't really matched by it's lead though, as Schwarzenegger is unable to bring much drama, pathos or depth to his role as an orphaned warrior child seeking revenge. Really, the most emotive sequences are created by Basil Poladouris' soundtrack and the stylized set pieces, and there's not much of a story arc to build the film into a legitimate "epic" à la Lawrence of Arabia.

Oliver Stone who wrote for the movie envisaged a series of powerhouse action-fantasy films appearing every two-three years with Schwarzenegger as the lead, but the series was followed by a garbage sequel, additionally, the fan base ridiculed Arnold's dialogue and acting chops, giving him a Razzie or whatever it is for worst actor of 1982.

This film is not cool, so if you think "cool" is cool, this is not the picture for you.

The film appeals to a certain fantasist mindset shared by 19 year olds that think that mouthing unwieldy bits of dialogue about politics, science and philosophy = great writing.

In the future, allegedly, advanced cybernetic humans are involved with counter-terrorism, and they have their own security issues because evil computer hackers can break into their own brains. A lot of large (ripped off) scenes from Bladerunner scroll by in Anime style also, amid the shoot outs and tension-less action sequences.

Some nudity also, and bits of "adult" political banter. The film doesn't seem to match tone to soundtrack well, and there is zero relatable human drama anywhere in the picture. The combination of sci-fi pretense, earnestness and complete fantasy make the film intriguing, but not welcoming at all.

I'm aware, also, that film reviewers call the film a "masterpiece" regularly. Here's the thing though - the criteria that drives positive reviews from mainstream media is not always accurate. In my opinion, the critically panned Japanese offbeat comedy Funky Forest: First Contact is a hundred times more entertaining that G.I.T.S, which is really just a tech-heavy, soulless Bladerunner wannabe at heart.

Entertaining festival entry that combines new wave/punk/80's art school filmmaking style with insane club fashion and a dark, distressing allegory about AIDS, addiction, homosexuality and sexual violence.

The characters in the film are generally foul-mouthed, and hedonistic. Much of the stories running time focuses on an androgynous female model surrounded by fashion types, poseurs, addicts and people with violent, abusive sexual behaviour, except the central characters own sexuality kills them.

Often the film segues into deeply strange montages of cityscapes, club interiors and fashion items in a way that's totally disconnected from standard film editing language, and the script veers from hilarious to impassioned and descriptive.

In a distinct contrast to commercial Hollywood, none of the characters truly have "hearts of gold", and at no point is the audience witness to soaring sentimental pap about human suffering and vague gestures of universality or love, so for that reason in itself Liquid Sky is truly alternative cinema of it's day.

The "plot" centres on the idea of a small UFO landing in New York, killing people to harness their sexual energy. It's a metaphor for the AIDS virus before the concept had become widely known in the news media. Occasionally pretentious, or somewhat repetitive, but nonetheless the films distinctively foreign voice and mixture of bizarre audio and lapses into psychedelic montage create an indelibly unique stamp.

I had an inkling that this film would scale the heights of hilarity that Tommy Wiseau's film "the Room" did for so many people - but boy was I WRONG.

This movie is TERRIBLE, it's not a botched, unintentionally funny film, it's just a bad student/amateur project, complete with shots that aren't locked off (they couldn't afford, or didn't bring a tripod), terrible special effects (they couldn't afford, or didn't learn how to make passable CGI renders), and appalling, stilted performances. (They couldn't afford, or didn't have any friends that could make for an appealing, watchable gig on screen. Not even some local guy from an amateur play or standup show that turned out pretty good. No one.).

OK wait: to be honest, Whitney Moore (the pretty girl that appears in the film) does have a natural on screen presence, and given some worthwhile dialog, could be described as "an actress". No-one else in this film earns such a description.

BUT WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?? I hear you ask. UM, a guy that's come into some money via a stock option following his tech companies upscale takes a pretty girl he used to know in high school on a date. Not long after, giant deadly "birds" attack from above, murdering random people, making "Birdemic" something of an entry in the "zombie apocalypse/dystopia" genre.

Except not really, because there's only about 22 birds in the air in the entire film. It's initially hilarious because the visual effects appear to have been done by a fourteen year old with an intellectual disability on some very outmoded Adobe software. The ineptness of director Nguyen's ability to get depth in a shot, continuity or an error-free soundtrack is overwhelmingly apparent throughout.

In hindsight, some of the absurdity of the film might strike viewers as funny, but wading through ninety minutes to appraise how bad it was isn't really cooking my boat. Seriously, this is the 2010's and people make 1.40 YouTube clips with more hilarity than this entire production.

I have one caveat for this film: in two places, random characters that don't fit into the story appear to deliver bulky, unwieldy bits of dialogue concerning sustainability, ecosystems and the threat of global warming. This alone doesn't really save the picture from being 90% terrible filler and generally an embarrassment.

Some people think failure is inherently hilarious. Such people are referred to as "dorks".

The lighting, costume design and art direction alone make this film a standout, but also the cinematography and editing match the material and make this "timeless" film highly entertaining.

In Joe Wright's high-end retelling of the story, a young woman at the lowest, and most economically vulnerable end of the landed gentry of early 1800's England, must find a suitable partner. The man she finds is basically a total asshat, but as the plot unfolds, it's revealed that the negative allegation's made against him aren't actually true, and although his family would forbid it, he's prepared to transcend the class structure of his era for "pure love".

Keira Knightley is effortlessly beautiful in every scene, even when she falls in the mud or throws a tantrum, she basically grits into a photogenic grimace, and her 'petulant' look somewhat betrays the underlying entitlement of the actress.

The weather is perfect in every scene though and every prop, costume piece, window frame and even sagging, unappealing street view looks like a work of art.

The film's romantic core is something of a contradiction; ultimately, Bennett is a sexually attractive woman of lower social standing and the pompous, self-regarding Mr Darcy that loves her has a lot of money and property - making the plot seem somewhat more like a marriage of material gain rather than anything remotely revolutionary.

Regardless, generations of new readers pick up Jane Austin's classics, although as a newcomer you can be left wondering a little as to what readers see in their literary hero's concept; Austin's story is essentially a film about a women's lack of self-determination in an era before any real political and labor representation, and the film wallows in the pretensions and resentments of Britain's entrenched class system of yore. Thank god for the Sex Pistols.