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Pig

Zenith

Maximum Shame

Three more from the Sci-Fi London film festival. Again. I don't know if any of these are scheduled for UK release.
Pig was by far the best I saw there this year. Although a genre picture, it is one that is no way clichéd.
A man wakes up alone in the middle of the desert with a black hood on his head and his hands tied behind his back. At death’s door, he is discovered by a woman living alone in the desert and is nursed back to health. Upon regaining consciousness, the man realises he has amnesia, and has no idea who he is. I won't give away any more of the plot, not just for the sake of spoilers, but also because the subtle way in which the plot is revealed (one heavy handed plot turn aside), is one of the main joys of this small gem of a film. It's a very low budget feature, but what it lacks in action and special effects, it more than makes up for in intrigue, tension, a good central concept, deft story telling and a towering central performance from Rudolph Martin. One or two aspects are ambiguous and require a small leap of faith, but this is in no way to the film's detriment.
Recommended.

Zenith seemed to me to be a film contrived to be a cult hit. It's a conspiracy thriller, set in a dystopian future, where unhappiness has been genetically eliminated and there is a thriving black market in old drugs sought by those needing to feel the pain of the drugs side effects side effects. The audience has the opportunity of further involvement with the film at a tie in website ( www.stopzenith.com). It has all the ingredients of a cult hit, but I found it all a bit half arsed.
I'm a bit pissed off that I chose to see this over You Are Here, the début feature from Canadian video artist Daniel Cockburn. both looked good from the synopses in the program, but in hindsight I think I made the wrong choice.

Maximum Shame caused several members of the audience to walk out. It's sort of one part trash culture, one part Lewis Carrol, one part apocalyptic nightmare, one part surrealist oddity, one part fetishist's ball, several parts incoherent mess. The acting seems to have been inspired by the likes of Donna Kerness and Mink Stole, but that is not to suggest that it offers any of the pleasures of a Kuchar brothers or John Waters film. Maybe fans of Nick Zedd might like it. I stayed to the end, but think those that walked probably did the right thing

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Several old films back or due back in the cinema:
Battleship Potemkin
Deep End (out on Friday)
Apocalypse Now (out soon)
The Last Picture Show
Expect many of you will have seen some if not all of these.
All are excellent, I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Deep End again

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Should have included Taxi Driver in that last post, but can't imagine anyone here has not seen it except for maybe Kev who doesn't like films.
Most of my film going this past week has been to the Goethe Institute's Celluloid Curtain season of cold war spy films from both sides of the iron curtain, at the Riverside, so the only new film I've got to report on is:

Mammuth
A Picaresque road movie from the people who brought you the excellent Aaltra and the hilarious Louise-Michel. Gerrard Depardieu plays an abbatoir worker who upon retiring finds that he doesn't have the requisite paperwork needed to collect a pension and sets off to track down previous employers to get it. Not as sustainedly brilliant as the two other films referred to, but still plenty to recommend it. Depardieu gives one of his best performances and the always wonderful Yolande Moreau is perfect as his put upon wife. A little uneven in tone, but very funny and touching in places and never less than engaging.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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p.s. Mammuth isn't out for a few weeks, I went to a preview screening.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Have you heard of Versant featuring Carah Faye? Support New Music, click here

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Back off Warchild, seriously.

http://elvers.bandcamp.com/

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Life's But A Walking Shadow

Attack The Block
So it's just me that was disapointed with it then? On the plus side, I liked the way they played the story straight and based the humour on the characterisations and dialogue, plus Nick Frost & Luke Treadaway were both good in supporting roles and at least it wasn't just a lame genre parody a la Shaun Of The Dead,. But the whole thing was very one note and too much of the humour depends on the audience finding the way young inner city Londoners talk inherently funny; Of course the way young inner city Londoners talk is inherently funny, just not funny enough to maintain a full length feature film.

I Saw The Devil
Yet another extremely violent vengence drama from East Asia, this one from Korean director Jee-woon Kim (The Good The Bad & The Weird, A Tale Of Two Sisters etc). All the verve and flair you'd expect from a Korean vengence movie, but little of the substance that you'd find in the best examples. The plot amounts to little more than a cat and mouse chase between a sadistic serial killer and the bereaved fiancee of one of his victims. Not particularly recommended.

TT3D Closer To The Edge
Excellent documentary about the Isle Of Mann TT races, the most exciting as well as most dangerous (over 120 deaths since the races began) motorsport event in the world and the people (organisers, medics, mechanics etc as well as the riders) who take part in them. Lots of good footage, though the 3D filming doesn't really add much (much of the actual race footage is 2D) and an interesting look at the riders, focusing mainly on the maverick Guy Martin.
Not just for motorcycle racing fanatics, this is a great film about strength of spirit, facing danger head on and freedom of choice and is as involving as any drama you're likely to see this year. Recommended!

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Julia's Eyes
Spanish thriller with a sort of supernatural atmosphere. A film of two halves. First half excellent, strong atmosphere and quite suspenseful. Second half becomes increasingly unsatisfactory and more and more predictable as the plot twists start to reveal themselves.

13 Assassins
1963 Samurai action drama remade by Takashi Miike. Not seen the original, so don't know how they compare, but this is very much an old school samurai film with no CGI or wire stunts to embellish it and all the better it is for it too.
Recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Tall, moustachioed alcoholic - plays firewood with a bow.

Senna
Superb documentary about the late, great racing driver Ayrton Senna.
Maybe too hagiographic to be considered truly objective and fans of his great rival Alain Prost may feel he has not been given his full due, but this is an absolutely riveting film. Recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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The new remastered re-release of Apocalypse Now has restored this all time classic to all it's former glory. Can't imagine anyone here hasn't seen it before, but it's well worth catching the new print on the big screen, especially in these days when only populist hacks like Michael Bay and James Old Etonian Tory fuckpig would be trusted with the sort of budget required for a film of such great ambition.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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In work not working

Cría cuervos
Not a new film, but one currently having an extended run at both the NFT & Renoir cinemas in London.
Made by Carlos Saura near the ends of Franco's regime. A film that has many levels. Superficially a story about three orphaned sisters, the film is also full of implicit commentary on the past and memory, both politically and personally. The story is beautifully told and although mournful, it is also warm and totally engaging. Recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Potiche
Enjoyable enough French comedy. The plot is a little reminiscent of those of the great screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s and it is easy to imagine Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in the lead roles. The pacing is considerably less frantic than the classic Hollywood screwballs and there is definitely something idiosyncratically French about the whole film.
Catherine Deneuve and Gerrard Depardieu are both good value and director François Ozon doesn't miss a trick in creating a 1970s look, right down to the 'bubble writing' font used in the opening credits.
Not a masterpiece, but worth a punt.

X-Men: 1st Class
Another disappointing prequel in the X-Men franchise, although not a complete turkey. The superhero or arch criminal back-story has become the most tiresome of hackneyed and clichéd plotlines in comics and their film offshoots, something brilliantly observed in The Dark Knight, in which the banality of most back stories is satirised by The Joker offering several different and contradictory accounts of his origins. Having said that the back-story in X-Men: 1st Class isn't bad, particularly in the way it incorporates the Cold War. Unfortunately the screenplay, written by several people other than the storyline writers, fails to make the most of the story and director Matthew Vaughn seems to flounder around trying to find a suitable tone for the material, undecided if he wants it to be a simple comic book action movie or something darker and ends up with a film lacking in tension, narrative drive and even action.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Cell 211

Much more of a traditional prison genre picture than last year's masterful A Prophet. The narrative is schematic, particularly towards the end and many of the plot turns are somewhat implausible, but this is still a gripping drama which packs quite a punch. It's gritty and violent, but also a very accessable mainstream movie. Definitely worth catching on the big screen. I'll bet the projected Hollywood remake will take the films weaknesses and multiply them 100 fold and probably dilute it's many strengths.
Not a film to rank along side any of the truly great prison dramas (A Prophet, Cool Hand Luke, A Man Escaped, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang etc) this still pisses all over the likes of The Green Mile or The Shawshank Redemption

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...