J*A*S*M

This is like the Chinese version of Fall of the Innocent, but a lot more expensive and better made. I’m kidding a little, if I started to list the similarities between the two films they would be more random than symptomatic, but the fact is that they both had the same effect on me. A visually nice bait for fake emotions, with an outstanding Bale, that’s it.

SURTHGEN rules again! It has helped the Norwegians, the Irish, the French, the Spaniards, the Italians, the Americans, the Brits, and certainly many others, sometimes more than once. Now it has helped the Swedes and, I have to say, without resulting in any fiasco. This time, the SURvival THriller GENerator has produced a very nice forest chase with a likeable protagonist, a beautiful setting and a decent portion of tension. Unfortunately, the villain brings down the impression a notch, he’s awfully uninteresting and looks a little like from a slow motion film. The villains generated for similar films would have caught the female lead a hundred times, but this one no, he just hangs out while the girl escapes further and further. The overall impression: strong three stars.

In all respects, an average slasher flick from the 80s. It’s okay to watch once, but after a week, I hardly remember anything.

A superb beginning, a fantastic end and an awful (AWFUL!) middle. To give you an idea: A woman is abused by her husband (superb), then a policeman and his girlfriend take care of her (awful), but the husband won’t have any of it and takes revenge (fantastic). The way the oppressive atmosphere dissolves in that middle part is beyond my comprehension. Another country, another culture, I guess. If we ignore that middle part (yeah, it pissed me off so much that I’m saying it again, to be sure), it is a great exploitation film that left me with a far more positive impression than the similar The Untold Story.

According to the predictions of some of my horror colleagues, Living Hell should have made me throw up, crap my pants and maybe even given me a heart attack. Fortunately, none of that happened, but I have to admit that people of a weaker nature will not sleep well after watching it. Shugo Fujii managed to make a horror film that (especially in the climax) feels incredibly evil, nasty and insane, while at the same time generating genuine fear and tension. That was actually a surprise, because in many scenes, it’s clear that his directorial skills have a lot of room for improvement. About the script, I was ready to say that it’s incredibly stupid (even if you put together ten very silly American horror flicks, you won’t see so much lack of logic, weirdness and stupidity as in Living Hell, and though the differences between western and eastern mentalities do play a role, it’s not enough to explain all that stupidity – for instance, the character of the journalist), but that impression is significantly improved by the climax, which (maybe) explains all the previous events and takes the wind out of the sails of potential critics. It’s not very fair on the part of the creators, but well… Overall, I’m very satisfied, it’s a film I can recommend to horror fans. It’s not very well known, which is a shame.

An impartial film that, as an atheist, I enjoyed as a nice dark comedy, but I can imagine believers taking it as a serious drama and having no issue with it. Lourdes is a great example that meaning not always arises from the source of the message, but somewhere along the way between it and the receiver.

Transformers has a lot of money for breathtaking effects, but Real Steel has heart, which is the most important thing. Straightforward family entertainment with a straightforward script and an annoying wise geezer in the main role. But everything is so nice, and even the annoying wise geezer ends up begin likeable, that it was a lot of fun to watch. In a nutshell, a pleasant surprise, though the robot fights could have been shot with more dynamism and tension, they felt too much like a routine. Overall, though, nice pop-corn fun.

A very disturbing look at the rampage of a murderous individual who has just been released from prison. It’s a very unpleasant and nasty film that won’t improve your mood.

A pretty OK and bizarre indie horror comedy. Will Keenan in the role of a terrorised wretch delivers a very solid comedic performance. Thumbs up, Chop is certainly worth watching.

Everyone has to start somewhere, or proof that even the director of a not very good horror B-movie (that shows only hints of his incipient talent) can become one of the most interesting creators of the genre today. The atmosphere is fine at times, but to make the film watchable Ti had to hone his characteristic slow pace :)