Reviews

Hatchet really is something special. Just saw it at Toronto's Bloor Cinema (courtesy of Anchor Bay Ent.). Extreme gore is a must here. Cutting this film down would be a sacrilege as it is as viscerally gory and brutal as it is funny. There aren't tons of set-pieces as we might expect from a horror film but director Adam Green knows what he's doing and clearly loves the genre. It is well acted and quite scary in it's way.

Belongs on a list with The Evil Dead, Fulci's The Beyond, Jackson's Dead Alive and Christopher Smith's Severance.

A must see for fans of the genre.

The Masters of Horror series which began in 2005 is certainly a mixed bag. Not only are there many different film-makers working on these episodes, but the budgets seem to be limited on some level.

Like the first 5 seasons of The X-Files, the episodes are shot in Vancouver and the British Columbia environment in Canada, so directors need to be creative in order to make it all work as effectively as possible.

The best of the bunch that I've seen so far are: William Malone's The Fair Haired Child (which is an emotional and horrific fairy-tale), Joe Dante's surprisingly effective and detailed Homecoming (bear with the opening 5 minutes or so), Don Coscarelli's Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, Lucky McKee's Sick Girl and Dario Argento's second offering Pelts which may have the highest level of gore and sleaze in all the Masters of Horror so far! Way to go, Dario! You're still the man!

Next tier down would be Takashi Miike's Imprint, John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns and possible Larry Cohen's Pick Me Up. There are about three more I've seen which I won't mention (out of respect for the film-makers!).

Most of Michelangelo Antonioni's films can be described as unique, and The Passenger (or Professione: Reporter) is a fine example of his oblique and purposefully meandering style.

Most great films should be viewed and not described too much; Jack Nicholson gives, arguably, his best performance; there are almost no Jack Nicholsonisms in this film (courtesy of the director). Maria Schneider is more than serviceable. Luciano Tovoli's photography is perfectly on display in Sony Pictures Classics DVD release from 2006.

Many indelible images in an amazing example of visual storytelling. The final sequence is particularly mesmerizing.

Rarely have I seen a film that haunts me to my core. This film is so moody and evocative that I feel it's almost a part of me. Hard to explain, really. This is my favourite Roman Polanski film and that is saying a lot. He is certainly a master director and every film he makes is interesting on some level and is worthy of praise.

Tess was photographed in France (substituting for South-West England) by the late Geoffrey Unsworth and the late Ghislain Cloquet, who shared an Academy Award in 1981 for this gorgeous film. Tess is not just pretty to look at, the photography constantly sets a mood and creates an atmosphere of tragedy surrounding the protagonist's life.

This leads me to Nastassja Kinski who really made a name for herself in the title roll. She is not brilliant but is maliable enough for a master director to mold her performance into something memorable and special.

This is a truly special film.

Any fan of 1970s Italian Giallo films has seen enough of them to know what to look for, but, of course, everyone sees something different in art. We all know about The Cat o Nine Tails (cool as hell) and Deep Red (bloody amazing), but some lesser-known Gialli have been available for re-discovery courtesy of Blue Underground and Shreikshow labels.

One of the better ones has to be The Fifth Cord starring Franco Nero. For me, the number one thing in these films is not plot points but ATMOSPHERE. This film not only has the great Franco Nero as its protagonist, but is brilliantly shot by Vittorio Storaro. Also, the director knows what to show most of the time, and when and how to show it. The finale is set in one of those funky 1960s European open concept homes with the stairwell to the second floor in the middle of the living room and a huge fireplace fit for Cortina! The kind of films we don't see any more, unfortunately. Without these DVD releases, we'd be stuck with a lot of modern would-be thrillers involving cell-phones and teeny-boppers.

Der Kreiger und Die Kaiserin is a beautiful, existential and Romantic (in the pure sense of the word) film. Judging from this film and the recent Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tom Tykwer is becoming one of my favourite film-makers.

I won't do the typical plot outline because anyone who has seen and loved this film already knows how good it is and doesn't need a summary. Franka Potente and Benno Furmann are endlessly watchable and I could watch this film if it was 8 hours long. Life goes by slowly sometimes and this film's pace is appropriate to the essence of the story. There is longing. Longing for love, understanding, purpose and forgiveness: A masterpiece.

The Bond film that got away, in effect. Unless you were around in the 1960s when the Connery Bonds were released, you grew up watching them on TV or video. I was never too excited to screen the Lazenby one-off when I was growing up. First watched it at age 12 and found it long and boring. In my late twenties, I fell in love with it.

OHMSS screams out 1969 to me every time I watch it; it's very "adult" in a way. Although the film-makers still kept in the patented Bond humour, there were plenty of interesting characters, settings and plot-lines.

Lazenby is perfectly fine as 007 and I would have liked to have seen him in more entries in the series. Telly Savalas is one of the best Bond villains because he's very smooth but his character's malicious intent is very palpable. On top of it all, there is the great Gabriele Ferzetti (from Antonioni's L'Avventura and Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West). He has the best line in the film regarding Diana Rigg's ex-husband: "He killed himself, and his mistress, in a Maserati last summer!" That line indicates to me the height of rich, bourgeois 1960s European decadence begun a decade before with Fellini and Antonioni.

Kudos to director Peter Hunt for seemingly following his vision and making a Bond film to be proud of after all these years.