Reviews

OK, we'll never know *quite* what Vincent Ward might have come up with: "Rumour Control! Wooden Spaceship! THE NAME OF THE ROSE in space!" as Brian Glover might have put it... But the recently released Special Edition of ALIEN3 is quite good enough to warrant a full-scale reappraisal of this dark, haunted, regret-filled little movie. If you thought it was the runt of the litter, think again - the thirty extra minutes of restored footage put it second only to ALIEN in the quadrilogy. Watch it, and you'll surely agree it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Fincher's later, stronger work. Highly recommended - now I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with Jeunet's ALIEN:RESURRECTION... more Joss Whedon, less cyberpunk maybe?

What? A British movie without any diamond Mockney geezers or slumming luvvie thesps? A British movie that dares to tell an interesting and for the most part unpredictable story about - gasp - recognisable, likeable characters? Is it a ghost movie? Is it a thriller? Is it STRAW DOGS? Is it THE WICKER MAN? No - it's something else, is what it is - most of all, a throwback to the days when the British film industry (quiet at the back there, stop sniggering) could make quirky, intelligent, movies that exemplified style and originality, not just an excuse to pollute the screen with stereotyped by-the-yard Britflick blah. Danny Boyle did it with 28 DAYS LATER, and this film does it too - check it out. As Joe Bob would say.

It's not big budget. It's not post-modern. It's not a bunch of buff teens out in the woods. It's a careful, low-key period piece, which by no coincidence whatsoever is one of the best British scary movies of the last ten years. This is what happens when you set a good cast loose on a good story, with capable direction and a determination to avoid cheap and cheesy thrills. Go seek it out!

Dominic Sena's "Kalifornia" - it's almost there. It's a fine line between the good, acceptable thriller and the truly memorable classic, and "Kalifornia" so damn nearly makes it into the latter category, it'd be unfair of me to dwell on its minor shortcomings. For the record, these are mostly down to some slight reservations concerning Brad Pitt's performance as Early Grayce, and a general feeling that the ending wasn't quite as punchy as I'd been hoping... but we ought to set against these minor points a whole bunch of pluses.

Don't get me wrong - I do like the Pittster, he was fine in "Twelve Monkeys", "Se7en", etc; it's just that here he seems just a trifle mannered - as if he can't really let himself loose in the character of the ultra-psychopathic Early. Perhaps it's a fault of the part as written... can't make my mind up. Duchovny is fine (interesting to see him waving that torch around, Mulder-style...), and both the women leads are very good indeed.

Elsewhere among the pluses: an absorbing plot, sharp & simple; nice script; that much-beloved Propaganda Films sense of noir style about the production; and, less definably but quite importantly, just the sense that the people who made this movie like the sort of movies you like... which is always pleasant. You get it with Mark Pellington; you get it with Shyamalan; you get it with most of the good guys, and I'd include Sena in that category.

A superior, thoughtful and provocative thriller - now will someone please give Duchovny another movie role even half this good?! 'Cause he certainly needs one, after Evolution...

Quite simply, "Millennium" was one of the best TV shows of the 1990s: wonderfully knotty, doomy storylines, strong casting, some excellent writers (including the great Darin "X Files" Morgan) and ten times the style of your average cops'n'robbers junk. So where are the video box sets? Where the enhanced DVDs? After all, if "The X Files" was worth this sort of loving commemoration (and it was, it was), then surely "Millennium" shouldn't be treated like the proverbial red-headed stepchild?

Go to it, Fox dudes.

Selah.

Smart, funny werewolf movie, whose only real fault (and it's one that I can certainly live with) is the fault it shares with all lycanthropy flicks - the simple fact that NO movie werewolf, EVER, has looked even halfway believable. But this is unfair criticism - the creature in "Ginger Snaps" is at least as good as those we see in movies costing ten times as this small-scale Canadian feature. And the acting is a treat - full marks for Emily Perkins and (especially) Katherine Isabelle, who are terrific as the screwed-up teeny-Goth sisters who run into Something wild and fangy one full-moon night. The movie is stylish and - take note, Hollywood! - slyly intelligent. A real breath of fresh air, highly recommended.

Not your usual cops-and-baddies stuff: a strong, satisfying US debut from the English director of "Withnail & I". American audiences mostly gave this film the go-by - annoyingly, since it's one of Garcia's best and easily the equal of anything else coming out of Hollywood in '92. The plot is neat and satisfyingly knotty - Garcia (excellent as always) plays a big-city cop looking for the quiet life in upstate California, only to stumble right into an ongoing serial-killing case. Uma Thurman does very well as Garcia's blind love-interest who unwittingly provides the information that's needed to crack the case - but at what cost? All this and Old Granite-Face, the great Lance Henriksen - what else did you want, America?

It may seem over-the-top to use a word like "genius" to describe what is, after all, "just" a a cheapie slasher exploitation flick - but The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is, I think, the work of SOME sort of genius. It's one of a very small handful of films that present a unique, completely radical view of the world; it's harsh, unforgiving and totally memorable, and by God, once it sets its teeth in you, you stay bit. Just the set design/"decoration" alone would be enough to make this movie stick in your mind; image after unforgettable image whacks you round the chops, to say nothing of the extraordinary, semiamateur performances. Forget the wave of unwatchable crap that came steaming in its wake - the Massacre is the original, and still the best drive-in horror show.

A real gem, is this stylish and inventive vampire flick; elegant direction, good performances (including the remarkable Ron Perlman, great as always) and a clever, literate premise combine to make this movie a must-see for all lovers of the spooky cinema.

One every so often you come across a real, unclassifiable gem - one of those low-budget cult movies you see, late at night on TV, then spend years thereafter raving about to your puzzled, disbelieving friends. "See, there's this disused Tube tunnel, with a tribe of degenerate Victorian plague cannibals down there, and they pull people off the platform and eat them, only sometimes they try to mate with them... and Donald Pleasance gives possibly the most monumentally weird performance of his LIFE... and there's this really cheesy proto-electronic score... and... and... and..." As folks wander away from you, shaking their heads sadly, you do not mind. You smile. For you have seen Death Line.