Reviews

The problem I have with this film is that it has an idea but no dramatic tension. The first hour or so is a random series of events with gratuitous blood, gratuitous crime, a gratuitously-obnoxious family, gratuitous sex (fortunately very brief) and so on. Several times I thought of giving up and watching something else.

The last half-hour is more satisfying as (at last) the idea starts to emerge, and the last ten minutes is truly heartbreaking.

So my rating is almost entirely based on the remarkable performance of Ben Whishaw, who is never off-camera and deserves to appear in a film more suited to his evident talents.

Several commentators have described this film as a portrayal of a "nervous breakdown", or in similar terms. As a retired psychiatrist I would say that the protagonist's behaviour is not really typical of any recognized disorder. It might just be an affective-psychotic dissociative state, or psychogenic psychosis in Scandinavian terminology. But, given Ben Whishaw's genius, I'm prepared to suspend disbelief.

After the end of his career as a professional rugby league player in Australia and England, Matt Nable wrote and starred in "The Final Winter", a film partly inspired by his own experiences in the game. He has also written four novels. "Transfusion" is the first film he has written, directed and starred in. You would not expect it to be a typical thriller.

Nable plays Johnny, a former soldier who makes a living on the edges of the Sydney organized crime scene. A former army comrade, Ryan, loses his wife in an accident and leaves the army to bring up his son Billy. Ryan is stuck in a dead-end job that he hates and Billy has had three run-ins with the police. When Billy gets into trouble again, Ryan needs a lot of money to fix it and turns to Nable for help.

All three characters have been traumatized by their experiences, and the film uses the structure of a thriller to explore their relationship and their suffering. The writing and acting are excellent. Recommended.

If you're reading this review you probably know already what this film is about. The first time I saw it, it was in a version dubbed in French, so a few details of the dialogue escaped me, but I had to look away during the torture scenes, of which there are several.

Having just watched it a second time, in English, I was still nervous, even though this time I knew what was coming. And I noticed that, in fact, the most extreme tortures take place off-camera. But even so, it was tough, especially the horrific last ten minutes.

We've all heard the arguments against torture as a means to get useful information, and my mind was made up long before I saw this film, but it is just as powerful as any argument I've heard. The acting is first-rate but Martin Sheen surely deserves a special mention for his remarkable portrayal of a man who suffers unendurable pain to make his point.

Let's face it, if you sit down to watch this film hoping for a Hollywood blockbuster, you're going to be disappointed. It portrays five Australian teenagers (plus a sixth who appears later) who get together at a house where the parents are away for the weekend. They are all about to leave school and go on to work or further education.

So they do what you would expect: play games, sit on the roof, make a barbecue, drink alcohol and talk about their schooldays and the future.

To be honest, it could just as well be a stage play, but with film we get to see some attractive scenery in country Victoria. The acting is low-key but convincing. The ending is unsurprising but satisfying. I enjoyed this film.

Scrolling through the online edition of "The Guardian" this morning, I came across an article on the 20-year anniversary of the worst film ever made, starring Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook. The film in question was "Sex Lives of the Potato Men". Johnny Vegas always has me in hysterics and I thought Crook was brilliant in "Almost Human". Could the film really be that bad?

Well, it's probably the only film I've ever seen that had me laughing helplessly during the opening credits. In fact I was shrieking with laughter during the whole film. Vegas and Crook are a perfect pair and the supporting cast are wonderful. There is no story as such, just a series of absurd and hilarious episodes in the lives of the hapless potato men as they search desperately for sex.

Johnny Vegas says at one point, if you could take only one film with you to a desert island, you're not going to take "Return of the *** Jedi", are you? You're going to take a film with a bird in it with ... well, you can guess. But I'd take "Sex Lives of the Potato Men". It would certainly cheer me up.

Early on in this film, one of the characters says that drug dealers are better off when they're bored. Unfortunately the film seems to be trying to apply this principle to the audience too. Liam Hemsworth (Kyle) is wooden and Clark Duke (Swin) is just as annoying to us as he is to Kyle, although John Malkovich (Bright) to his credit does seem as if he regrets ever getting involved. A few other characters drift aimlessly into and out of what might very loosely be called the plot, if it was at all interesting or credible. Occasionally a brief and enigmatic flashback suddenly pops up, as if the director (Duke again) were desperately trying to get our attention - and in my case failing miserably. There is of course a certain amount of gratuitously nasty violence. After what seems like an eternity, we finally arrive at a completely unbelievable climax, after which the film meanders along for another ten minutes or so before just stopping. Even one star is generous.

Undoubtedly the worst episode of Riverdale I have ever seen. The previous 'musical' episodes were bad enough, but this one was dreadful. It adds nothing to the plot lines and you can skip it with a clear conscience.

Simon Pegg's earlier films such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, made me laugh a lot, so when "How to Lose Friends..." was shown on TV I thought I'd give it a try. The first few minutes, which take place in the UK, also had me chuckling, but things go rapidly downhill when his character, Sidney Young, moves to New York. Can there be anyone in either country ignorant of the fact that the British are not like the Americans? And yet the whole of the rest of the film milks that fact for all it's worth. Pegg himself rapidly becomes very unfunny and just annoying, Jeff Bridges seems to be embarrassed by the whole thing (as he should be), and Gillian Anderson is scarcely recognizable. The only actor who emerges with any credit from this awful film is Miriam Margolyes, and even she is forced to play the caricature of a landlady in a cheap block of flats - but she is a wonderful comic actress. Maybe the user reviewers who liked this film saw it as a straightforward romance story, but even on that level it's pathetic.

This is a truly abysmal film. There is no plot to speak of - presumably the well-worn theme of "plucky Americans show those pesky Japs who is the boss" was considered sufficient. Mind-numbingly boring passages alternate with scenes of appalling brutality and cruelty perpetrated, needless to say, by the Yellow Peril. Jack O'Connell's talents are wasted on this meretricious rubbish. It is a vile and immoral film which should never have been made.

This film made a huge impression on me and I'd like to try and reply to everyone who gave it only 1 or 2 stars. But it's not easy without giving away important elements of the plot, and I think it's far better to watch the film with an open mind, not knowing anything about it in advance. So in the end this review might be more helpful to people who haven't seen the film yet. In the two interviews which appear as extras on the Blu-Ray disc, the director, Claire Denis, makes a couple of important remarks. She says, in effect, "I never thought 'High Life' was going to be a science-fiction story, it's more like a prison film. It's not in the future, it's about us human beings, but it's in space." And, when asked how she would reply to people who find the film hard to understand, she says, "It's easy to understand if you don't try too hard." I also found it interesting to discover that she wrote the original script entirely in French and then had it translated. It's referred to as her first English-language film, but that is only partly true. So this film will not appeal to anyone expecting another Star Wars or Star Trek. It is bleak, disturbing and sometimes horrifying. It needs to be watched with some attention and concentration to follow what is happening (it does not help that the dialogue is often almost inaudible). It reminded me of Tarkovsky's 'Solaris' in its claustrophobia and interpersonal tensions, and of the film of Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' for the moral and ethical questions it raises. It also has the brutality and bleakness of many of Haneke's films. I may be over-interpreting, but Haneke has confirmed that the flooded forest seen near the beginning of 'Time of the Wolf' is a reference to the flooded forest in Tarkovsky's 'Ivan's Childhood', and one of the very few scenes in 'High Life' set on Earth shows Monte and his dog in a flooded forest. In her second interview, Denis is clearly irritated by questions about what might have happened after the end of this film. I can only say that I found the last 10 minutes or so quite devastating. So, if all this hasn't put you off, please watch 'High Life'.

I saw this film shortly after its release, when I was around 18 years old, and many of the scenes went right over my head. Watching it again now, I am amazed at how many scenes have stuck in my mind (especially the harrowing ending). Although (not surprisingly) dated, and clearly made on a very low budget, this film has a remarkable way of pacing the action and building tension: for instance, the almost-hallucinatory prison Xmas party seems to be going on forever until it suddenly erupts in violence.

In 1971, people were excited (or outraged) about the homosexual scenes, but I think it would be wrong to think that the film is "about" homosexuality. For me, it is about power structures in what Goffmann has called a "total institution". Sexuality, or rather rape, is just another tool to maintain power, along with violence and trade in tobacco and drugs.

It's a raw, brutal and uncomfortable film, and well worth watching.

I saw the early seasons of Bones a long time ago and enjoyed them. But catching up now on the 10th and 11th seasons has been for the most part a tedious ordeal with very few positives. I had the clear impression that the writers were fast running out of ideas and resorting to the usual clichés - unlikely romances, tragic deaths and disability. This particular episode is a real low point, purporting to be a reality show following the team as they examine the body of a man dead for 10 years. The plot is almost totally devoid of interest, the resolution trivial, and the acting well below its usual mediocre standard. As for claims mentioned in a previous review that the principal characters of "Bones" and "The Good Doctor" are fictional portraits of autism: as a psychiatrist with about 30 years of clinical practice, I can only say that they are grotesque parodies of a disabling but fortunately rare condition.

I vaguely remember the shocked reactions to this film when it was released in 1981, but I have only just seen it for the first time, nearly 40 years later. As other reviewers have pointed out, it is hardly an "erotic comedy"; in fact, its general mood is gloomy. Berlin is presented as a grim metropolis where it is always cold and wet and the skies are always grey. Frank Ripploh lives in a cheap shabby flat. His sex life is a series of one-off encounters, often in public lavatories. The problem I have with this film is that it doesn't work as cinema. It is more like a documentary, consisting of a series of short scenes which are presented without commentary or continuity. There is no plot to speak of and no dramatic tension. Even the sex scenes seem more like an instructional video for gay beginners. It seemed to me a lot longer than its 90 minutes and my only feeling at the end was one of relief. Watch it if you like for its historical interest, but don't expect to enjoy it.

This was billed as a "comedy" when it was shown on Channel 4, and I watched it thinking I would see something of a period I am not quite old enough to remember clearly. However the few humorous elements in the film either fall flat or turn out to be not so funny after all. Worse, the gently amusing idea of a darts team from London on a day trip to Boulogne is interrupted far too often and for too long by the romance between the two main characters (played by Donald Sinden and Odile Versois), which is not only highly improbable but also very badly acted. Stanley Holloway is hardly any better, sleepwalking his way through yet another cheerful Cockney chappie character. The only actor who stands out is a young Bill Owen, who alone among the darts players sees the trip as a way to escape from his miserable life (though, again, not in a particularly amusing way).

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the film is that, while the Londoners are generally one-dimensional and uninteresting (repeating "We must stick together!" when in fact they do the reverse), the French are quite sympathetic and believable; I even felt sorry for the somewhat pompous M. Dubot towards the end.

As a fan of Ozploitation films, I felt I had to sit through this one, and what a waste of 90 minutes it was. The first ten minutes or so are redeemed by some pleasant shots of Australian scenery and long-forgotten railways, but then the scene shifts to Hong Kong. There is no story to speak of, the dialogue is stilted, the acting abysmal, and the sex scenes remarkably unexciting. To misquote Monty Python, not a film for viewing, more a film for laying down and avoiding.

I watched this film on DVD and loved it. Although there are a few comic touches, the prevailing mood is of melancholy reminiscence, the recurring themes, loss and bereavement. Visually it is magnificent, capturing the English countryside to perfection. Everything is very quiet and understated, also in a very English way. The acting is first-rate, and I particularly admired the performances of Rollo Weeks, a sixteen-year-old grieving for his mother, and Simon Paisley Day, who has a small but chilling role as his sententious and sadistic headmaster. This film deserves to be better known.

When this film was shown recently on TV there was an apologetic announcement before the start, to say that it contained some racist elements which would be frowned on today. Fortunately I wasn't put off. In fact the fake Arabian prince, who is in reality a Cockney, is a thieving little bully, while the real prince is polite and charming; how this is racist, I fail to understand. That apart, all I can say is that I laughed out loud all through the film, which is witty, entertaining and fast-paced, as well as an excellent showcase for Jimmy Edwards's comic talents and those of the rest of the cast. Strongly recommended.

This film has at last been released on Blu-Ray, though apparently only in Australia. It was a good excuse to see it again, I remember how much I liked it when I first saw it many years ago. It's a prescient vision of a horrible future (but only four years away now!) when prisons are run by private firms for profit and recalcitrant prisoners are sent to the island of Absolom to finish each other off. The plot, such as it is, provides lots of opportunities for gory scenes and exuberant special effects, and the landscapes look even lusher in high definition. There are some great performances, but my favourite has to be Ian McNeice as the hypochondriac and finicky Tom King, who more than makes up for the total absence of women in the film. Enjoy.

I cannot believe that this film is by the same director as "Hunger", which was a masterpiece.

"Shame" manages to be at the same time disgusting and astonishingly boring. Every single character is entirely unsympathetic, even the grotesquely incompetent restaurant waiter who recommends Pinot Noir. There is no plot to speak of and I totally lost interest in what might happen to the characters.

If you want to see people wanking and pissing on screen, fine, but I don't.

I shan't be watching anything else by McQueen.