Rezensionen von christopher-underwood

Of course it is a revenge thriller but there so much more and something very different. A little slow at the start but it is rather lovely as the pearl divers go over those little boats and down into the blue water. The beautiful Mari Shiranto is in trouble and after the sorrow and sadness there will be retribution. And how! She is really good in this and Toshiharu Ikeda so well controlled, especially in the water and when the lovely lady is killing mood. I also liked Ikeda in Angel Guts: Red Porno (1981) and Angel Dead Trap (1988) and with this one in-between.

Willem Dafoe was amazing and the wilderness and landscape, not to mention the infamous Tasmanian tiger. Early on the 'hunting' was okay but there was too much walking around, so many setting of traps and surely too many baths. Because Dafoe, the woods and the children were fine but I started to get bored and after the last half hour it become rather silly. Shame because it was something rather different and could have been really interesting.

The opening is a fight in the rain and shot at unusual angles. It appears that a detective is doing well with a younger guy seemingly in crouched or squat fighting position but usually on the floor against the wall and over the wall but then suddenly he is all over the detective and he seems to enjoy thumping him to death. It seems this war photography journalist may have been traumatised. Out of the dark our anti hero is in the light and very colourful inside, it is a casino, and he carries on fighting, takes over a gun and kills all them and picks up a large amount of money. A very strange opening and this killer is surely no normal killer or robber. We find out he is not and this gets more and more bizarre and terrible and I find that this is stunning and thrilling but so scary he had seen the horrors of his war and the ending, so awful, is almost unwatchable.

Claudia Cardinale is sexy and sweet and loving but we know there is something wrong almost from the very beginning, during the open credits and we should know what is going on. There is her loveliness and her beautifulness but with her lover and his car and his younger brother only 16 and with his first love but there are those other men. It is well put together and with amazing cinematography and there are wonderful moments, like her singing by the swings, drama with a priest and it is brilliant on the beach even as it begins to get dark, well before the end.

During the opening credits we see this Sicily town, not named, although it is actually, Sciacca. Two sisters are making there way to church, there are not too many people about and it looks hot and we get some close-ups of the younger one and she is, stunning. We later find out that this is Agnese and played my the beautiful Stefania Sandrelli. She was eighteen and in our story only sixteen but after church it is siesta and something goes wrong. Something tells us it might have been a comedy but it is not, but a dark satire. I understand that in Italy, not just in Sicily, that if a woman was raped the man may avoid going to prison if he marries the victim. In law was known as Article 544 and it was only finally abolished in 1981. Pietro Germi had made Divorce Italian Style (1961) and it was loved in many countries, although not in Scilly and they were worried about their social customs and honor law. In this amazing film they were even more unhappy about with this one.

What a wonderful film, not really a neo-realist, as I'm not too keen on them, this is more a melodrama but not sentimental and very realistic. I knew that a train driver was going to have a terrible accident and affect his family but this is so much more than this. The director, Pietro Germi also plays the part of the driver and although his family has it's problems he really loves his youngest son. The kid is played by Edoardo Nevola, only eight at the time but helped by Germi manages to have him revolve around this. There are so many amazing scenes with him, like the one with his older sister, and he is on his own and trying to work it out her being pregnant with her boyfriend, in the 50s and in Italy. So many brilliant scenes with the trains and great shots of the streets and people running around. There are also splendid shots of some bars and so many men inside and great bits singing with Germi at the centre with his guitar. Often his son will be there as he has been sent to bring him home but sometimes he stays on and enthusiastically sings as well. Later on we will see his guitar being dropped, at the very end.

In the UK and especially in London it would be the cool and colourful 'swinging sixties', and with this film it was about to happen. Although Richard Lester had made The Knack...and How to Get it (1965) very different and very black and white but he also made the Beatles with A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965) but surely it was with this Antonioni one it was really changing. Some thought this film was boring but is seemed so shocking and thrilling for us baby boomers. I had always liked Antonioni, especially his 50s trilogy of, L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse and I really loved his first moody and stunning colour film, Red Desert (1964). But then this one, two years later, gave us David Hemmings seeming much like David Bailey, the man of the moment photographer, and the models, like the amazing Verusehka and both of the two of them on most posters. Admittedly there is not a lot of action but there is a lot of photography and modelling and with Vanessa Redgrave in that much forgotten park and a killing or not. At the centre of this are those blow ups (and some mimes) and there is some cannabis smoked and The Yardbirds. But it is about those photographs and that park that it is so thrilling for this young man who it seems is bored with his girlfriends and his models and his antique propeller. In the UK and especially in London it would be the cool and colourful 'swinging sixties', and with this film it was about to happen. Although Richard Lester had made The Knack...and How to Get it (1965) very different and very black and white but he also made the Beatles with A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965) but surely it was with this Antonioni one it was really changing. Some thought this film was boring but is seemed so shocking and thrilling for us baby boomers. I had always liked Antonioni, especially his 50s trilogy of, L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse and I really loved his first moody and stunning colour film, Red Desert (1964). But then this one, two years later, gave us David Hemmings seeming much like David Bailey, the man of the moment photographer, and the models, like the amazing Verusehka and both of the two of them on most posters. Admittedly there is not a lot of action but there is a lot of photography and modelling and with Vanessa Redgrave in that much forgotten park and a killing or not. At the centre of this are those blow ups (and some mimes) and there is some cannabis smoked and The Yardbirds. But it is about those photographs and that park that it is so thrilling for this young man who it seems is bored with his girlfriends and his models and his antique propeller.

I rather liked it, directed by Na Hong-jin, but not as much with his later one of the The Wailing (2016) and having that folk horror element. I know that some prefer this and it is rather nasty and the girl having a bad time but it is thrilling and exciting, and again I like all the unusual buildings, gardens and streets and shops of South Korea. But again I don't really like with all the Asian humour. I know that the cops, certainly in these films, are silly and lazy but I don't really like all the slapstick, especially in the middle of a serial killer. Nevertheless this is very good, Kim Yoon-seok much running around, splendid with the girl's daughter and it makes for a change with all this fighting but without guns.

It's not bad but being Spanish, English and French there may have been some problems during the different languages. It looks wonderful in the woods, made in Basque in the Northern Spain and of course Gary Oldman was great throughout. The script is not as good as is should have been and every now and again we really wondered what was going on. The French actress, Virginie Ledoyen, was great and had also very good when I had saw her in Oliver Assayas's, Cold Water (1994) but I wasn't really sure whether the Italian actress, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon was really not happy in this film but she was fine in The Machinist (2004). Half way through Oldman went off with the 'backwoods' men and it was for Paddy Considine in charge and he didn't seem anything like as good as Oldman. I noted that he was the writer and director of Tyrannosaur (2001) that I thought it rather splendid, so in this one I think the script just needed it to be tightened it up. Some have mentioned the Straw Dogs and Deliverance which is has a feeling about it but unfortunately nothing like as good of either of those.

What a stunning and fascinating one, although I should mention at the beginning that this is a very interesting photography biography but that there are no photographs and this is rather slow (so much the better) and of course the full title with, 'imaginary'. The director is Steven Shainberg and he made Secretary (2002) this will give you some of the idea of this. If you loved that one, like I did, that you should love this as well. Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr both very good and it might have been difficult as clearly Kidman has a problem with nudity and Downey Jr having to deal with hair, everywhere, known as hypertrichosis. It has rather strange, thrilling and disturbing images and we can almost see in front of us as the famous pictures are almost magically to appear. It's inspirational and spine-tingling that surely it wants us to get out one of Diane Arbus books straightaway.

I really like the books of Ruth Rendell, some under the pseudonym as Barbara Vine and she had published some 80 books. Claude Chabrol I also like and he had made something like 60 films, some of them wonderful. He made a couple of his of Rendell's, the first one was The Ceremony (1995) a great film made out of, A Judgement in Stone. Later on, this film was made in 2004, and from her's of the same title. The book is fine but unusually with Chabrol in this one I'm not sure he really gets it quite right here. It is a bit complicated and a rather odd tale and I think he wanted it to be amusing as well, but maybe it wasn't a good idea. It is interesting but with the stone head with bed, the candles and no people, and some dead but not dead, maybe it is just too much going on.

Over the years I have seen this amazing one several times. The first time it was, Witchcraft Through the Ages and a video which was a rather poor print but considering it being so old I still thought it was incredible. Later on I watched on DVD and narrating by William Burroughs, which was interesting and although the print was better although I preferred the intertitles. This time, thanks to Radiance I have four versions and three different scores and I watched the 'Esoteric Cut'. This was really more or less the same version but so much better than I had ever seen. Later I will watch another and one of The Witch versions. The film itself was made by Benjamin Christensen in 1922 and I understand that he first had several years before had a copy of the 15th century 'Malleus Maleficarum' that had been thought of as a German guide for inquisitors and their witch hunts. Christensen wondered if these hunts had really been of misunderstandings of mental or disorders triggering mass hysteria. And we see some of this. To make this stunning film he used drawings, woodcuts, and paintings and with actors using special-effect make-up and with puppetry, stop motion animation. So even if this sometimes seems a bit slow surely this has never been seen before.

I'm not a great fan of spy films or of Soderbergh but this is rather smart and amusing. Set in London and we see some of it and the photography is great, although it was only 90 minutes it can be rather complicated. I loved the dinner party game, although it wasn't really one and especially the other dinner party at the end. The dialogue is excellent and the cast great, of course, Michael Fassbender and I was surprised just how good Cate Blanchett can be. I had fun with Pierce Brosnan and thought that Marisa Abela was splendid and maybe I should have watched her in Back to Black (2014). I also wonder if I can enjoy a spy film by Soderberg, so maybe I could even have a look at his, Behind the Candelabra (2013)!

Much of this was in San Fransisco in the sixties and with some cats. At the opening credits there are several cats and some wonderful shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. Michael Sarrazin stars in this as Wylie and it begins in a rather odd way, out of one bed and into another, and the ending is rather odd as well. It seems he has ailurophobia, an excessive fear of cats, which is unfortunate as there are so many cats inside. He is so good but he would be the same year in, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?(1969). Gayle Hunnicutt, was usually on TV although her first film was Corman's, The Wild Angels (1966) and she does well here with Wylie and the cats. There are so many cats and I even start to find them rather worrying, whether they are fast or slow and just standing they can look a bit scary, staring with those eyes. As soon as the food goes down in that big meat bowl they really do look terrible, scrambling and fighting with their teeth. It is so well done that I certainly found it awful as soon as the blood appears and the stunning music by Lalo Schifrin it is surely horrific. There is a plot line and a scenario from Joseph Stefano who also did the writing for Psycho (1960) and dialogue is fine. There is some suspense and humour and this one is rather terrific.

This is so much better than I imagined, there is so much going on and it was all so well controlled by Michael Curtiz every time I see another of his films the more I like him. I thought that there would be too much romance and silly comedy but neither of them and not so terrible either. Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall and Claude Rains are fine but Flora Robson is amazing. So the Palace scenes were not as poor as I thought because she holds me throughout, she is really good all the time, and can even makes her lines most amusing. Of course it was intended to inspire the British audience already in the grip of the war. The sword fighting can be boring but Curtiz keeps it thrilling especially with the big shadows on the walls. The jungle scenes are not too good but we have a sepia wash which helps. But I have to say that those shots of the ships at sea are terrific and spectacular. Fighting against the Spanish in their armour is sensational on the boats, up in the rigging and down in the galleys. All the fighting is excellent and exciting with many men, cannons and thunder crashes. Even though this is more than two hours it is spectacular and it is helped by the rousing music of Eric Wolfgang Kormgold.

She is a beautiful woman, Camille (Emmanuelle Beart) a young violinist, Maxime (Andre Dussollier) is in love with her and Stephane (Daniel Auteull) a master violin craftsman. The two men have a violin making and repair business and the lovely Camille is drawn towards Stephane but this triangle isn't so simple. He may not be in love with her or even in love with her playing but maybe just about the violin. Certainly it is odd and one night when he goes home but because his parents are having a thrilling bust up it seems he is so unhappy that has to go away. In a cafe with Camille and she is intrigued but he is upset when two lovers have a tiff and then she realised that maybe he isn't interested in her at all. And perhaps this rather cold craftsman and his obsessions he maybe happier being on his own and with his violin and it's music.

Picked this up not having heard of this film and it was rather good. I thought it was rather odd not having seen it as it was one of Irving Berlin's. It turns out that it is not one of his best known scores although, 'I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm' and 'Slumming on Park Avenue' are surely good enough. The dance routines were not some of the most famous ones but they are amazing, especially early on and some of the costumes wonderful and certainly rather sexy. The plot of course is silly but we never had to worry because the acting is great and the music and dancing almost never stops. Then we have the Ritz Brothers, I thought their acts would not be too good but they were splendid, not quite The Marx Brothers but not bad at all, there really fast jokes and funny dancing made me smile. I was also surprised to see that Cora Witherspoon was so good with her quirky talking way and odd dance turns as she will be with W C Fields in The Bank Dick (1940).

I really loved this one. From the beginning to the end it is bittersweet and charming. Even though they are supposed to be pickpocketers but it is so light and there is barely any reality and maybe it was something like dancing but there isn't any. Four of them on a bike and it was silly but lovely and especially when there are people crossing the road in the rain and those big umbrellas, we have to smile and for sure we really think they will turn into a dance but they have razorblades each within their grin. There are many little moments, obviously the sparrow and the alleys, the tree in the hillside street and pouring rain with those amazing neon but probably the best moment as a couple share a cigarette, even though, or maybe because, there is some lipstick on his and he puts it to his mouth it was surprising and mesmerising.

Although this is very fast and it means that for me the subtitles are even faster but right from the very beginning the music is thrilling of Teho Teardo, and Luca Bigazzi (The Great Beauty, 2013) with the amazing cinematography. Giulio Andreotti was the man who had served as Prime Minister seven times in Italy known as notorious for alleged links with the Mafia. We were offered a long line of killings and dates time after time and it is rather scary as we realise it is really just that man who was in charge for so many years. Just under two hours but really exciting all the time, even if it can be a little complicated as it switches back and forth in time. When this stunning film came out, Andreotti went to see it and not surprisingly he walked out and dismissed it saying it was, 'too much'. I'm astonished that he was still alive and seemingly unashamed but of course we are not surprised.

It was set in Romania 1987 and those were some very bad communist times and with the brutal Ceausescu. Abortions at the time were more of less completely illegal so these two students have to set it up with themselves and get someone to do it. It seemed that almost everything, even cigarettes and chewing gum had to be on the black market. This is bleak and sad almost from the beginning and it gets worse. The film is amazingly done, the abortion in the hotel room so terrible and I did understand how the girls were having to finance that rather unpleasant man immediately. Later the boyfriend's mother's party is beautifully shot and all around the table everyone seems to be talking and happy. Throughout the nine minutes the camera doesn't move, and the poor student doesn't smile and has to go back to the hotel and find her friend.

A rather nasty, sad story of this made by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and written by Hiroshi Takahashi about an awful tale of people torturing and killing young girls and then selling their videos. Clearly the yakuza are involved but who exactly is doing it? This guy, who's daughter was killed, and worse, gets his mathematics teacher to help him and find the man who did it. It gets rather complicated not only about the maths but about the others who have to find them and some more will have to die. It is rather good and unusual but unfortunately, of course, the path of revenge and violence goes on and on.

It was a great idea and I always think that dolls coming alive are rather creepy. At the beginning the church like building in the woods is really good although inside most of this is a set. The dolls, especially their eyes, are really cool but when we get down to the story it is rather silly. They sit down and eat several times and it is not too good as they give us some of the story which we never believe for a moment. I think every now and again there are great moments and it is very good when we get close-ups of hands. Creeping around someones back, across the floor, within cuffs of hands covered with blood or not but otherwise most people are standing around or screaming. The lift and the cellar with close-ups are okay but when we see the set it is just not good. It's unfortunate that all the dolls look so new and the sets and Chun Ho-jin playing as the curator looks just as bored as us.

It was very interesting throughout although there is not too much happening, except of course those killings. We can tell from the title that this is about the last executioner and we realise that this was in Thailand so it is certainly something rather different. At the beginning we get the very end of the executioner and then we go back in time we see something of his life story from him as hoping to be a rock star and then instead getting a job working in this notorious jail known as 'Bangkok Hilton'. We see some glimpse of the inside and some of his private life and family as well and of the Buddhist holy man and a toad we see now and again even as if it might be an omen or prophecy as if he finds it a rather difficult task. All the time we see those executions on death row and it is very well done but rather bloody even if it is set out so that the executioner doesn't have to see him, or her.

Some really don't like this one but I love it. Saw it at the cinema and almost twenty years again on DVD. And it is still so wonderful and very funny although rather unkind, or even mean-spirited, vindictive and spiteful but also witty, hilarious and almost farcical. The dialogue is by Edna O'Brien and very clever and brilliant although we have to say that much of this is down to Elizabeth Taylor. I am sure that, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1967) and Boom! (1968) those other two amazing films of Taylor must have brought her work into this one. Michael Caine is very good in this and maybe just before Get Carter (1971) must have give him some of the nasty one from that. I've not always liked Susannah York but she is very good in this and it must have been rather difficult for her up against Taylor but she holds it well and I think that her, The Killing of Sister George (1968) was another tough role. Elizabeth Taylor really shines in this 'swinging sixties' offering.