The Dirty Dozen meets Full Metal Jacket, Korean style. Read the rest of this entry »

Powerful drama about an American tourist who tried to smuggle hash out of Turkey and was sent to prison to endure terrible hardships.

I have to say, I don’t quite understand the controversy about this film - at least not in terms of it being a piece of propaganda about how bad Turkey and all Turkish people are. Read the rest of this entry »

John Boorman’s classic thriller is a gripping study of fear and desperation. In its depiction of four adventurous office workers from Atlanta who decide to raft down a soon-to-be-dammed river, only to find themselves fighting for their lives against the depredations of psychotic locals, Deliverance contains scenes that remain as terrifying and shocking today as they were in 1972. Read the rest of this entry »

Why can’t the Academy remember back more than two months whenever it comes to selecting nominations for the Oscars? It may be academic anyway, given the overwhelming odds supporting a Best Supporting Actor gong for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, but it would have been nice to see Ben Kingsley at least up there in contention. Emulating his previous subversively brilliant performance as Don Logan in Sexy Beast, he has created something completely new (and undeniably just as impressive) in his realisation of wayward psychiatrist Dr Jeffrey Squires in Jonathan Levine’s satisfying coming-of-age plodder, The Wackness.

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Who’d have thought a little novel by an Irish businessman about a nasty man with a tendency to drink the blood of his victims would trigger a century of creative effort in literature, film and popular culture to flesh out and embellish the mythology of vampires? 30 Days of Night adds yet another layer of imaginative conceptualisation to the subject, and it’s about as far removed as Bram Stoker’s romantic notion as it’s possible to be. Read the rest of this entry »

You want to like this, don’t you? Great director, cast of esteemed professional actors, a great subject to make fun of (American film awards in general). And it starts pretty promisingly as we are introduced to the characters and their various imperfections - fodder for the comedy to come, we presume, as the Hollywood machine bears down on them. But the film seems to completely lose its way within the first half hour, spiralling further and further into inexplicable references and off-target attempts at black humour before sputtering rather unexpectedly, though not unwelcomely, to a halt.

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Philip K Dick was a man with many personal demons, and he wasn’t averse to exploring them in his work. The Game-Players of Titan is a study in paranoia, and it reads somewhat like a nightmare put to page. Read the rest of this entry »