Film Reviews by AO

The London of this film is not the whimsical London of 'Mary Poppins' or 'Notting Hill'. There's no chance of John Healy bumping into a gorgeous film star and falling in love with her. Not in 'The Grass Arena'. Healy's world is cruel from childhood. Bullied, stigmatized for his family's history and brutalized by his father.

And it gets worse from there. Homelessness. filth, alcoholism, prison, violence and madness. It's a very difficult watch, with the vomit inducing medication they are forced to take a particular low. Be warned, parts of it are grim. Of course, the main character does begin a journey of slow self recovery where he is opened to a better world of sorts. But still one where he suffers prejudice and discrimination because of who he is and who he's been.

Mark Rylance is superb as Healy. portraying him as he must have been. Things look up towards the end. They had to!

This play, although a work of genius, is unrelentingly grim. It plays on brutality, wanton cruelty, civil war, family strife and madness. And that's not to mention the stabbings, hangings and 'that' eye gouging scene. 'Notting Hill' it isn't. What it is though is a searing look it how humans really are or can be, and its not a jolly look. To complain about the ending in King Lear is to miss the point. The ending is the point. It's little wonder that Hollywood with its love of neat, happy-ever-after endings has stayed away from this tragedy like you would a dog with fleas.

In a way, good does win through but not before total carnage and immense all round suffering. During which a lot of both bad and good people die, some a lot more deserving than others. I don't think i need to put out a spoiler alert (the thing is over 400 years old after all), but the end scene with Cordelia (who truly doesn't deserve to die) is one of the most tender and heart wrenching scenes ever. Anyone who doesn't have a piece of grit in their eye watching her demise, deserves to have it gouged out.

This film depicts a very brutal time between the all conquering Roman empire and the stubborn locals. Set in a bleak, washed out landscape of Rome's final frontier, it involves a bunch of soldiers cut off from their garrison. They are wildly chased (whilst trying to get home), by an army of locals who aren't taking too kindly to Roman occupation. The Romans never did take the Borders and Scotland and you'd think they'd have given up after 400 years of trying. Especially if you see what they have to put up with in this film, trying to suppress the restless natives. Not that the Roman army were quire boys themselves.

The violence is fairly brutal, when one of histories most powerful empires comes face to face with stubborn local resistance. Not a bad way to spent an hour and a half but I couldn't get away with the CGI enhanced fighting though and the fake blood.

I thought the love interest towards the end spoilt the film and added nothing to it. They just can't seem to resist the lead falling for a beautiful girl with perfect make up (this is in 2nd Century AD). Who writes this stuff ??

This is a difficult film to get a hold of. Some people may argue 'Why go to the bother?', but this does it a tremendous disservice. Its gory, stupid and macabre. It's full of puerile schoolboy humor, the kind men of a certain age find funny. Like its partner in crime 'Brain Dead', this film deserves credit for the handmade special effects if nothing else. A simple kind of schlock western, where the good locals fight the evil intentions of greedy outsiders (the aliens). If your thing is gross out comedy horror, perhaps best enjoyed late at night with a beer and pizza, you wont be disappointed.

This is an interesting film looking at one of the great crimes of the 20th century and as we all know, there was plenty to choose from. The main lead, unwittingly stumbles (literally) over the 1930's famine, engineered in the Ukraine by Stalin's despotic policies. More of a political thriller than horror, the movie is about the then current politics between the USSR and the unsuspecting British. The film later hints that 'unsuspecting' isn't quite true and darker forces are afoot, all way above our heroes' head. The movie thankfully skimps on the full horror of what Stalin did, which is just as well. For those interested, the internet is a good source of official documentation but a warning, a strong stomach is definitely needed when seeing the gruesome photos.

An intelligent film about an appalling act which the Soviets tried not so much to brush under the carpet, but bury at the bottom of the ocean.

The important thing to remember when watching this is don't take it or yourself too seriously. Set in the 1950s, it has a kind of weird charm to it. Kind of like 'The Sullivans' gone wrong. Badly wrong. It tips its hat to a number of great horror films such as 'Halloween' and 'The Thing'. There is of course a sweet love story told throughout the gore and splatter of the hero 'Lionel' and his sweetheart 'Paquita'. I did find the slapstick comedy a bit grating after an hour or so. There's only so many times you can see the intrepid Lionel trip over something and find it funny. But hey, I'm being unkind. Apart from getting a chance to see the now megastar director Peter Jackson learn his craft on this movie, you get to see how horror films used to be made. Mostly (if not all) of the gratuitous blood and guts would have been handmade with love and care in the days before CGI. To repay their colossal efforts not sat in front of a computer, for that and no other reason, this film deserves to be watched.