Reviews

The Purple Monster (Roy Barcroft), vanguard of a Martian invasion force, takes over the body of Professor Layton (James Craven) as part of a plan to build a 'jet-plane' that will replace his destroyed vehicle (Martian rocket-science appears not to have mastered 'landing') and allow him to return to Mars with the technology needed to build an invasion fleet that can successfully land on Earth. Only hard-fisted and quick-witted G-man Craig Foster (Dennis Moore) and obligatory helpful/menaced dame Sheila Layton (Linda Stirling) can stop the malicious Martian and his treacherous human minions. As 'sci-fi' serials go, this 15-parter from Republic is pretty good. There are lots of chases, shootouts, and fist-fights and just about very episode produces a new scientific MacGuffin (rocket fuel, gas to replicate the Martian air, an atmosphere stabiliser, an meteor annihilator ray, etc.) that the Purple Monster needs to complete his nefarious plan and that Foster strives to keep him from obtaining. The 'science' in the fiction doesn't make much sense and there are a number of glaring plot holes (how does Professor Layton's corpse stay 'fresh' so long, why is getting Martian breathing air important when the Purple Monster has no problem breathing Earth's air) but the action is non-stop, well done and fun to watch Some cost-cutting typical of the studio's chapter-plays is apparent: only one 'Martian to human and back transition' scene was shot and the footage is reused ad nauseam, the same car is blown-up several times, the same footage is used for the arrival on Earth of The Purple Monster and the later arrival of his shapely but wicked Martian assistant Marcia (Mary More). There are several fights in each episode, often with Craig duking it out with the Monster himself and/or a couple of minions. The brawls are very energetic, well-choregraphed, full of smashed props, and everyone seems capable of absorbing impressive amounts of abuse without getting bloody (or even dirty) or losing their fedoras, even when sent flying backwards over tables. Although the action is bloodless the serial is a bit grim - numerous people are murdered or shot during fights and The Monster tests his annihilator ray by blowing up random cars on the local highway (not shown). Most of the cliff-hangers and their resolutions are nicely done (there is only one 'cheat' - the spikes about to impale Foster are much closer to him at the end of the episode than they are when he cleverly stops their advance at the beginning of the next episode). The cast is fine: Barcroft manages to be menacing despite wearing tights and Moore is fine as the heroic G-man whose prowess in fisticuffs and ability for making astute predictions based on minimal information are typical of the character-trope. Though a bit ridiculous at times, the serial takes itself reasonably seriously and is thankfully free of youthful sidekicks and comic relief. While not in the same league as the true space-opera-serials like 'Flash Gordon', 'The Purple Monster Strikes' is a entertaining sci-fi tinged adventure serial. No explanation is given as to why the Martian christens himself 'The Purple Monster' but it makes for a fun title.

In the aftermath of the great fire of Rome, imperial arsonist Nero (Charles Laughton) conspires to blame the Christians while his decadent empress Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) lusts after Imperial Prefect Marcus (Fredric March) who in turn pines for demure Christian beauty Mercia (Elissa Landi). Let the games begin. The central love story is contrived and vapid with an oddly coiffed March affecting a stilted silent-era acting style and Landi spending too much time trying to look as chaste and pious as possible. As usual, the sinners are far more interesting than the saints. Laughton slices ham as a childishly vicious Nero (his delivery may have been an inspiration Futurama's Hedonism-bot) and Colbert is alluringly-evil as his sensuous, selfish queen. Most of the pre-code-enforcement film is worth watching only to frame Colbert's fabulous milk bath scene (those with quick eyes or fast fingers on the pause button will discern that there wasn't quite enough milk at times for complete modesty). The other highlights are the over-the-top, bloodless but visceral, martyring of the hapless Christians in the Coliseum, which includes being stomped by elephants, torn apart by lions, ravaged (ravished?) by gorillas, and devoured by crocodiles (the film's animal wrangling is impressive). Too bad the 'message' parts of the film (4/10) drag down the 'spectacle' parts (10/10). As a director, Cecile B DeMille isn't remembered for subtility or nuance but he was undeniably a master of excess.

In a colourful but grossly inauthentic ancient Rome, Hercules and sidekicks Newton the centaur and Toot the satyr battle foes such as the wicked wizard Daedalus, the bewitching Wilhelmine, and the indestructible 'The Mask'. The animation is primitive and repetitive but the characters are endearingly silly and the 5½ minutes adventures have a strange, calming charm about them. I loved this show as a kid and still do (hence the highly subjective rating). Perhaps 'The Mighty Hercules' is best remembered for Johnny Nash's infectious and compulsively whistleable theme song. The cartoon is a marker of an era and I can immediately connect with anyone of my age and cultural background by chirping "Herc, Herc, it's the Mask, the Mask!" or growling "Arrr, Hercules, no one can harm me while I wear the mask of Vulcan". Pairs well with 'Rocket Robin Hood' (1966), an equally ludicrous but memorable cartoon from the same era. "Olympiaaaaa"!!!!!

Annoyed at having been scolded for talking too much and looking for leverage in their demand for a TV, two young brothers (Koji Shitara, Masahiko Shimazu) take a vow of silence. The frequent flatulence jokes notwithstanding, Ozu's film is all about communication. Before going mum, the older brother observes that adults say a lot of nothing including pointless salutations such as the film's (English) title - "meaningless things" as one character refers to the bulk of our parlance. Of course, the two boys are not above 'meaningless' utterances (amusingly, the younger frequently says "I love you." in English when leaving a room) and quickly discover that not talking is a problem when in school or feeling hungry. The boys' silence is misinterpreted by neighbours as hostility on their mother's part, which fuels the local gossip mill and generates even more miscommunications and wasted words. Even the boys' English tutor, presumably a scholar of communication, seems incapable of simply saying what is important in the film's clever closing scene. 'Good Morning' is quite funny (although the humour is a bit juvenile at times). I especially liked the grandmother's response to a pushy peddler (proving that she fully understands than communication goes beyond just words). The cast, which includes Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Kuniko Miyakeis quite good and the two boys around which the story revolves, are excellent. Typical of the Ozu's ouvre, not a lot happens as the static, low-slung camera flicks back and forth between the characters and the local 'scenery' but I found the tale clever and comical. The movie is a partial remake of Ozu's earlier silent take on children and their view of the world, the excellent 'I Was Born, But... (1932). Watched with English subtitles.

Police patrol the streets in a propellor-driven dirigible, using long clamps to capture a couple of muggers, a pair of burglars, and a dog spotted stealing sausages from the butcher. Once the on-board jail is full, the aerostat lands on the roof of the police station and the malfeasants are thrown into funnel that deposits them into a room full of other policemen who take them into custody. The short film was made for Gaumont and, even by 1910 standards is primitive. Other than the 'view' the police get through their telescopes (oddly a binocular image), there are no optical special-effects, just props including part of the airship (the whole vehicle is never seen) and the grasping clamps (also never fully seen), the police station set, and hoists for the illusion that the sky-cops are lifting the apprehended criminals up to their lighter-than-air cruiser. The 'action' is quite repetitive, and the comic highlight is the 'arrest' of the dog. Of historical interest only.

Through a series of unlikely events, Lewis Tater (Jeff Bridges), an aspiring western-writer ends up in depression-era Hollywood working for a poverty-row studio making B-oaters while trying to avoid a couple of shysters whose cash he inadvertently made off with. An uneven blend of slapstick, romance and a satire (at the expense early Tinseltown), the film has the look of a lightweight 1970s comedy and hasn't aged well. Movie fans (especially those familiar with John Wayne's prolific pre-celeb output with Lonestar Picitures) will likely enjoy the self-referential Hollywood shtick, but the sub-plot about the two gangsters gets tired fast and the ending is flat and predictable. Bridges makes for an affable 'innocent abroad' and the rest of the cast is fine.

Gangsters are after Dr. Tymak's (John Merton) secret missile-destroying ray-gun (and sundry other technical marvels) to sell to an unnamed foreign power (hint, hint) and only the brains and fists of heroic Brick Bradford (Kane Richmond) can protect the "Peace of the World". Based on a then popular comic strip, this frugal Columbia Pictures serial is barely watchable. The strip had drifted into science fiction themed adventures so the serial includes trips to the moon and into the past, neither of which are essential to the storyline. The moon episodes are particularly pointless - the budget didn't extend to a 'rocketship', so Brick et al teleport to the moon, which has a breathable atmosphere, a civilisation dressed like ancient Romans and, most inexplicably, a group of exiles from Earth (how they got to the moon, and why, is never explained - presumably rockets to the moon were available as one took the receiver for Dr. Tymak's teleporter to the far-side at some point prior to the strory). The trip to the past is simply time-filler - the premise that perfecting Dr. Tymak's marvellous gadgetry requires notes from a 18th century British explorer that are hidden in a pirate's treasure chest is ludicrous at best (the temporal adventure does give us a look at a fine-looking Noel Neill (best known as Lois Lane in the 'Superman' serials) playing a sexy, feisty, skin-clad native-girl). The 15 episodes can be divided into three segments: on the moon, in the past, and back on Earth (all of which appear to take place in Bronson Canyon) and are very different in tone (the moon story is a cut-rate Flash/Buck adventure, the time-travel story is 'jokey', and the final sequence is nothing but repetitive chases and brawls). The cast is adequate for the material that they are given but in general the serial is weakly plotted, cheap looking, repetitive, and many of the 'cliff-hangers' are resolved by finding out in the following episode that Brick and/or his buddies simply weren't killed by the fall, blast, fire etc. Cheap and dumb - for dedicated genre fans and life-listers only. As always, I am amazed at how men in the 1940s kept their fedoras in place during the most vigorous melees.

Backdropped by images of a poor 19th-century Japanese farming village high in the mountains, Orin, an aging but hearty woman (Sumiko Sakamoto) spends her 70th year preparing to follow the ancient tradition of ubasute and make a pilgrimage to the abode of the Mountain God, there to die of exposure or starvation, thus relieving her struggling community of the burden of keeping her alive. The story is a brutal fable of 'Nature, red of tooth and claw' in which nothing matters beyond survival, where life is held so valuably and yet so cheaply that an entire family is extirpated for the crime of stealing food, and unwanted babies are abandoned to die in the rice paddies. Against this brutal reality, Orin does what she can to help her family before she leaves, teaching her new daughter-in-law how to catch fish, conniving to relieve her hapless, foul-smelling youngest son of his virginity (before he disgraces the entire family with his revolting alternatives to conjugal bliss) and helping Tatsuhei (Ken Ogata) her eldest son come to peace with the idea of taking his beloved mother into the mountains to die. I found the film beautiful, compelling but sometimes hard to watch. While the brutal murder of an entire clan is the most painful sequence in the film, I found the most disturbing scene to be the realisation that the men carrying their elderly family members to the sacred place high in the mountains to die with dignity amongst the Gods, an ending so valued by Orin, were secretly told that they could just go partway throw the person off a cliff if they preferred. There is also a viscerally vivid scene where Orin, hoping to convince Tatsubei that she was aging beyond usefulness, deliberately smashes out her front teeth on a millwheel, an act mirrored by 47-year old Sakamoto, who had her four front teeth surgically extracted so she could play the role - demonstrating an almost pathological dedication to her craft. A central theme of the film, that humans are simply an extension of the cold, cruel, and complex natural world around them, is laid on pretty thick, as the activities of the characters are frequently mirrored by the creatures surrounding them, be it copulating, birthing, killing, eating, or dying. This is the second visualistion of the novel 'Narayama bushiko' by Shichiro Fukazawa, whose personal story is almost as grim and disturbing as is his tale of the sometimes amoral necessities of survival. Warning: some people will find this film repellent at many levels and for many reasons. Watched with English subtitles.

At the height of the Great Depression, an elderly couple (Barkley (Victor Moore) and Lucy Cooper (Beulah Bondi)) are forced to live apart after the bank forecloses on their mortgage and their children are incapable or unwilling to take them in together. The challenges that can arise when dealing with the needs of aging family members is timeless and universal but may have been particularity problematic in the 1930s when unemployment was rife, money was tight, and social support was limited. The film is poignant but veers into the maudlin at times, especially when scenes are accentuated by a somewhat sentimental soundtrack. The leads are very good, and while blame for the sad separation is laid at the feet of the ostensibly heartless children, the script does give the kids a chance to 'justify' their decisions (and acknowledges that most of them are also struggling in the economic downturn). The parents are also shown to be somewhat problematic houseguests, the mother is bored and a bit needy, the father is obstinate and argumentative at times. The depiction of the 'elderly' is quite dated (Lucy is 70 and quite 'old', I know 70 year-old women who run marathons) and a 'modern' retelling would likely focus on health issues, especially mobility and cognitive failures, rather than on space and resources. Never-the-less, Leo McCarey had his 'heart in the right place' when he told this tale and the old American tear-jerker is worth watching. The film was adapted by Kogo Noda and Yasujiro Ozu as 1953's 'Tokyo Story', an excellent film that (IMO) is less sentimental and more nuanced (but I have a great fondness of Ozu's 'family dramas').

Decades after a bitter young Chinese researcher hits the 'call button' on a massive interstellar transmitter, inexplicable data appears in our most sophisticated research facilities that implies that our understanding of physics is fatally-flawed, virtual-reality devices that are far beyond our technical abilities appear, and brilliant young scientists start killing themselves. I found the inaugural eight episodes of the series to be compelling viewing, with competent cast playing interesting (if not overly complex) characters, excellent special effects, and an intriguing story-line (note: I have yet to read the book(s) or watched the Chinese version of the story). The only real problem I have is with the near omniscience and omnipotence of the existential threat that is driving the plot - hopefully the writers won't 'paint themselves into a corner' and end up with a story full of 'but why...?' moments. I am definitely looking forward to season two.

A disheveled ronin (an excellent Toshiro Mifune) aimlessly wanders into a town in which two rival clans are fighting a bloody turf war. After a messy demonstration of his expertise with a blade, the two bickering warlords try to outbid each other for his sanguineous services, not realising that the silent, po-faced killer has his own plans for the sad little town. Everything in this black-comedy-actioneer is near-perfect: Mifune leads a great cast including a number of Toho regulars such as Takashi Shimura, Tatsuya Nakadai, and Isuzu Yamada, the bleak set design owes more to Hollywood oaters than to Japanese jidaigeki, the B/W cinematography is crisp and moody, the story and characters are entertaining, the score is off-beat but effective, and the film delivers a number of clever touches embedded in a fast-moving blend of broad-comedy and chanbara action. Famously, Sergio Leone essentially duplicated Kurosawa's film as the iconic spaghetti-western 'A Fistful of Dollars' with a laconic drifting gunfighter (Clint Eastwood) replacing a laconic drifting samurai in a terrified town full of squabbling low-lifes (Leone claimed otherwise but ended up paying an out-of-court settlement to Toho Studios). The movie was a huge hit in Japan, and like its Western clone, was hugely influential on its genre. Followed in 1962 by 'Sanjuro', an equally entertaining sequel that finds Mifune's character once again dispensing quick katana-justice to Edo-era scoundrels. Watched with English subtitles.

Three disparate women end up selling themselves to survive in a bleak post-war Osaka. Like a number of Mizoguchi's films, 'Women of the Night' is a harsh commentary about the conditions and behaviours that many women were forced to endure in pre- and post-war Japanese society. The film is not particularly nuanced, and the director delivers his message with a heavy and unsubtle hand as the women's lives rapidly go from bad to worse to horrible (one of the women, desperate for money, tentatively approaches a sleezy procuress and the next time we encounter her, she's a tough, diseased, street-walking junkie). Despite the occasional weaknesses in pacing and character development, there are some devastating scenes, notably when a young run-away, intrigued by the 'glamorous lifestyle' of a dance-hall hostess, discovers just how mean the mean-streets of Osaka can be. The ending of the film is weaker than the build-up - the final scenes of the prostitutes fighting on a set that appears to be the ruined shell of a church with intact stain-glass windows (featuring the Virgin no less) are artificial, overly melodramatic, and a bit trite. Mizoguchi 'wears his heart on his sleeve' in his films about the travails of Japanese women but he has done so better in other films, such as 'Sisters of the Gion' (1936), 'The Life of Oharu' (1952) or 'Street of Shame' (1956). Watched with English subtitles.

Nicely done time travel tale - frugal but clever and original A research team discover that their 'window' into time is actually a 'portal' and end up trapped a century in the future on a devastated Earth from which the survivors of Armageddon hope to escape to a world orbiting Alpha Centauri. Ib Melchior's low-budget film offers up an interesting story with an exceptional ending. The script is well-written and reasonably scientifically literate, the cast is fine (albeit in somewhat undemanding roles), and the sets and special effects are inventive and effective considering the resources on hand. Melchior cut corners by substituting magic tricks for film tricks, a cost-cutting gimmick that is primarily used to pad the running time (the 'matter transfer' scene for example) but the inclusion of a man with congenital limb abnormalities (Peter Strudwick) as a 'mutant' was brilliant (Strudwick's story makes for interesting reading). As a bonus, there are lots of pretty girls (as usual, future fashions are baggy for the gentlemen, skin-tight for the ladies) and even a 'nude' spa-scene (anyone interested in seeing more than the chaste movie reveals can find Delores Well's 'Playboy playmate' shots online). On the downside, the film suffers from a sometimes sappy musical score (notably in the overly-long 'android factory' sequence) and limp 'comic relief'. Definitely a must see for fans, especially those who, like me, are suckers for time travel stories.

A play is produced about an odd group who meet up in the desert near a meteor crater. The film has a strange, stark, surreal desert setting, the similarities of which to the venerable Roadrunner cartoons is fitting considering the cartoonish look of the film. I generally like Wes Anderson's trademark aesthetics, but the over-the-top artificiality of this outing was a bit too much for me. There is not much to the story (or if there is, I couldn't be bothered to try to figure it out) beyond a series of intertwined vignettes featuring odd characters (or perhaps caricatures) and po-faced dialogue (the delivery of which frequently makes the heads on Mt. Rushmore seem animated by comparison). The A++list ensemble cast is excellent and make the most of their material (within the stylistic constraints of the director's vision), but the movie doesn't gather any real narrative momentum and despite some inspired comic moments, ends up beautiful but a bit boring.

An evil, unrepentant Nazi scientist (Mads Mikkelsen) and his villainous minions are after Aristoteles's 'Dial of Destiny' with which they hope to rewrite history and prevent the Third Reich's defeat in 1945. An eighty-year-old Harrison Ford is back, playing a 65-year-old Indiana Jones and generally does a pretty good job (although the abuse the character can take (and dish out) is even more improbable in a senior citizen that it was in the dashing archeologist's younger days). The opening set-piece, set about 25 years before the main story, is an outstanding demonstration of 'de-aging' technology, with images of a youthful Ford's face digitally, and usually seamlessly, replacing the aging actor's wrinkled mug. The plot is a typical Indiana Jones outing - be-hatted and whip in hand, the action-hero-academic (and assorted sidekicks) compete with evil-doers (Nazis as usual) to find some powerful antique McGuffin through a variety of exotic locales. The premise behind the titular gadget makes very little sense (especially after the climatic big reveal) nor do a lot of the minor plot drivers and visual thrills (corpses don't last for two millennia under water) but, as this is an Indiana Jones adventure, strict adherence to physiology and physics is not expected. Some of the action scenes go on too long (notably the endless and repetitive 'Tuk Tuk' chase) and little explanation is offered as to how the villains manage to keep locating the heroes as they travel around the Mediterranean (this enters ridiculous territory after the 'diving set-piece). The cast is generally good: the obligatory 'youngster' (Ethann Isidore) is not too annoying, Mikkelsen makes for a good 'fun-to-hate' nasty Nazi, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is fine as Indy's goddaughter/enemy/frenemy/ally (a refreshingly 'hands off' relationship). A few vintage characters put in an appearance as does John Williams' famous score and there are lots of nods to the original films (especially the iconic original). After the irritating 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' my expectations for Indy#5 were low, but despite some weakness in the storyline, I enjoyed the film (maybe not an 8 but definitely not a 7).

Skar-king, an evil giant ginger-ape, along with his minions and an enslaved kaiju plan on escaping the Hollow Earth hell to which they had been confined and conquering the planet's surface. Standing in the way of this existential threat to humanity is Kong, Godzilla, and their puny human allies. The target audience of this jejune opus is unclear - the bloodless action and comic relief seems to target undiscerning children yet the soundtrack is rocking-oldies, perhaps in an attempt to placate adults trying to remain interested (or awake). The cast is a bland generic mix playing bland generic 2D characters, with an expressionless Kaylee Hottle back as mute Jia so we can have some cloying new-agey scenes of her signing to the giant simian and Brian Tyree Henry returning to provide some near-pathologically-unfunny comic relief as a talkative conspiratorial podcaster. Kaiju anthropomorphisation continues: Kong now looks like a hairy old-testament patriarch-bodybuilder (with no gonads), Godzilla, despite being CGI moves even more like a person in a costume than he did in the 1960s, Scar King looks like a skinny guy in an orangutan costume (with no gonads), and Mothra looks like a giant moth with Cyd Charisse's legs. The plot is nonsensical - just a bunch of set-pieces glued together by some kind of vague unobtanium-technology and incredibly contrived 'twists' (Kong's metal-arm features prominently on the posters but its provenance in the storyline is ridiculously convenient and silly). The 'monster fights' are a mixed bag - the opening battle in Rome is pretty good but the finale, complete with 'cool' slow-mo and freeze-frame effects is derivative and boring. Likely targeting toyetic profits, Kong has a new sidekick - a ginger 'mini-me', proving that the writers hadn't learned from 'Son of Godzilla' (1967) that cute baby-kaiju are unwelcome in anything but Saturday-morning cartoons (I'm concerned that in addition to his new pink-highlights, Godzilla will show up in Legendary's next film with 'Godzooky' in tow). I was hoping that that last year's 'Godzilla Minus One' signaled a slowing in the decent of the franchise into pure dreck but sadly this outing (number 38 by my count) has just re-accelerated the unfortunate downward trajectory of Japan's iconic over-sized radioactive metaphor.

Expecting the Chinese detonate an 'Doomsday Machine', woman are added to the crew of an expedition to Venus to allow the perpetuation of the human race on a new world. Despite the intrigueing concept, the film is terrible. Badly matched scenes are strung together including decrepit stock footage, inept 'special effects' (the better effects were lifted from other films), and an established but lackluster cast delivering an abysmal script. Even with low expectations, the abrupt ending is a contrived letdown (probably marking the point when the budget zeroed). Only watchable for SoBIG (So Bad Its Good) fans - and even then, just barely.

Entranced by the picture of Lucy (Fiona Lewis), a young British woman who resembles his long-dead love, Count Dracula (Jack Palance) takes residency in England where his nocturnal depredations soon attract the attention of tenacious vampire-hunter Abraham Van Helsing (Nigel Davenport) who, stake in hand, pursues the nosferatu back to his native Romanian soil. Other than the implication that Dracula is an immortalised Vlad Tepes and that Lucy is the reincarnation of the impaler's wife, the story is fairly true to Bram Stoker's gothic classic. The production has the horror aesthetics of a Hammer Studios vampire outing but as a 'made-for-TV' production, the blood is kept to a minimum. Despite his uncomfortable-looking dental prosthetics Palance is pretty good in the title role as is Davenport as his nemesis. The rest of the cast is serviceable and the whole production, while not opulent, serves to tell Strokers classic tale. The original title was 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' but Francis Ford Coppola purchased the rights to that name when he was planning his own version of the story, the florid but entertaining 1992 film that also includes a 'Vlad back-story' and a 'reincarnated' love.

The unstable crew of the unstable starship 'Dark Star' are in deep space deploying self-aware (and stubborn) AI weapons to destroy unstable planets. This dated space-opera comedy started life as future horror-maestro John Carpenter's USC student film-project and was later fleshed out for limited release. Editing and special effects were done by Dan O'Bannon who went on to work on a mixed lot of sci-fi/horror hits and misses. Famously, the comic sequence of Sgt. Pinback (O'Bannon) trying to catch a beach-ball-like alien that is on the loose in the Dark Star prompted him to write the story that would eventually become Ridley Scott's space-horror masterpiece 'Alien'. The images of bored slackers drifting through space in a decaying ship was revisited in the great British sci-fi comedy 'Red Dwarf' (1988) and it's hard not to believe that George Lucas had not seen the Dark Star go into hyper-space five years before sending the Millennium Falcon through. The first third of 'Dark Star' has its moments but I eventually lost interest in the story and the characters and only my interest in the genre and its origins kept me watching to the finish. Lucas' 'THX1138' (1971) has similar etiology but (IMO) is a much more watchable film.

After two young women (Sandra Peabody and Lucy Grantham) are kidnaped by a gang of reprobates and abused, humiliated, raped, tortured and murdered, the killers take refuge in one of their victim's homes, where they are ultimately confronted with her viciously vengeful parents. Horror auteur Wes Craven's grisly inaugural outing is decidedly unsettling and helped fuel the backlash against 'video nasties' in the 1970s. By modern standards, the blood-letting is tame but the film has an almost documentary vibe (in part due to the at times amateurish acting and production) that somehow makes the entire story seem more 'realistic', and therefore more unpleasent, than slicker splatter pics. Despite a slow (and badly dated) start, the first half of the film is quite good, as Craven ramps up the perversity of the girl's captors and the helpless horror of their captivity. The 'last reel' slips a bit with poorly choreographed fights, over-the-top acting, and implausible behaviour (even within context). There is also some time-filling 'comic relief' involving incompetent cops that interrupts Craven's otherwise skilful building of tension and pointlessly undercuts the inherent viciousness of the core story. The fact that, unlike the 'supernatural' slashers that filled the screens in the late 1970s and the 1980s (such as Craven's iconic blade-fingered Freddy Kruger), there really are people in the world as bent, brutal and vicious as the killers in "Last House on the Left' and that (IMO) makes for a much more disturbing film. A genre landmark that is surprisingly watchable despite the disagreeable content (at least for aficionados). Apparently there are a number of versions in circulation, differing primarily by the amount of 'shocking' footage - the one I recently watched is on Tubi.

Scarred bad-ass Jonah Hex discovers that the villainous Quentin Turnbull (delivered with a side of ham by John Malkovich) who forced him to watch the immolation of his family and then branded his face is still alive and, now armed with a über weapon (designed by Eli Whitney no less), is planning on destroying the United States on the eve of its centennial. The film is similar to, and only slightly better than, Barry Sonnenfeld's awful 'Wild Wild West' (1999) revisioning. The filmmakers lacked faith in their source material (a DC comic series), so the hyper-skilled but otherwise mundane gun-fighter can now speak to the dead and is able to walk away after being shot in the chest at close range. These seemingly supernatural abilities are convenient to advance the slender plot but, other than a suggestion that some kind of indigenous magic is involved (Crow Indians initially saved his life, hence an over-done crow motif), are never really elaborated on or explained. Brolin is fine as yet another gravelly-voiced anti-hero, Turnbull's minions are the usual blood-thirsty semi-competants, but most of the 'good' secondary characters are throw-aways appealing to current aesthetics, including an ass-kicking hooker (Megan Fox) and a Black armourer (Lance Reddick, the focus of an awkward exchange necessitated (I suspect) by the desire to maintain Hex's hero-status despite being an ex-confederate soldier without offending sensitive millennials). The action sequences are technically well-done but are typical of CGI-enhanced shoot-em-ups: over-the-top gunfights and lots of weapons that look cool but that don't really make sense. Occasionally the scenes go very dark suggesting that images that didn't look as good as hoped are being obscured and the big reveal of Turnbull's super-weapon is a bit of a disappointment. Even as a second-string comic-book adaptation, the film is substandard and watchable only as a no-brainer time-waster.

Two men encounter a bewitching beauty standing in the snow in white robes with apparently supernatural powers...and have sex with her. This 'pink' spin on the 'Yuki Onna' legend is pretty silly - the frosty temptress seems to temporarily die (or go rigid or frigid) at the moment of 'la petite mort' thus preventing her lover from withdrawing his weapon (or something to that effect). Meanwhile, a small group of angry villagers armed with farm tools are searching for the pale seductress with malicious intent. The cast is generally amateurish and the script (or at least the English subtitles) risible, but Kiyomi Itô as the titular yokai looks very nice both in and out of her flowing white robes. Having really liked the 'The Woman of the Snow' story in Kobayashi's unsettling anthology 'Kwaidan' (1965), I thought it might be worth watching this version when I spotted the DVD in the local library (it was not). I seem to be the first person on IMDB to comment on this now 23 year old pinkie, so perhaps a broader release was recent. Time to hunt down the 1968 version.

Unrecognised abstract painter Jackson Pollack (Ed Harris) struggles with resentfulness, a bad temper, and alcoholism before developing the 'dripping' technique that made him an internationally renowned painter (still struggling with alcoholism, a bad temper and resentfulness). Jackson (at least as portrayed in the film) was insecure (but later egotistical) and frequently thoughtless and abusive, especially towards fellow artist and wife Lee Krasner (a very good Marcia Gay Harden), and I didn't find him or his story to be very interesting. Director/star Harris is fine in what is supposedly a very personal project and the scenes of him painting are very well done. The film is supposed to be fairly accurate, and knowing nothing about Pollock beyond his innovative style and 'Jack the Dripper' nickname, I found it worth watching but much less entertaining than, for example 'Lust for Life', Vincente Minnelli's 1956 Van Gogh biopic.

Restless spirits trying to escape eternal loneliness find a portal to the land of the living though the newly developed Internet and soon the the dead present an existential threat to the quick. I didn't find the characters interesting or either of the converging plot-lines particularly coherent or engaging. There was some creepy imagery at the beginning but after the first half, the look if the film was all that was holding my attention. Some IMDB reviewers seemed to discern a profound comment on human existence, but if there was such a weighty message, it eluded me (so take my comments with that caveat).

The impending annihilation of Earth by an expanding sun triggers two competing projects to save humanity: the Digital Life Project (DLP), in which people are digitised and live on in-silico and 'Wandering Earth', in which a select subset of the population lives in underground cites while colossal rocket engines push Earth to a new orbital home around 'near-by' Alpha Centauri. This is a prequel to 'The Wandering Earth' and despite knowing how it's going to end (i.e. We wander), was to me the superior film. The CGI, design and special effects are outstanding at times and the film has a 'hard-science' realism to off-set the somewhat preposterous premise. Unfortunately, the filmmakers sacrificed facts and physics for spectacular CGI set-pieces ('rocket-powered space-elevators' are a bit of an oxymoran, solar storms don't cause lunar dust storms, and when something is 'cut loose' in orbit, it doesn't 'fall'). These kinds of 'scientific' flaws, along with the usual 'sound in space', objects falling on the moon at 1G acceleration, spaceships that 'bank' when flying in a vacuum etc are sadly typical for the genre and might as well be accepted as 'craft' over 'reality' (looking cool is more box-office friendly than looking real). I quite liked the backstory about the proponents of DLP fighting to maintain a project that could potentially 'save' everyone, not just a chosen few, and the side plot about the AI girl with a 2-minute lifespan was quite clever. The acting and direction is fine (and on par with similar 'western' CGI-epics) but the story is a bit disjointed and the mid-credit revelation seems to come out of nowhere (and seems like a simplistic plot driver rather than an intriguing twist). I am a sucker for epic 'world-building' effects, so liked the film more for its look than its substance. Given the mega-budget dreck Hollywood has been gurgitating, a little competition should be a good thing.