Film Reviews by Strovey

One Last Dance is filmed in Singapore with a mainly Chinese cast by a Brazilian director who is known for not following the conventions of cinematic story-telling timelines. Think Pulp Fiction, if you were confused by that One Last Dance may freak you out.

The story, no matter how it is dressed up, is essentially a simple kidnapping gone wrong thriller. T, played by the best actor in the film by a country mile, Francis Ng, get the contracts by lai see [I think] packets with numbers on them, I think they are gifts given by the Chinese, but I am talking from full-on ignorance here, and goes about completing the contracts. Makowski throws a spanner into the workings by playing around with the timeline and your expectation [depending on your film-watching experience].

The film tonally is not tuned for ‘western’ [for want of a better expression] ears, with comedic moments and over-the-top acting, particularly from Joseph Quek as Ko, rammed into quite serious scenes and events. To the point of cartoonish sound effects at one stage. It can be a strange brew to get used to but if you can it makes the viewing easier.

To try and distract from the simple tale the director seems to have experimented with some spiffy editing techniques and ideas, some work, others are more clunky and even annoying. In particular, the ‘instant photos’ sequence outlining Ko’s night out starts off as fun and an attempt at something different, but it goes on too long and outstays its welcome.

The film is also bogged down with truly awful cheap CGI blood splatters from the killings. They would look out of place in a poor video game and detract from the viewing. Surely squibs and blood-packs are not that expensive?

There is little I can tell you about the plot without spoiling the story, but it is fair to say you had better pay attention throughout the running time as the story does not resolve itself until near the end, and even if you have not grasped it, scenes get played out again to jog your memory. This technique is not even new to the director let alone crime or any other type of film. There is little I can reveal other than the timeline is out of sync until near the end and it is understandable that some watching the film might end up frustrated.

Francis Ng is great as the hitman, a cliché that you have seen before in hundreds of films, too cool and too well-known to actually be a hitman, but he carries off what could be a blancmange role. Consequently, the film is lifted higher than you could feel it deserves.

The other main character, Ko played by Joseph Quek, his performance is more of a curate's egg, will, depending on your tolerance and mood when watching, amuse you or really annoy you. I fell between the two stools on my watching.

One Last Dance seemed to be made in the style of Asian cinema but also trying to appeal to a more western audience, hence Harvey Keitel pops up for a couple of scenes, he might have been on holiday and popped over to watch filming for all I could tell, and it is here One Last Dance fails, being neither fish nor fowl.

This is a shame because just under the surface there is a good film, familiar enough to drag in the casual viewer and experimental and quirky enough to pique the interest of the more serious film fan. Unfortunately, the casual viewer will undoubtedly end up bored and confused and the serious film fan could end up disappointed and frustrated.

As far as I can tell Max Makowski seems to have given up his fledging directing/writing career as this film was his last entry in IMDB, I cannot find any reference to him on the all-knowing Internet beyond about 2009. Is he dead, divorced or beheaded? Whichever it is he seems to have stopped making movies which is a shame, if he had carried on in the same vein you feel he would have produced genuinely interesting and compelling films.

Like so many films that are basically two-handers Mrs Lowry and Son whilst it relies on the skills of many to bring it to the screen it lives or dies on the two actors that carry the bulk of the film. In this case with experienced actors Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Spall director Adrian Noble and writer Martyn Hesford were in safe hands.

By the very nature of the story Redgrave has the ‘showy’ part leaving Spall the more challenging task of playing what is in essence an inert character, Lowry, who, in this story at least, only really reacts to his mother. Redgrave tries hard to give some light and dark to what essentially is a very unpleasant person and whilst, with the help of small flashbacks she succeeds in a small way, I really was left with the impression that in a two-character film she was very much the ‘baddie.’

Apparently in real life, from my reading, Lowry’s mother was worse than this depiction. Which definitely makes you shudder.

Here we discover her husband was in debt and had to move from a well-to-do middle-class area of Manchester to a more rough-and-tumble working-class area and you can sort of understand her upset and feeling of disappointment and let-down, but to then take it out on her son and shackle him down to what is essentially a life of servitude there is little light you can get out of this. Her only more positive moments are remembering the past, which is what makes her so bitter in the first place.

Spall's interpretation of Lowry is somewhat of a dull doormat, with a kindly nature, who could see the beauty in the ordinary working-class vistas and people around him. Again, by reading about the man he was more than this, although, being fair, the focus of the story is on the fractious relationship with his mother. Perhaps expanding the story to show Lowry’s more humanist side outside of the family home would have made for a less claustrophobic one-dimensional story? The theatrical roots are there to see but perhaps clipping them back would not have been an entirely bad thing? Two-handers that start off as plays find it very hard to shake off those beginnings when they transition to the big screen.

It is to the director and actors' credit that Mrs. Lowry and Son is eminently watchable. In lesser hands this could have been a drudge. Redgrave several times showed mannerisms and facial expressions that reminded me of my mother, who in her own way was a frustrated snob, but I hasten to add was not anything like Lowry’s mother, being both loving and supportive her entire life. Spall’s display of the steadfast loyalty and world-weariness of Lowry to his mother is subtly played throughout the film and is a credit to his acting skills.

The only problem I had was the age of Spall, which is nit-picking I know, but Lowry was in his forties at this time and Spall looked his 61-years of age making him somewhere around 15-years older than his subject and only 20-years younger than Redgrave, I keep thinking throughout the running time that if Lowry lived until the mid-70s and he was this age before the war (as Spall looked) he’d have been over 100-years old when he died, which he was not. It jarred with me,

Mrs. Lowry and Son is a fine film that cannot hide its stage roots and gives an interesting. if fictional look. at the relationship between this gifted artist and his damaged and highly damaging mother. It is not a treatise on the life and influences of the artist like Mr. Turner, Spall’s other artist biopic was. Therefore if you are looking for a similar film then I would suggest you will be disappointed but as a stand-alone film about a well-loved artists' strained relationship with his mother, this is a good film.

Unfairly billed as the Welsh version of Train Spotting, the brothers are wastrel drug users, Twin Town was the creation of Keith Allen’s brother Kevin and writer Paul Durden. As such you see the Comic Strip Presents influence in the story, it starts out darkly comic and gets darker and darker as we proceed. No one is nice and you cannot really root for anyone, but the skill of the writing is that somehow you do not dislike the highly dysfunctional Lewis family that spawned the ‘twins’ Jeremy and Julian, played by real brother Llyfr and Rhys Ifans, the start of a long successful film career Rhys.

As such the film seems to be trying to set up the brothers as delinquent thieves who make bongs out of anything but are to all intents and purpose harmless. It is glorious deceit as they hang about in the ratty caravan site next to a stinking eyesore of an industrial works, with their workshy dad, ‘Fatty’ and fussy sex-worker sister Adie and the mainstay in the family mum, Jean. On the more serious and criminal side we have two ‘bent’ coppers, the late Dorien Thomas world-weary and small-time and the ambitious, psychopathic Scotsman Terry Walsh, played with relish and straight as a bat by the always impressive Doug Ray Scott.

Without detailing the plot and spoiling the film for those that may have not viewed it, Twin Town was made in 1997, the tale does not go in the direction that you might expect. For some, this will be tonally deaf, and I can understand why you might think like that, but Allen’s direction and writing (with Durden) is clever enough to slip this past you slowly so that it does not jar. For me, despite the ending seeming a bit rushed and tied up neatly, it works.

Swansea is shown in all its glorious late nineties ‘wild-west-a-like’ it looks grimy, gritty and a dirty old town. The acting is naturalistic without too many overwrought actorly scenes, the Ifans brothers genuinely seem like the type of skinny idiots that we have all known over the years and the three many ‘baddies’ are not pantomime stereotypes. Scott writes large but in fairness, he needs to within the tale.

William Thomas is scarily good as the whole linchpin to the story Bryn Cartwright and throughout the film as unpleasant as any villain you will see, culminating in a realistic and very unpleasant scene of violence, that with the benefit of hindsight should have been seriously tempered when the film was made although by this point we are in the darkest midnight phase of the film.

The supporting actors are all main-stay Welsh actors including the now long-gone side-burned Brian Hibbard late of The Flying Pickets if you remember them, and he and all the supporting cast give good realistic performances.

This is the film’s strength, the story itself is slight and gets very unpleasant as it runs. Twin Town is a unique turn on the dark crime comedy genre that does not tick all the boxes on violence, language and drug use that you expect but it also turns off the highway and goes down some windy roads you are not expecting now and them.

Overall, for a film that is twenty-four years old (at the time of this opinion piece) there is more to like than not. It holds up well and helped to launch the careers of Rhys Ifans and Doug Ray Scott as well as highlight a lot of fine Welsh character actors who might have never been seen by a wider audience at the time.

You would not want to be friends with anyone in this film but spending an hour or so in their company is certainly okay.

The Green Butchers is an early output from the Danish director/writer Anders Thomas Jensen and his unofficial troupe, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and Nicolas Bro and like his more recent output, The Riders of Justice, is a strange tale of mistaken beliefs, death, mental health problems all cloaked but normal mundane settings and people. Like any film you get from this one what you want. It could be billed as a dark, dark, comedy with horror and potentially gruesome elements yet it has few laugh-out-loud moments and little real violence or gore. It made me snort or giggle but not laugh out loud but equally the ‘horror’ aspects did not really make me winch or anxious.

One thing you must be aware if you take a dip into this film or any by Jensen is there is often a lack of good taste. In this case the subject matter, which I will not spoil for those who have not seen the film, is in itself fairly repulsive, and Nikolaj Lie Kaas who plays both of the brothers, the depressed Bjarne impressively and his brain-damaged brother Egil a little over the top and perhaps distastefully, much like Bro in The Riders of Justice.

Mads Mikkelsen shows his acting chops even this early showing and topped off with his made hairline and hair you may see him in an entirely different light if you are only used to his English language output. He and Kaas certainly play off each other well and hold the film together. The third hand in the cast is Line Kruse who plays the kind-hearted and lovely Astrid that eventually unravels the friends' scheme. Being the main three characters, the film is better for it and Jensen clearly knows a good thing when he sees it sticking to his ‘cast’ as much as he could for future projects.

The Green Butchers' story slowly unfolds and is all the better for it as it allows the grotesque story to develop and gives the characters of Svend and Bjarne time to flesh out, yet it never outstays its welcome. As with other Jensen films, the overall acting is natural and all the characters, despite their giant quirks, are believable, even if you would want nothing to do with them. What is particularly enjoyable is how the story bowls along, happy to subvert your expectations as it dives down an avenue you never expected, especially if you watch the output of popular Hollywood. In particular, the ending is as odd as you will see for some time.

To really figure out what The Green Butchers is about you must dig below the surface of what seems to be a simple story. Here you find regret, forgiveness, new beginnings and believing in yourself, but not in any way you have seen these tackled before.

Overall, The Green Butchers is strange enough to hold your attention, interesting and different it hits most of its marks but like a lot of the more left-field output you can see in the cinema this has to strike a chord with you straight away or at least you have to be in the right mood.

For me it makes me want to seek out further output from the sometimes contributor to the Dogme film movement for others just this sentence will make you give it a miss.

It is all good either way.

Limbo is a tragicomedy specifically addressing the hot topic in the good old angry UK, asylum seekers, refugees. Seen from the point of view of the four young men who are awaiting the results of their applications we are thrown into the quirky and dull life on the remote Scottish Island. The director and writer Sharrock cleverly paces the story along these lines. For extended periods of time nothing happens, standing around, walking from point to point, meeting the strange locals, both racist and yet also friendly. The pace is gentle to say the least.

Sharrock brilliantly blindsides the angry racists out there by not showing the four principal characters in a heavenly, can-do-no-wrong, light. Without spoiling the plot, they, like all of us at times, are not entirely honest but the brilliant part is they are not demonised. They are human beings and if you were in the same situation would you do the same – truthfully, most of us would.

There are no cheap flashbacks here to flesh out our protagonists but once again Sharrock shows budget-friendly skills but using Omar’s partially amusing and always heart-breaking once-a-week calls back to his parents, refugees themselves in Turkey, as exposition.

Amir El-Masry is pitch-perfect as the stone-faced Omar who leads us through the story. Just from his skilful performance you can tell his heart and soul are broken from the decision his family has made and the trip he has undertaken. He observes but never fully engages, taking taunts from the equally as bored and oddly friendly and racist island youth as stoically as he takes his friend Farhad’s ideas of managing him and putting him forward to a local talent show.

Farhad is the Ying to Omar’s Yang, fully rounded as a character but more upbeat and the viewers comic-foil he is equally as skilfully played by Vikash Bhai, chain-smoking, with a stolen chicken as his pet (played out very movingly at the story's end believe it or not) he, along with Helga and Boris’ "Cultural Awareness 101", stop the film from wallowing in sadness and presiding in the dark. Again, some skillful storytelling by Sharrock, the absurdity of life sitting alongside the sorry and loss. Another shout out to Sidse Babett Knudsen and Kenneth Collard [Cuckoo] as the well-meaning but comic foils, Collard in particular makes me laugh by just standing there.

The final two characters, in essentially this four-hander, are Wasef and Abedi two ‘brothers’ coming from Africa played by Ola Orebiyi and Kwabena Ansah which basically gives Sharrock a four from four with his casting skills. The two seeming brothers have varied reasons for seeking asylum and their stories conclude very differently to Omar and Farhad’s but they all share the house together and discuss/argue about mundane things such as Friends and playing for Chelsea Football Club.

The cinematography by Nick Cooke highlights the sparse lonely wilderness of the barren island making it almost a fifth character, solemn, unforgiving and beautiful. Shots of isolated bus stops and buildings against the vast skylines further underline the isolation in a stark and uncomplicated way.

Despite the comedic moments of visits to the island supermarket, [the spices rack and rules against urinating] and the integration lessons, we never lose sight of the fact that the four men are truly lost in Limbo, with no idea which is the worst thing, the guilt, the waiting or the bleak life of basically ‘nothing’.

Limbo is a beautifully directed, written and acted film and all involved should be proud of their involvement. A story as old as the human race, moving across the world to find a better place is told with humour, empathy but above all truth. It is a story about a sort of forced camaraderie, where comfort must be taken by shared circumstances and is liberally peppered with absurd set pieces and dramatic tragedy - highly recommended.

Happy as Lazzaro is a long film and seems to be two films with the same characters bolted together. The first half seems to be a throwback, a story of exploited workers being preyed upon by the uncaring wealthy. Will they turn on their oppressor, what will become of them all? Fairly straightforward, Lazzaro is the innocent within the tale. He shows no anger or enjoyment but just wants to help as much as he can. He is almost a blank canvas that the other characters bounce off. Which makes the plaudits piled on Adriano Tardiolo a bit odd. He really does not have to do anything but stand and answer questions and run about for people, showing no emotions.

The cinematography is beautiful with some lovely Italian rural locations [Bagnoregio, Viterbo, Lazio] I could almost feel the heat coming through my ‘Big TV’ screen as I watched Lazzaro traipsing about.

Despite the story seemingly being odd but straightforward, the longer we travel down the path laid out for us the more magical or mystical it becomes.

The message through director Rohrwacher’s symbolism seems to be that exploitation is all around in the world and unquestioning kindness and help make little difference. The sharecroppers are exploited by the Marchesa and unhappy in Inviolata but when they are saved by the police and local authorities and taken to live in the ‘city’ they are uncared for, poor and exploited by others forcing them to resort to crime.

Only Lazzaro stays the same, morally, and literally, despite the intervening years. A big old metaphor I am guessing.

Despite the length of the film, over two hours, if you can pace yourself in step with the film it actually does not drag too much, the rural first part could be trimmed slightly as even the dimmest audience member would soon notice what the situation in Inviolata was. We get many scenes and set pieces of Lazzaro being humiliated or forced to work hard. The point is driven home.

The second half of the film, in the unnamed Italian city, drifts into fantasy or the magical realm as the inhabitants of Inviolata have aged over the years but Lazzaro has not, he is exactly the same. No answers are given, particularly for the ending, which to my way of thinking seemed as if the makers just got bored and stopped at end of that afternoon’s filming and said, ‘Nah that’s it, we’re done.’ Others will see it differently.

Happy as Lazzaro is a beautiful shot, evocative film, with a mystical and magical tone. Sometimes these types of films can be trite a bit long-winded or confusing, so it is to director/writer Alice Rohrwacher’s credit that my attention did not wander and I was engaged in the adventures until the end.

What it was all about is most definitely up to each individual, some people will love this, others will think is boring silliness. I liked it but perhaps it is not as profound as it believes.

Shot in black and white so that the story blends in more or less seamlessly with the stock footage from World War 2 Overlord is an odd film from beginning to end. Made in 1975 the end of the war was only 30 years in the past at that time so the scenes you are exposed to will without doubt jarred some memories to the forefront for some older viewers when it was first shown but now 77 years on with an awful lot of veterans from that conflict dead [including my father] or extremely ancient the feeling of disconnect from the film’s topic is more profound.

Herein lies the rub. The stock footage, ADR-ed to within an inch of its life, has virtually no connection to the story. So, we get the acting sections, with the mundane life of Private First Class Beddowes and his mates and then a jarring shot of Bristol Blenheims going at full tilt across the coastline and Channel for what appears to be no reason in the middle of the storyline. As fascinating as this footage is, in particular London Blitz scenes show how extremely dangerous it was to fight those fires in fine detail, it cannot hide that originally this film was going to be a documentary using these World War 2 gems.

Cooper, the director, helped by cinematography John Alcott, who worked on 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, then added in dramatic sequences of the journey of Tom Beddowes as he goes from recruitment to deployment.

A fresh-faced Nicholas Ball rolls up as Tom’s new army mate Arthur and the duo soon become a trio with world-wise Jack, Davyd Harries, to give us the focus and heart of the story. It seems odd that Brian Stirner, now a director of TV, plays his role as if he is from a war film made in the 1940s alongside his ‘girlfriend’ who has no name, played by Julie Neesam the both seemed to be trying to channel a Celia Johnson-Trevor Howard style romance. But the standouts are Ball and Harries who for my tastes are more realistic as sweary and fed-up conscripts. Notable Ball seems to be the only major cast member who was happy to at least cut his hair as short as soldiers in that period would have it, but that is a bugbear for me. Most war films made in various decades in filmmaking history seem to have been hampered by actors with ‘my hair mustn’t be too short’ clauses in their contracts. To check for contrasts check the stock footage and dramatic footage.

This aside the dramatic pieces mainly work and make a somewhat dull storyline, but this dullness is its strength. Tom is plagued by strange dream sequences and imaginings which give the whole proceeding an odd hallucinogenic feeling which can detract or add to the story depending on your viewpoint, I am on the fence about this. It was a tad confusing but also, I could see what Cooper was trying to portray.

Overall, Overlord is an important dramatic story about one ordinary soldier who took part in D-Day, like thousands of others and should be watched just for the content and attempt at something different. Whether you like it will depend on how much allowance you will give the makers, in my case I was feeling generous. I loved Nicolas Ball in his role and I liked the downbeat way of telling a soldier’s tale but I am not sure I would seek the film out and watch it again.

Your decision might be different.

Supernova is the type of film that was made more often decades ago, not that there is not a place for it nowadays, there most definitely is, but for younger, less patient audiences, the slow burn and intense focus on a long relationship and the strains a serious illness can put on it most certainly would be divisive. Putting aside those that will hate this because ‘nothing happens’ and ‘there’s lots of talking’ and there’s no exploding helicopters, Supernova is a sad and superb two-hander performed by two top actors at the top of their game.

Thankful Basil Exposition is not in this film so when we turn up in Sam and Tucker’s life, we must glean what has happened prior to events we are seeing and figure it out for ourselves. You know like thinking, intelligent adults. The story slowly unfolds as we see the two men bickering over satnavs, maps and the minutia of a life lived together over decades. It is clear they love each other but the story does not avoid the creaking of the ship of love as it sails life’s seas.

Without doubt the story is shored up and made more watchable because Firth and Tucci, close friends for decades in real life, are quite brilliant in the role of the gay lovers. The loving gay couple portrayed proving you do not need a gay actor to play these roles, just as a gay actor can play a heterosexual. Along with the script, the little glances, subtle signals, and moments of intimacy are there to be seen and genuinely believed, you do not need a brush writ large to demonstrate these and actors at the top of their game, such as Firth and Tucci, prove this.

The speech at the dinner with friends in the last third is a masterclass in the subtle acting saying more than any waving of arms and ‘declaiming’. The small supporting cast, seen in this section of the film is believable as relatives and friends and add to the nuance. A quick shout out to James Dreyfus, late of ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ and ‘The Thin Blue Line’ who pops up in an entirely non-comedic role, almost unrecognisable.

The story never wanders off track or outlasts its welcome and bracketed by some beautifully shot visages of the Lake District, cinematography courtesy of Dick Pope, that four seasons in one day part of the UK looks magnificent, probably better than it does it real life.

But the story is fundamentally a two-hander dialogue driven play between two men. Both face terrible hardships that will end very much differently for them. We get an insight into the raw emotions that the pressure of a debilitating and ultimately terminal illness places on the individuals within a couple. This is personal to me, so I have a dog in the fight.

I cannot reveal what happens to the characters but anyone familiar with dementia knows the final outcome. Supernova is subtle and holds a microscope up to a relationship ending neither person wants. That the couple are gay man is unimportant and the Tusker’s crisis and fight with dementia is not overly sentimental or played for tears, although you will probably cry.

I understand the topic may not be comfortable for everyone, it was not for me, my mother ending her days bellowing at the top of her lungs or lying half comatose repeating ‘I want to go home’ in either situation, due to her not very cinematic type of dementia. I understand that a gay couple may make less enlightened people uncomfortable, and the slow river the film is will turn others off, but truth be told more than a few of us will live this story in one form or another in our lives. Harry MacQueen and his cast bring to the screen a fresh honesty, which shows compassion and love and all the emotions in-between in an exceedingly challenging time in a couple’s life.

No doubt about it if Harry MacQueen carries on in this vein, he will produce thoughtful and interesting films in the future.

Werewolves Within is based on a video game, a VR video to be clear, that I have never heard of and after watching the film and then looking for clips of the game on YouTube it must be said ‘very loosely’ based on the video game. I mean I am based on the same creature as George Clooney.

The film is a mix of genres going for black murderous comedy and a trapped set of folks trying to find out who is murdering who and why. Everyone, except the two main protagonists seems to have a motive and everyone seems capable so far, so Agatha Christie. The twist is although the humans are in general obnoxious and loathsome, and capable of murder when the deaths and maiming start it appears it might be a werewolf. A werewolf whodunnit? Original and different.

Nope.

I would love to know if Mishna Wolff had ever seen or liked ‘The Beast Must Die’ a Peter Cushing Hammer Horror werewolf whodunnit from 1974? It was a straight as a horror thriller and I remember being mightily disappointed by the conclusion and the film when I first watched it, but I am pleased to say not so with Werewolves Within. The makers went the correct way with the story such as this, it is played for laughs, not guffawing, tear-inducing laughs, but chuckles and smiles throughout the running time. Certainly, from my point of view the way to go with this type of story.

It helps that Sam Richardson plays to his strengths as an actor, a friendly, harmless, almost avuncular character that the audience can both laugh at but like and sympathise with from the start. Then pair him, or sort of pair him up with the attractive Milana Vayntrub who is pitch-perfect as a sub-manic-pixie-dream girl, cute and fun but with enough agency to not be ‘Finn’s love interest’ and you have a hook that should hold much of your audience.

I cannot reveal any of the story because things happen to characters and situations arrive that if described or even hinted at will ruin the film for anyone who has not seen it.

The horror in the film, much like the comedy, is very much lukewarm and herein this is the film’s greatest weakness, it tries hard to not be fish nor fowl, but a tweak with the horror or with the comedy would have definitely helped give the film a stronger identity. When you see ‘horror-comedy’ as a descriptor do not expect An American Werewolf in London, which for a lot of people was terrifying when it came out or Shaun of the Dead which was hilarious, to me and others, on viewing, mind you those are lofty heights to attain to be fair.

The cast is comedic in slant and despite my misgivings they put in good shows, with everything writ large, clearly this is on purpose, so if you run with this and have fun throughout the run time, you will enjoy the film.

Werewolves Within is a fun Saturday night’s viewing when you want to stay in, if you listen to dialogue early in the film and about two-thirds in you will be told who the werewolf is but at this point, after shifting my opinion between a couple of characters I had already settled on who it was and the script underlined it for me. I would not go out of my way to watch the film again and I will have forgotten it within a few months but there are worse films to watch when you are in the mood for a bit harmless fun to watch.

Made in 1964 The Earth Dies Screaming is a black and white small-budgeted science-fiction/horror thriller about mysterious invasion. Shot in around three weeks the film focuses on seven survivors and how they cope with the strange and deadly event they survived. Willard Parker and his wife Virginia Field are the ‘stars’ that were brought in, and most likely where most of the cast salaries went, although at the end of their careers, they were soon to move into a successful real estate business, they were big enough names to give the film a passing interest for the audiences of the day.

The ace in the pack for The Earth Dies Screaming is Hammer Horror stalwart director Terence Fisher, a man who made a living on managing small budgets and wringing horror and tension from situations that the money would not allow. He followed on with two similar films Island of Terror and Night of the Big Heat that had near identical premises but had slightly larger budgets. Whatever you think of this film and any of the others he made around this period you must admire the man’s ability to deal very successfully with what he had and to make interesting fun films.

At just over an hour in running time the who film is never going to wear your patience down because before you know it the odd ending is playing out in front of you. The opening scenes, showing the aforementioned train derailment, plane crashes and people dropping dead, is snappy quick and lets you know what has happened if not why. In fact, this is a strength, rather than bog us down with convoluted explanations and exposition as to what is happening, like Jeff and has new friends you never know, you are only privy to what they know – and that is not much.

The characters are set up quickly, so the audience knows who is who and what is going to happen. Parker is the solid and dependable de facto leader and Dennis Price, in the middle of his downward spiral of alcoholism and guilt over his career and homosexuality reducing him to roles and films like this, is nonetheless superb as the slimy and clearly, but never revealed, criminal Taggart. Thorley Walters a mainstay of classic British TV and films rolls up as the drunken fool to great effect too. The three female cast members are obviously restricted to the standards and expectations of the day but they do well with what they have and Virginia Field especially with the little she is given that does not involve making meals or being terrified.

The actual fear and tension build from the mysterious robots that turn up at the halfway point. For all the world they look like something made on the set of Blue Peter but that is half the fun of the action, but then, four years before Night of the Living Dead, the robots make the corpses into zombie-things, with plastic lenses glued over their eyes. Despite the laughs that can be got from their appearance they are eerie and scary as they creep around hunting down the remaining humans.

This is a harmless piece of schlock made in the sixties and should be watched with that in mind. If you like to see into the past of Britain looking at the old cars and refrigerators then you’ll enjoy it, if you are looking for terrifying horror-action this is the wrong film, but it is a fun effort – think an old episode of Dr Who that was lost but has been found again.

Written by Michael Dowse and Paul Spence, who also played Dean in the film this film is a mockumentary about two slacker metalheads which nowadays and even twenty-years ago when this film was made, was a familiar idea.

The conceit of the story, or documentary if you will, is that metalheads are useless, stupid and mainly drunk, which as we all know is not the case in real life, you can be all of these things and not be a metalhead and you can erudite, bright and intelligent and be a metalhead, unfortunately this seems to be the only thing the film wants to tell us. So be warned you once you have got this point, whether you think it is hilarious or tedious, that is it – for 76 minutes, there is nothing else the makers want to tell you, no shade or pathos, just two selfish, idiots, behaving like selfish idiots, realistically to their credit, I could easily see where some might think this was a real documentary.

At the beginning of the film when Farrel is showing Dean and Terry his other films to persuade them to be the topic of this ‘documentary’ Terry whilst viewing shouts ‘Turn up the good, turn down the suck!’ and it is a shame they did not take their own advice.

What you have in Fubar is a documentary maker following the lives of two fools you would not want to live next door to or want to know. With a bit more thought they could have been more likable and less stupid, but the most unforgivable part of the whole project is that both Dean and Terry and self-centred and only really like each other. When the story takes a darker turn and it believe me it does – is this part supposed to be funny, I do not know – their behaviour is again supposed to be funny but in fact it selfish, meanspirited and frankly appalling.

You could say Fubar could be showing versions of Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar as they really are. When you make two characters in this vein you want to spend time with them, not dislike them and want to be thousands of miles away from them (I am). Wayne’s World whilst silly and not realistic is a nice place to be.

Fubar is not funny and I found it depressing and confusing. Perhaps it is a Canadian sense of humour thing, or I do not understand the culture but for a mockumentary surely you ought to show your audience something, make them think, in this case I only thought, ‘These guys are a-holes, and I don’t like them.’

I am almost certain that is not what they were intending when they made the film.

Before We Vanish, is born of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars, and a myriad of fiction of any format where friends, family and the public in general appear to be ‘taken over’ by ‘something’ and only a handful of people are aware. The classic paranoia induced fright-fest brought to the fore when the west felt anyone who was not tuned fully into their rhetoric was a communist and had communist friends hidden in plain view all around us. Although this paranoia subsided in subsequent decades the legacy it left has allowed films such as Before We Vanish and it is like to be made over the preceding years and be popular and usually reasonably successful.

The first act of this Japanese take on the paranoid invasion tale is the strongest. You are not fully up to speed to what is going on and the three aliens are introduced to show you they are three entirely different characters, despite only being human in appearance. To this end the film looks as if it is going to deliver an exciting and at least partially original take on this type of tale.

Unfortunately, the story seems to lose confidence and the story loses its way near the end, and I admit I have no prior knowledge of the source material but because of this interesting start, I found this possibly more disappointing than I normally would.

The idea of removing concepts, absorbing them, from humans, only after they visualise them, leaving them confused, sad, or even happy was a strong, interesting idea that was not explored further. The aliens were always going to invade no matter what (apparently) so there was no obvious reason or motivation for this interesting act.

The acting throughout, from my limited knowledge of Japanese culture and expectations, appears uniformly good, with no one having histrionics or demonstrative actions that were not suitable to on-screen events. In particular Masami Nagasawa is excellent as the put-upon graphic designer who is married to ‘alien’ husband Shinji and the laid back and carefree alien played by Masahiro Higashide is a charismatic and fun presence but all the acting for me was of a high standard.

The real problem comes with the direction the film takes, story strands, particularly at the end meander and suddenly become unconnected and leaves the viewer confused but more importantly unsatisfied.

The ‘invasion’ such as it was a poorly CGI-ed damp squib and the final scenes do not truly click together with the story preceding them, which is huge shame.

This Japanese alien invasion film is a good-looking, well-acted, fun and interesting story that sadly fumbles the ball at the end and is good twenty minutes too long. If the screenplay and direction had focussed on the third act and made the overall feeling less ‘baggy’ what was an okay film would have been interesting and provocative science-fiction effort.

Free Guy is not original, take a few steps back and you are looking at a mangled version of Wreck-It-Ralph, which was funnier and more entertaining, and with a loose thread you can trace back to Blade Runner, the awful I Robot, A.I. and even Lars and the Real Girl, all of which go back further to the sculpture and statue coming to live and indeed love, Pygmalion. Okay, it is tenuous but boil the meat off the bones and you the story of something inanimate, created by the protagonist, coming to live and learning to live, love, hate and all points in between. Is the ‘statue’ really alive, is Free Guy really alive? That is the story, the trick is what you do with that story, how you package and what tricks and traps you add to it.

The initial setup with Ryan Reynolds and his friend – the problems that throws up with the storyline are brushed over so I will brush over too – Buddy, played with charming likeableness by Lil Rel Howery, sets the story up and sets it up well. It is amusing and shows the life of the NPCs to some effect. The real problems start when the ‘player’ of Molotov Girl, played by the latest British star to catch the evil eye of Hollywood, Jodie Cromer, sashays her way onto the screen. Guy is immediately affected by her she is the one.

Perhaps it was just me but there was no chemistry between Cromer and Reynolds at all on the screen, nothing. I just could not see his bland character falling for her even blander character, they were strictly 'pass by in the street characters' with ne’er a glance back. But we are being set up for an unlikely computer character love match with a ‘real person’ – interesting perhaps but how do you get yourself out of this?

The answer is double up with another chemistry-free love-interest, so it is a love triangle between three people none of which you believe even looked like they would be friends, yup, it is Walter ‘Keys’ McKee played by Joe Keery, who unfortunately was not believable as love-interest or a game genius, but he tried hard.

The film runs with two stories side by side in-game and real-world, neither is sufficiently interesting or believable enough to keep your attention. True there are some fun moments, some truly impressive screen effects but these alone do not make a great, or even good, film.

The biggest problem for me is the casting. All the main cast are reasonable actors with decent work behind them but in this film it did not work. Cromer and Keery come straight off the back of hugely popular television shows but for crying out loud that is not a reason to cast someone, well it is if you want to make money and get bums on seats, but they must fit together and in this film they do not. Reynolds, Cromer and Keery have no chemistry between them – they are inert. The star, Ryan Reynolds, like a lot of ‘stars’ in Hollywood seems to get by playing the same character in every movie, in this one he is the harmless version, in Deadpool, he is the harmful version, but it is the same character. Deadpool is much a better version, so perhaps a violent, nasty, foul-mouthed Ryan Reynolds is better.

For a film where one of the characters is a computer-generated, bland, one-dimensional NPC it takes some skill to make the most seemingly computer-generated, bland, one-dimensional character a human being in the real world. Taika Waititi chews the scenery with obvious delight, clearly thinks everyone is having as much fun as he is.

Despite the effects, the video game tropes and nods, after a while your attention starts to wander, only the introduction of the monstrous 6-foot 7-inch Aaron W Reed as a sort of ‘super-Free-Guy’ brings you attention back online, here there is some funny moments.

The story peters out to a huge lame ending that makes no sense

Nobody is a fast, action-packed, violent tale of vengeance, living in the same street as John Wick, Derek Kolstad wrote it, and Nobody is nearly the same film. Given that deadpan and comedic Bob Odenkirk is the lead, fresh off his turn in Breaking Bad and the spin-off Better Call Saul you would expect this film would have a more fun element to it. At the beginning we do get a sense of underlying comedy and with the violence non-existent this is the better film. Even the over-the-top cartoon violence of the ‘bus attack’ being more personal the film held my attention, Odenkirk gets battered and hurt, in real he would be dead or seriously injured, but this film is not about that and it is churlish to pick out realism as a failing.

The action when it happens is frenetic, well-choreographed and exciting, particularly when it is small and personal, but it is as if director Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) forgot the whole first acts of the film and we end up with every Russian, fighting Bob, his brother RZA and his 82-year-old dad played by Christopher Lloyd, funny but stupid. Yet again though it appears to thousands of men with guns willing to die horribly to serve their gangster boss, all dying in horrible ways. It is all a bit familiar.

Nobody is a professionally made well-crafted action film, with ultra-violence, gunplay and even Home Alone booby traps, yet for me the best filmmaking, the most effective sequence comes at the very beginning of the film a choppily edited opening sequence underlining the boring mundane life Hutch lives. Quick, sharp, to-the-point and in few repeated shots you know exactly what our main character appears to be.

For lovers of action-packed-violence, this will be enough but for those that worship at the ever-diminishing returns of John Wick it will not be enough, they will like it but will forget it soon after watching and waiting patiently for ‘John Wick 6, He Kills the Whole World’.

Nobody is a revenge story, told in a cartoon-style with little or no sense to the plot from the beginning that gets even more nonsensical the longer it goes on but it is made for a specific audience. For those that like being on ‘Revenge Street’ but perhaps prefer a little more meat on the bone I would recommend Blue Ruin or even something like the original Death Wish, even Straw Dogs having said this for action, and let us be honest, mindless violence there are too many to pick from.

As you may have guessed this type of action-film with bish-bash-violence leaves me mainly cold and under the right circumstances I could fall asleep watching most of them, I really liked the original John Wick but due to the success of that film we have Nobody which does not do anything different enough to distinguish it. Cardboard cut-out Russian gangsters (sigh) lead by famous Russian actor Aleksey Serebryakov raised my eyebrows and from that point they never really dropped again. I wish someone would make this type of film and try something innovative and different, similar to zombie-films, ultra-action films are in serious danger of overloading the market and disappearing up their own fundamentals. Shame really, there could be something there for good filmmakers to get a grip of.

Nobody will be watched by a lot of people and forgotten fairly soon, which is disappointing there is a lot of talent on show and that is not just my writing about it.

What we have in Lars and the Real Girl is a modern retelling of Pygmalion. A lost, lonely man, delusion perhaps, bestows, life, love, on an inanimate object, a facsimile of a woman. In Pygmalion, the love of the sculptor fantastically brings that object of his love to life but with Lars and the Real Girl writer Nancy Oliver has the love for ‘Bianca’ transferring to the family, friends and town community, bringing them ‘to life.’ Oliver has writing chops having contributed to Six-Feet-Under and True Blood but here she shows a softer side. Much like those TV shows we are in a fanciful place, after all if the last few years have shown us a lot of people are plainly and irredeemably awful, but the reaction to Lars’ problems in the story is beautiful, poignant and dare I say palate cleansing. Even with this wishful thinking Oliver shows a proper understanding of mental health and wrote a careful and gentle depiction. The most telling line comes early in this film from the superb Emily Mortimer as she talks to the equally superb Patricia Clarkson, ‘How can I help?’ Indeed.

Director Craig Gillespie more recently of the, in some ways similar, ‘I Tonya’ and the ‘I haven’t seen it yet’ Cruella, has the perfect cast to work with. Ryan Gosling, an actor who goes from eclectic roles with admirable ease, is perfectly cast as the soft and gentle Lars who has been profoundly affected by early events in his family, in particular his mother’s death due to his birth. As mentioned previously Emily Mortimer is impressively believable as the kind and caring sister-in-law Karin and special praise must go to Paul Schneider, most recently seen in Amazon’s ‘Tales from Loop’, who has the challenging task of, at least in the opening acts, the least sympathetic character, he clearly is playing the part of the cynical viewer. Patricia Clarkson is equally impressive as the clever, understanding and helpful town doctor, Dagmar, we would all love our GP to be this impressive lady. The ‘real girl’ of the story is played with cute vivacity by Kelli Garner to round out the main and consistently top form cast.

UK viewers will be delighted to see Canada’s answer to Mackenzie Crook, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, who when he rolled up early on as Lars’ work colleague, I thought it was Mackenzie Crook for a few seconds.

The film begins by fooling you into thinking it is a full-on comedy, the introduction of Bianca by Lars to Gus and Karin had me laughing so long and loud that my wife, still in bed, called down the stairs to see if I was okay, but much like I, Tonya, the ‘funny’ soon gives way to the drama but in such a skillful way it does not jar and you really do not notice. If you are made of stone, or one of the irredeemably awful people I mentioned earlier, you will not latch on the underlying sadness of the fragile and lost Lars. What Oliver’s screenplay, the directing and acting all are trying to show us, and successfully achieve, is that understanding, empathy and compassion are always the strongest and kindest way to help each other. With Lars’ delusion this could have been a huge joke of a film, but it is to everyone’s credit the initial hilarity drops off like Autumn leaves and we end up with a sensitive and small peek at mental health and the importance of compassion in friends and family.

The whole film is intelligently made, with a clear comprehension of mental health, a refreshing and interesting take on the topic that is very much in the fore of local and national discussions these days.