Film Reviews by sb

FILM & REVIEW Excellent hybrid Italian film - part Giallo and part Police procedural. A young girl is found hanged and naked - at first its seen as suicide but is soon revealed to be murder and the cops led by Silvesrti (Cassinelli) and DA Stori (Ralli) investigate . A private eye is found to have been investigating as well but he turns up chopped to pieces and his girlfriend is attacked and revealed the private eye had uncovered an underage ring of prostitutes with several powerful wealthy clients . The main hunt is after the meat cleaving black leather clad killer while trying to uncover who is behind the ring. It doesn’t shy away from the depraved antics of the clients and is really effective mixing both genres together. Both leads are very good - Cassinelli would later die in a helicopter crash on the set of another film and it’s a key entry in that great period of Italian cinema in the 1970’s - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Over the last few years I have been working my way through the films of Yasujro Ozu who makes wonderfully detailed films about Japanese families in their various permutations and this is t he final one I hadn’t seen. It’s by far his darkest bleakest film - regular actor Rye plays the father on two daughters the eldest Takako (Hara) has left her husband taking her daughter with her and Akiko (Arema) who never seems to settle to anything. There was a Mother who is never talked about but one day Akiko meets a lady who runs a mahyong parlour who seems to know a lot about the family and Takako works out who she really is. She tries to hide the truth from Akiko but the plan goes wrong and sets in motion a series of events that ends in tragedy. As always the performances are subtle and understated and Ozu uses his trademark static camera as a lens through which the audience are held as the inevitable events unfold. He really was a master filmmaker - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Another film from the golden era of Bergman’s career. This time it’s set in a travelling ragtag circus where there is no money and even less hope. It’s run by Albert (Grojberg) who lives with his much younger mistress Anne (Bergman regular Anderson ) but he is old and tired and disillusioned with the life. The next town they visit is where his estranged wife and sons live and Anne suspects he plans on leaving her to go back to his family. They visit a local theatre where a vain preening actor (Ekman)propositions her but she refuses. She later returns when Albert has gone to family and in return for an apparently valuable neckless gives herself to him - although it of course turns out to be worthless. Albert pleads with his wife to let him back but she values her independence more and they part. Albert gets drunk and gets the truth out of Anne so the stage is set for a final confrontation in the circus ring. Excellent performances from the cast and beautifully shot by Sven Nykvist it tends to get overlooked in comparison to the other films of this period -shame as it’s very good - 4/5

Working my way through Sergio Martino's catalogue but this is a bit of a minor entry.?Cassanelli plays Inspector Germi an undercover cop investigating the sexual trafficing of underage girls in Milan.At the same time some-one is kidnapping the kids of leading industrialists and demanding ransoms but the money can never be traced - can the two cases be linked.....?Its part cop thriller and part Giallo and to add to the confusion its tonally all over the place - there are several nasty murders where major characters get offed then it lurches into slapstick humour - there is even a Keystone Cops car chase that although fun to watch seems to have wondered in from a completly different film.?Cassanelli is very good (with more than a hint of Rutger Hauer about him) but Martino can't seem to make up his mind where he wants the film to go....one knocked off the list but not much more - 3/

FILM & REVIEW Pasolini’s debut film where Citti plays the titular figure - a small time pimp on the outskirts of Rome. He lives with and lives off the earnings of his girl Maddalena but she gets beaten by a rival gang who presumably pay off the cops and she finds herself in prison for making a false accusation. With his only source of income gone he is facing starvation. We learn he has an estranged wife and kid but her family warn him off and he gets into a fight with her brother. He then meets Stella a naive innocent who he intends to put on the streets but falls for her and her first and only time working fails so he is forced to earn a living. This does not agree with him so he drifts into petty crime which can only ever end one way. It’s to Pasolini and Citti’s credit that Accattone who is a wastrel and happy to exploit others does command the attention. He is a real anti-hero with few if any redeeming qualities but a product of the grinding poverty of post war Italy. Crisply shot by Delli Colli using the music of Bach as a counterpoint to the misery it’s a key film in the Italian realist cinema - 4/5

FILM & REWATCH Really enjoyed this in the cinema but since then it seems to have fallen out of favour. Although it made several hundred million dollars it cost so much plus all the marketing meant Disney took a $100m loss - and a lot of the reviews were quite sniffy. But watching it again I still really enjoyed it. Loved the opening sequence where Mangold takes you straight into the action and the de?-aging is much better than other examples. Liked the jump to July 1969 with Ford as the embittered retired prof with nothing to live for and energised by PWB as Helena with her more grafting take on events . Sure Ford is way too old for the part but he brings a quiet dignity to role and does acknowledge all the aches and pains. The central two are very good together with PWB bringing a freshness to the franchise. It’s got more than enough thrills’n’spills and globe trotting to keep it rattling along and Mads avoids too much scenery chewing as the obligatory mad Nazi. Ok the film does flag a bit towards the end and the whole Archimedes bit is the films weakest element but as the final entry it’s loads better than the awful Crystal Skull and does give Indy a final rousing send off - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Enjoyed the first Branagh/Poriot outing far more than i expected but hated Nile - shot during Covid restrictions they used CGI for everything and it all looked really fake. This is much more like it - set in a out of season Venice where Poriot lives in retirement but is enticed by a friend and mystery author (Fey) to attend a seance where she intends to expose a fake medium (Yeoh) but ends up with an impossible murder which is followed by others. It’s got all the usual sleight of hand that you expect from Agatha Christie but Branagh adds a deeper level of characters including himself being haunted by ghosts from their own pasts. Set in a gloomy palazzzo over a single storm tossed night its as much a haunted house film as a whodunnet with lashings of gothic atmosphere and looks terrific. Ok the denouement at the finale is a little less than convincing but that aside there is much to enjoy with each character hiding secrets and the use of the Venice locations is splendid. - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW After Tarsem brought his stunning visuals to The Cell and The Fall it was only matter of time before he turned his eye to Greek Mythology. Playing fast and loose with conventional tales this has Theseus (Cavill) who is chosen to take on evil King Hyperion (Rourke) who intend to release the Titans using the Bow of Eperis. Theseus is a protege of Zeus (Evans) whose rule states that the Gods cannot interfere in the ways of man - even though they do it all the time. Theseus is assisted by the Oracle Phaedra (Pinto) as they all head for the final showdown at a Hellenic fortress. As you would expect it has some superb visuals but by gum it’s dull. The plot plods along in a very ponderous way leaving you groaning Get on With It and although the final battle is well staged it’s quite a slog to get there - 300 it ain’t. Cavill does his normal oak tree turn and Rourke gives the imprssion he’d rather be elsewhere. John Hurt pops up briefly with his usual dignity and Pinto is a drop dead gorgeous as always but you really need a bit more than the visual flourishes - not helped by the Greek Gods all dressed as if they have been to a very ostentatious Gay club. So for the visuals for not much else - 3/5

FILM & REVIEW Aka Innocents with Dirty Hands - Chabrol’s deliciously contrived whodunnit. Schneider plays Julie an icy Hitchcickian blonde married to the much older but very rich Louis (Stieger.) He drinks himself into oblivion every night and she begins an affair with the younger handsome Jeff and they soon decide to bump off the old man. Jeff makes himself scarce while the police investigate what is at first a missing persons case then they assume murder. But….when Julie discovers that Louis has emptied all his bank accounts, the safety deposit box and put the house up for sale and when the lovers car is discovered after a crash but no body she begins to suspect she is the one being set up. The rest of the film does require a certain suspension of disbelief as Chabrol piles on the red herrings but it’s so well done that if you just roll with it then much fun is to be had. Schneider is just superb in the role and add in a couple of avuncular coppers and a comedy lawyer then it’s well worth sticking with - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Hammers gender bending take on the RL Stevenson story has Bates as Dr Jekyll who plans to cure mankind of its diseases but as his older mentor points out he will be long dead before he can achieve much. This inspires him to blend a potion that will prolong his life to allow him to carry out his work but as this involves extracting female hormones to enhance it and has unforseen consequences. He morphs into a female alter ego (Beswick) and begins to realise that he has undertaken a struggle for dominance with her. He uses corpses supplied by Burke and Hare but they soon go freelance and get caught so he has to find his own victims and soon the female part can transform at will without the need for any potion but her side craves more victims to make the transformation permanent. It’s a really interesting idea and both leads are very good especially Beswick but the film does drag at times with a subplot concerning a sister and brother who live upstairs that you could really do without. The inner struggle in itself is good enough - so overall 3.5/5

FILM & REVIEW Very effctive shocker which is a remake of the Korean horror - albeit with considerable rewrites . Sutherland plays Ben an ex undercover NYPD cop who is suspended for accidentally killing another cop and is taking very strong meds for his anxieties. He gets a job as night watchman at a giant art-deco department store that was destroyed by a fire leaving only a burnt shell. He learns that the previous holder of the job killed himself and soon enough Ben begins to see strange apparitions and becomes convinced there is something in the giant mirrors in the store. He has an enstranged wife (Patton) and becomes convinced that whatever is trapped in the mirror can access any reflective surface and realises unless he can give the mirror what it wants his whole family is in danger so he sets out to discover what the mirror wants . Keifer is very good at first doubting his sanity then accepting it’s all real and taking action. At first the film does overdo the jump scares but soon settles down and lets the unsettling brooding atmosphere unnerve the audience. I like how it keeps to its own internal logic with a really neat twist thrown in and some of the goriest deaths in cinema. It’s a shame that director Aja who began with Switchblade Romance then the Craven authorised Hills have Eyes remake would do this and then end up churning out straight to video fare since - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Another cracking Italian cop thriller has Nero as Bello a highly strung Genoa policeman in the trail of a major drug shipment. After a lengthy car chase he arrests the Lebanese middle man only to have him and several policemen blown up by a pre-planted bomb. His boss reveals he has a file on several leading industrialists and politicians who all seem mixed up in this. He also contacts an elderly seemingly retired drug dealer (Fernando Ray) who agrees that someone is muscling in on the operation but even he doesn’t realise just how close to home ths has become. Soon we are up to our necks in betrayals, double crosses and full on violence. Bello is warned that there are no civilians in this and learns to his cost just how true this is. It obviously owes a huge debt to the French Connection with Ray reprising his role although in much more ambiguous way. Nero who normally plays cool laconic characters but here he shouts a lot and waves his arms around as he sees events running out of control. The copy I saw ends rather abruptly and looking it up there is supposed to be a huge shootout on the docks which seems missing …it just cuts to Nero looking pensive - must see if there are other versions - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Just Before Nightfall Claude Chabrol was known as the French Hitchcock and although not as flashy as The Master shared some of his interests. One of his recurring themes is to take a successful middle class family and drop a juicy murder among them and see how they react. In this case Charles (Bouquet) is married to Helene (Audran) with two kids but he is having an affair with his best friends wife. She is into kinky stuff and gets him to strangle her but he goes too far and she dies. He calmly gets dressed and leaves but slowly what he has done begins to consume him. The police have no clues so it looks like he has got away with it but his guilt eats away at him more and more. He initially confesses the affair to Helene then the full story expecting condemnation or absolution but gets neither. She is calm about it and says it must have been an accident and wasn’t his fault and when he confesses to his friend Francois (Tellier) he takes the same stance. In fact all the parties seem to treat the murder with the same indifference which only drives Charles into greater bouts of guilt and he resolves to go to the police. This would bring scandal to the family so he sets in motion a chain of events even he cannot foresee. Superb subtle performances set against an ice winter is is one of Chabrol’s finest films - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Does the world need another musketeer’s movie - on the basis of this yes it does. Having grown up on the beloved Dick Lester films with its razor sharp wit….this is a more sombre , subdued version but still very good. It generally follows the story of the book with palace intrigue with Richelieu , the Duke of Buckingham and the Queens necklace with a couple of minor tweaks. Cassell’s Athos gets framed for murder and there is an assassination attempt on the King but overall it’s the much loved story with Civil as the dashing D’artangnan with Koudri as a much fiestier Constance and Eva Green playing M’ilady with considerable relish. It looks tremendous (although are a few too many night scenes where it’s hard to work out what is going on) and Porthos and Aremis have very small parts - hopefully they will get more screen time when the second part comes out later this year - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Beautiful subtle French film has Tonquedec as Stephane a successful gay novelist who returns to the small provincial town where he grew up after a gap of 40 years. The main reason he left is that when he was 17 he had a very passionate affair with another boy Thomas (Saint-John) which ended abruptly when Thomas moved to his uncle’s farm in Spain - and never came back. Stephane never got over it and although he write numerous books the other figure is always an echo of Thomas. He has accepted an invite to a literary festival with him as star guest and he meets Lucas (Belmondo - the spitting image of his own grandfather ) who was Thomas’s son that Stephane never knew about. At first Lucas denies knowing Stephane’s work but it’s revealed he hat he has read them all and has worked out who the central character is in all of them . In flashback we see the affair where although Thomas is passionate enough about the physical side he remains distant and aloof on the emotional side and Stephane learns he was the same with his later wife and son. The film is the two men slowly using each others experiences to discover who the true Thomas was and using this to reconcile with the past. Tonquedec brings a quiet dignity to the character with Belmondo slowly opening up as to who he is and what he seeks. Beautifully shot it’s a really quiet moving film and got excellent reviews - 4/5