Review Category: Movie

With $2.2 billion dollars in the bank and 2 years of eager anticipation behind it, The Force Awakens laid down a hefty benchmark for The Last Jedi to match up to. Rian Johnson’s directorial Star Wars debut comes at a crucial time for the future development of the franchise. Get it wrong and it’s potentially a cycle of diminishing returns. Get it right – with Galaxy’s Edge, the live action and animated shows and much more besides at stake – and the skies the limit. Luckily, Rian Johnson manages to just about pull it off.

We rejoin the story not at the expected moment of Rey handing Anakin Skywalkers lightsaber back to Luke Skywalker after years of self-imposed solitude but as the Resistance fleet, battered by the destruction of the Republic, flees D’Qar and heads for the skies with the First Order in hot pursuit. This chase – distinctly reminiscent of the long voyage of the Battlestar Galactica – forms the spine of the story that other elements weave around. A healed Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) strike out to buy the fleet a chance, heading for the casino world of Canto Bight in search of a hacker who can help them stop the First Order from tracking them while Leia, Poe and Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) try to buy time.

Meanwhile, Rey is confronted not by the eager master Jedi she expected, but by a tired, beaten Luke Skywalker who wants no part of any of this, and this is the part of the film where new lore is laid, and the lines between darkness and light are distinctly blurred. It’s a brave director who challenges the status quo of the saga, but Johnson rocks all over the world of Star Wars and gives us much to think about. No doubt about it, this is a film you need to see multiple times to catch the nuance and drama on display.

Carrie Fisher, in her final Star Wars performance, is the heart and soul of the film, stealing scenes with ease and on more than one occasion bringing lumps to the throat. While Luke wearily plays his part in the development of Rey, Leia – bowed by age and time but unbroken by the weight of constant fight and defeat – gives courage to those around her, and inspiration in the darkest moments. Can J.J. Abrams make a Star Wars film without her spirit at the heart of it? Sadly he has no choice…

Dramatic to the point of distraction, flippant and quirky, sometimes to its disadvantage, loaded with cameos of varying effectiveness and another great John Williams score, The Last Jedi is impressive filmmaking with first-class performances from Fisher, Hamill and Adam Driver. Back over to you J.J..

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI / CERT: 12A / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: RIAN JOHNSON / STARRING: DAISY RIDLEY, JOHN BOYEGA, MARK HAMILL, ADAM DRIVER, CARRIE FISHER / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 14TH

Expected Rating: 9 out of 10

Caniba is an uneasily intimate documentary that offers a window into the life of Issei Sagawa, a notorious Japanese cannibal who murdered and ate a woman whilst living in Paris. After being found criminally insane and, therefore, unfit to stand trial, he was deported back to Japan. Not able to find conventional employment, he, instead, made a living through the minor celebrity status he had attained.

Whilst very grim, the details of Issei’s life – particularly those focused on his legal trials and the aftermath of his crime – are very interesting and exactly the sort of fodder many true crime docs build themselves around. In Caniba’s case, however, the film doesn’t seem to care about what Sagawa did or the specific facts of his life. Instead, the focus is on him as a person and, specifically, his emotions and feelings.

You’re asked to spend an hour and a half in uncomfortably close proximity to a man who’s committed heinous acts because, by doing so, maybe you’ll learn something about the human condition. It’s uncomfortably close proximity in more ways than one. The vast majority of the film is comprised of long, long takes zoomed up close on Sagawa’s face and frequently out of focus as Jun, his twin brother and carer, speaks to him about his crime. These conversations are disjointed and unstructured, but the extremely slow pace forces you to wallow in his company and, as a result, what little insight you’re given into his psyche is all the more powerful and unsettling.

Documentaries are generally assembled from hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of raw footage which are then whittled down to 90 minutes of the best stuff. Caniba’s greatest flaw is that it feels more like a documentary assembled from 80 minutes of raw footage padded out to 90 minutes with the use of some home movies.

There are many fascinating glimpses into Sagawa’s mind. A sequence in which his brother leafs through an autobiographical manga depicting Issei’s crime is especially enlightening and disturbing, as is the fact that such a book found a publisher.

Caniba is a film that revels in being unpleasant without ever really trying to justify it. Sagawa’s cannibalistic urges are a sexual compulsion and that’s the one side of his mind that the film seems consistently interested in exploring, complete with extensive footage of homemade sex-tapes and fetish videos. The film is about sexuality, but it has to be said that such a topic makes for very difficult viewing.

Ultimately, Caniba is less of a documentary than it is an art-film. It’s an art-film with definite merit; it’s just that your mileage is very likely to vary.

CANIBA / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: LUCIEN CASTAING-TAYLOR, VERENA PARAVEL / STARRING: ISSEI SAGAWA / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 16TH

The pilot for a proposed new anthology series (aren’t they a bit en vogue at the moment?), The Offer is staggering. Staggering in what filmmakers can do these days for a handful of doubloons. Seven strangers are invited to a creepy mansion and asked to partake in a game for which the winner inherits the dead dude’s wealth. Said dead dude is ever present through the episode, dishing out exposition like it’s going out of fashion (as m’dear old Ma would say).

The opening shot, set on the porch of the mansion, immediately bring a touch of the Hammers to mind but, once that front door swings open to our cast for tonight’s play for the day, it dips a little. You could be forgiven for thinking this might be a horror-comedy, so deftly are the characters drawn as ragingly offensive stereotypes; surely this is a post-post-modern modern nod to how far society has come, in that we can laugh at what is essentially trivialised racism/sexism etc.? Nope, it’s just slightly misguided writing. Here we have the lesbian, the businessman, the sleazy car salesman, the gay theatre lover, the working class bloke, the black guy and the obvious-but-dull heroine. Each painted with brushstrokes that could be sharpened by another glance over the script. After each death, we are treated to a monologue on each of our subject’s backstories that is meant to subvert our opinion of them. Unfortunately, when one of those backstories is that the young man in question was a drug dealer (guess which) each of the subsequent ‘revelations’ falls a little flat. That said, somehow there is something endearing about each of them.

In amongst this, there is one perfect example of how to show a gruesome chainsaw based death on a shoestring budget effectually. In fact, this is where the filmmakers have absolutely nailed it. It’s clear they didn’t have much to play with, but boy do they play with it. They don’t attempt a multi-location shoot, but instead embrace the ‘chamber piece’ as form. Many of the kills are performed in the age-old black-out, but it never becomes tiresome, the sound effects do all the heavy lifting here- leaving the rest to the imagination in a resolutely Hitchcockian way.

Kenneth Cranham is, as you would expect, fantastic as the Host. Props go to Siobhan Kilmartin as his Nurse (watch the show, you’ll understand why) and ex of Corrie star Bruce Jones imbues his sleazeball with a pathos you would think unimaginable.

Pilots are often a tough cookie to crack, but this shows plenty of promise should it go to series. This show is what would result from Hammer and the Saw franchise making a baby. It is one hell of an ugly baby (as they all are, really), but in all the right ways. Oh, and there’s a gimp, who doesn’t love a gimp?

THE OFFER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: CHRIS GRIFFITHS, GARY SMART / SCREENPLAY: NEIL MORRIS, GARY SMART / STARRING: KENNETH CRANHAM, BARBIE WILDE, OLIVER SMITH, SIMON BAMFORD, NICHOLAS VINCE, BRUCE JONES, DANNY STREWART / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Love and Saucers doesn’t mess about, it boldly starts with David Huggins’ extraordinary statement, delivered with matter-of-fact conviction, that: “When I was 17 I lost my virginity to a female extraterrestrial”.

Having quickly gained our attention, this documentary reveals 73-year-old David’s life and art in a non-judgmental style. He is shown shaving and carrying out the regular routines of the day in his normal looking home in Hoboken, New Jersey, making a sharp visual contrast with his oil paintings and sketches of alien entities.

He has a large book-lined living room filled with volumes about flying saucers and the paranormal and he talks about his collection of 2,000 VHS horror/science fiction movies. One of his biggest influences is a 1965 Dr. Who episode ‘The Web Planet’, which has giant ants in it and he confesses he couldn’t stop watching it. He saw The Thing from Another World, when 7 or 8-years-old, which neatly cues in a look back at his childhood. 

David lived on a fairly remote farm in Georgia, where he helped out with the farm work and his grandparents took him to a hell fire and damnation church that turned him off religion ‘big time’. As a child he collected arrowheads that he found in the vicinity of the farm and he also began seeing things that the rest of his family and his friends didn’t see. His first encounter was with a short, glowing-eyed, hairy guy, when he was aged 8-years-old. For a split second he felt he was looking through the eyes of the figure, then it ran away into the nearby woods. Not long later, at their barn, he saw a giant insect being, like a praying mantis that sprayed him with grey sticky liquid, and not surprisingly it terrified him. 

He has to admit; his many encounters with aliens in the early 1950s made it a strange childhood. These stories are told by David straight to camera, interspersed with the oil paintings he has created of these incidents.

UFOs and aliens shadowed his childhood, but the beings were not hostile. They consisted of little grey beings, the hairy guy, a tall Nordic human-like being who seemed to be in charge and the praying mantis creature. These seem to embrace every common type of alien entity reported in the UFO literature.

What is more exceptional is his tale of being painfully seduced by an alien humanoid female called Crescent, he holds up a painting of this incident as he proclaims ‘virginity lost’. He moves to New York to study art, where Crescent haunts him in his sleep and she becomes his girlfriend and he is always having sex with her, which results in the birth of an alien child.

Jeffrey Kripal, professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, Texas, regards David as sincere and ‘just telling the truth’ with humility, and puts his encounters in the context of the sacred experience. 

Unlike other documentaries that have an agenda to prove or disprove the existence of UFOs, or that subtly coach their subjects to look or sound ridiculous, director Brad Abrahams simply allows David to tell his intimate, fascinating and incredible story.

LOVE AND SAUCERS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & EDITOR: BRAD ABRAHAMS / EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: NATE BARR / PRODUCER: MATT RALSTON / CINEMATOGRAPHY: MUNN POWELL / ORIGINAL SCORE: DERK RENEMAN / DESIGN & ANIMATION: JOANNY CAUSSE / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 12TH (SELECT CINEMAS, VOD)

One of Japanese cinema’s most recognised and controversial modern filmmakers, Takashi Miike, returns with his 100th production – Blade of the Immortal.

For his centennial directorial outing, the prolific filmmaker has chosen a live action adaption of the Manga series of the same name. The film follows Manji (played by Japanese superstar Takuya Kimura), a samurai who becomes immortal at the hand of an 800-year-old witch following a near-fatal attack from a group of bounty hunters. The main narrative is one of a girl employing the help of a reluctant warrior to avenge the death of her parents who are murdered by the Ittō-ryū – a legendary Japanese Kenjutsu school. However, while an action-heavy ‘chanbara’ (or swordplay) film at its core, its slew of outlandish characters adds a surreal slant to proceedings.

Miike San’s chaotic action style lends itself well to this style of adaptation and the end result is a madcap blend of comic book action and video game carnage. This isn’t the first time the director has dipped his toes in the bloody Manga pool; his previous adaptation – 2001’s ‘Ichi the Killer’ – was an ultra-violent, highly controversial affair that was banned outright in several countries.

The films stylish monochrome prologue sets the scene for the Japanese director’s latest offering that contains many of his favourite traits – surrealism, humour and violence. Its numerous action sequences are bloodthirsty, chaotic (hardly unexpected considering the source material) and well choreographed. Stylistically, save for a few acrobatic leaps and jumps, the swordplay is more akin to that found in traditional samurai films than those in the ‘wire-fu’ films that saw a rise in prominence in western cinemas at the turn of the century.

The final product is one of the director’s more accessible films (in comparison to the likes of the aforementioned ‘Ichi the Killer’, ‘Visitor Q’ or ‘Audition’) that successfully incorporates his flair for surreal fantasy and violence in a more conventionally palatable package. However, given the source material, the movie’s over-the-top tone and the main characters thirst for bloody combat, it seems like a rare missed opportunity by the film director to truly turn the violence dial up to eleven. That said the action and body count still hits top gear in the final frenetic act that sees Manji confront an army of government soldiers and the Ittō-ryū.

Some may find the level of violence off-putting and with a run-time clocking in at 140 mins, the film runs the risk of outstaying its welcome during the slower paced middle act. However, the Feudal setting and intense action make this an enjoyable adaptation – especially for someone looking for a comic book movie that isn’t all about capes and problematic facial hair.

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: TAKASHI MIIKE / SCREENPLAY: TETSUYA OISHI / STARRING: TAKUYA KIMURA, HANA SUGISAKI, SÔTA FUKUSHI / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 8TH

Expected: 8 out of 10

Inspired by true events, The Cutlass tells the story of a young woman who is abducted following a robbery and taken into the far reaches of the wilderness. With little chance of escape, she soon realizes how reliant she must be in order to survive and seeks to find out more about her abductors’ true intentions. It’s not every day that you get to see a bit of Trinidadian cinema, however it seems that after winning a couple of awards at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, there has been a real impetus from all those involved to get this film released worldwide. In the hopes of breaking new ground, The Cutlass has already made its international debut as part of the Marche du Film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and now it’s arriving to our shores for our very own viewing pleasure.

Directed by Darisha J. Beresford, The Cutlass is an interesting piece of cinema which wears its heart on its sleeve. Although there are times when the directing falls into amateurish territory, Beresford is able to keep the action grounded enough for the actors to take centre-stage. Lisa-Bel Hirschmann portrays Joanna Soloman, a young woman who is taken from her friends at gunpoint and forced into the precarious terrain of the Trinidadian jungle, whereas Arnold Goindhan plays Al, a petty thief who’s in way over his head with the local gangsters. Both actors are able to form a decent amount of chemistry throughout thanks to the unique power struggle that both characters face over the course of a couple of days.

Unfortunately, Teneille Newallo’s script does at times falter for a number of reasons; whether it be the unwarranted narration over the top of certain scenes, or the strange tonal shifts in conversations, it all begins to slowly lose authenticity and loosen the impact of what’s going on. Newallo does have good intentions, however, as the film attempts to highlight the social and political undercurrents that plague certain members of Trinidadian society. Although there are times when the overall flow is impeded, both lead actors are able to do just enough to save the film’s blushes.

Overall, The Cutlass is an interesting attempt at a very worthy premise. Containing some beautiful shots throughout, viewers will be drawn to the breathtaking visuals on screen. With solid performances by the two main actors, it’s refreshing to see well-rounded characters in a film of this nature who don’t fall victim to stereotyping. It’s a shame, though, that certain performances by other members of the cast and crew ultimately give the movie a distinctly televisual feel. An uneven effort with noble intentions, The Cutlass ultimately suffers from an overbaked script and questionable directing.

THE CUTLASS / CERT: TBA / DIRECTOR: DARISHA J. BERESFORD / SCREENPLAY: TENEILLE NEWALLO / STARRING: LISA-BEL HIRSCHMANN, ARNOLD GOINDHAN / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Shown at this year’s London FrightFest in one of the smaller screens and a low-budget opportunity to put Wales on the horror film map, Peter Stray’s low budget yarn Canaries is a hybrid of classic and traditional horror offerings.

On one of umpteen New Year’s Eve parties happening in the Welsh valleys, a group of individuals turn up at an isolated cottage. Unbeknownst to them, a mysterious group of yellow rain-coated beings with claws are stalking the area, looking like the villain in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

In the meantime, American intelligence is tracking a mysterious cloud and the link to Wales of various historical incidents, including one that took place at Martha’s Vineyard years before involving fishermen. Before long, though it becomes a fight for survival and a desire to understand what exactly is going on before they all go literally ‘down’  in the Valleys….

Canaries is another movie that will benefit from a platform like the London FrightFest, which each year gives the fans a variety of films from across the world. Director Stray certainly knows the genre and refers to past glories like Jaws (the Martha’s Vineyard reference) with resonance.

It’s a spirited romp, with deliberately dumb and smart characters showing wide-eyed ignorance and belief as their characters grasp the desperation of a traditional horror scenario.

FrightFest fans certainly welcome offerings like this and the Discovery Screens at the event in London always provide a wide choice to fans and weekend pass holders, particularly those who seek out specifically alternate choices to the mainstream like a Saw or Scream.

The pity of this film is not its intention, but the fact that it is slightly over-reliant on classic film references. People seem to forget that the likes of Friday The 13th and Halloween used their locality and settings effectively (be it a New Jersey summer camp or an Illinois street on Halloween night) without the need for layering exposition that dampens the shock and gore on show. Simplicity and a desire to get-to-the-gore hold the key to effective horror films. Fans demand it and will certainly avert their attention if those elements are not fulfilled or played out satisfactorily.

On balance though, the filmmakers ought to be applauded for their ingenuity and enterprise with the low-budget elements on show here. The gore effects – when they come – are well-executed and this was one of the appeals of watching Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead, with a lot of home-made make-up and props. It’s designed to be a fun horror yarn and for the most part, it achieves its goal.

Please do give the film a chance, it deserves a look and there is a far amount of fun to be derived from. Stray may get more opportunity to build on some promise shown in Canaries and we should welcome more films from the likes of Wales in the future.

CANARIES / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: PETER STRAY / STARRING: ROBERT PUGH, HANNAH DANIEL, KAI OWEN, RICHARD MYLAN / RELEASE DATE: TBC