Reviews

I've never seen Cronos before, I've heard of it but only by name and have absolutely no clue what it's about. If you're in a similar boat, although there's no spoilers here, I'd stop reading now, go watch it, then come back. In the 15th Century, an alchemist devises The Cronos Device. A clockwork gadget that holds the secret to eternal life. After missing for a hundred years, it's found hidden in a statue by a grandfatherly antique dealer called Jesus (Federico Luppi). He wasn't looking for it, but Angel de la Guardia (Ron Perlman) is. He's not that bothered truthfully, thinks it's all nonsense, but his uncle, who just drops the Angel (Claudio Brook) is a believer. It's Jesus though that it latches on to and soon he finds himself at its gruesome mercy. Guillermo del Toro is a master of blending the fantastical with reality and Cronos is a great example, with Jesus thrust into a dark vampiric plot underpinned with thrilling supernatural horror. One that he's not equipped for and one that really surprises this viewer. Just when you think you've got a handle on it, things shift as we dig in deeper. For all its grotesqueness though, it's cut through with humour. Faced with a new reality, Jesus must lean into the darker corners of his situation to try reclaim what's truly important in his life. It looks wonderful, every character is perfect and it deftly finds its way to its crushing finale.

A New Zealand zoo fella (theres probably an official term, but it's not important for this film), swipes a cursed Rat-Monkey from some angry locals in Sumatra. He'd have been better off staying home. He doesn't make it back... but the monkey does! Back in 50s Wellington we meet the bumbling Lionel (Timothy Balme) and his oppressive mother. She's as dislikable as he is likeable. Parquita (Diana Peñalver) thinks so too, she has a soft spot Lionel and on their first date they head to... the zoo! Where we get to see the infamous Rat-Monkey for the first time. It's a stop motion gore fest, a little taster for what's to come. What is to come you might ask? Zombies that's what! For that's what happens to anyone bitten by the Rat-Monkey and first on the menu is mother! Despite all the gore and goo, it's more of a comedy than anything else, albeit a very horrific one. Do not eat while you're watching this. You'll either throw up or choke through laughing. There's no CGI like Jackson's later films, this is all in camera. It's quite a visceral experience. The aim is clear, how can we make the most extreme but accessible zombie comedy ever. The answer is Braindead. Mystic Grandmothers, lecherous Uncles, Kung Fu Priests & Nazi Vets, it's one of the most insane films I've ever seen! Poor Lionel tries to hold it all together as the body count increases and the amount of puss and slime threatens to take over the screen. It's beyond nasty and if it weren't for the slap stick comedy, I don't think I'd sleep for days. I'm not sure I've ever seen so much fake blood! It's quite spectacular. It makes goriest film you've seen look a kids movie!!

Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams) is a young boy with a sick mother and a single parent older sister, living in an apartment block that the owner, The Man (Everett McGill) wants to tear down for something more profitable. Fool is under the impression that if he can find some money, he can stave off eviction. His neighbourhood is full of drugs and pimps, like Leroy (Ving Rhames). Rumour has it the big bad landlord has gold in his house and Leroy has a plan involving Fool to get it. Personally I'd stay clear. The Man and his sister (Wendy Robie) are nuts. Their long suffering daughter Alice (A. J. Langer) can verify this... as I suspect can the people trapped in the walls of their house. It's proper disturbing, but also pretty funny, largely down to the double act of Leroy and Fool, who soon find themselves in The Man's house, full with its myriad of devilish secrets. With every creak and every door slowly opened, you're begging for them to get out, before they get too deep. It's very American, but plays well to it. The scary thing being the plausibility of it all. In fact I believe Wes Craven was inspired to write this by true events, which really is scary. Trapped in a house of horrors with two yahoo nutcases. Fool soon finds that his only hope may come from the unlikeliest of places. Truth be told it could be a lot more effective if it dialled things back a little. Things get a bit too comic book caricatured in places, but it still works. It's like Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Home Alone, which could be amazing... but it's just really good. Horrors work best when they have purpose and meaning, The People Under the Stairs has plenty of both.

You'd assume you're in safe hands with a film based on a Stephen King book and not only that but adapted for the screen by him too. Louis (Dale Midkiff) and Rachel (Denise Crosby), arrive in town with their daughter Ellie (Blaze Berdahl) and her baby brother Gage (Miko Hughes). It's a small idyllic town, safe you'd think, but it's quickly apparent that it's not. For starters their neighbour is Herman Munster! Although to be clear, Fred Gwynne here is Jud Crandall, a local with blue denim dungarees and a straw hat. He knows something about the mysterious path behind the families new house. It leads of course to the Pet Sematary, a local requirement due to the busy road that runs right by their house, populated by fast moving trucks, that well... kill pets. Louis is the new doctor in town and finds himself thrown in at the deep end with something bigger than just dead pets. Granted it seems a bit simple on the surface, but as Louis discovers with Jud's help that there's more to his new home, so do we. Disturbing waking nightmares, reincarnation, some gnarly gore, some very upsetting deaths and the aforementioned Mr King making a cameo. It keeps you on your toes! It's not at all simple, there's plenty to unpack around the subject of death and this deftly broaches it from several angles. Sometimes with The Ramones playing, what more could you want! Gwynne is fantastic in every sense of the word. As is Brad Greenquist who plays Victor Pascow, a walking corpse who helpfully ties together this world and the next for the characters still living. It's not the best film ever. I'm sure the book is better, but it is very good and you'd be right to put your faith in King. The moral of the story, "Sometimes dead is better". Oh and never move house, that never goes well in films does it.

I remember watching this on late night TV sometime in the early 90s and loved it, but does it still stand up? Sleepy small town America, it's always America isn't it, is the site of an alien crash landing. A cast of colourful characters have to put aside their differences to survive. You've got Flagg (Kevin Dillion), the leather jacket sporting long haired dropout and Meg (Shawnee Smith), the popular cheerleader. Along with a few classic jocks, a very young Erika Eleniak and Jeffrey DeMunn as Herb the Cop. They're all in danger, not from little green men, but from... The Blob! This is the genius of this film, both from the writers and the FX department too. Although B-Movie in tone, the premise is really effective and it looks great, still! The gore is gnarly. Severed limbs and bodies digested as The Blob works its way through town, growing with each conquest. They don't know what's going on, but as the night draws in, everyone is drawn together as a big pink gelatinous blob slowly takes over the screen. Thats it. Simple. The FX are cheesy in places, but still really cool. The cast although cliched are great. The whole thing while fantastic, is oddly realistic. There's some classic scenes, like Fran (Candy Clark) getting frantic in a phone box and the panic at the cinema as the scientists roll into town like an ET homage to save the day... and fix their mess. Is it perfect? No, but that doesn't stop it being brilliant and it easily lives up to my memory.

Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) lives in a big bohemian country pile with her equally posh parents and her annoying older sister. Neither the situation or the location is important though, for the entire film plays out in an alternate dreamt fantasy world as Rosaleen sleeps in her room. We're whisked away into the woods, where she's reimagines herself in a gothic time of horse drawn carriages, petticoats and wild beasts. Dangers that she's warned of by Granny (Angela Lansbury). On the surface it's like Labyrinth meets Little Red Riding Hood. Stories are told within dreams, fiddles are played and wolves howl. All a bit dull honestly, until a very young Stephen Rea starts tearing his flesh off and turns into a werewolf. That's essentially the premise. Fairy tales told, loosely around the dangers of men with a reasonably hefty dose of gore here and there. It's saving grace for all it's clunky plot, is it's pretty well acted and the sets although of their time are well put together. It's just that the fantasy probably puts off the horror fans and vice versa. It doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It's a curious film of patchwork scenes, one featuring Terrance Stamp apparently as the devil, but it doesn't tie together very well and limps toward an unsatisfying finish. The dogs masquerading as wolves are cute though.

It's the 70s, the boom of modern living. Tower block homes as a utopian choice, rather than housing shortage social decline. On the outskirts of Montreal are Starliner apartments. Fully equipped, restaurants, stores, pool, a doctor, all on an idyllic little island. Lovely right? Nope, for this is David Cronenberg film. A young couple come to get the tour, whilst a man strangles a girl in an upstairs apartment, before cutting both her and himself open. Not friendly behaviour on the face of it. But he knows something we don't. It's typically eerie with sparse sound, quite violent and an arresting start to a film that is instantly off the rails. Nick (Allan Kolman) personifies this. He's a classic Cronenberg character. Dead eye stare and a cold personality. He's also got a pain in his stomach. We're in body horror territory. There's an infection of sorts and it's down to people like Dr St. Luc (Paul Hampton) to figure out just what the hell is going on. Something he does quickly enough. Cronenberg dispenses with the mystery. This is all about building the tension to the imminent horror. Even the acting quality is somewhat dismissed as superfluous. Characters are really just fodder for the... Shivers. It's not brilliant, but that's almost the point. The tone is nasty and exploitive, with more than one scene that makes little sense at all and remarkably although it's only 90 minutes, feels it could lose at least half an hour. It does have style though, in a cheap lofi sense and serves as an early signpost for where Cronenberg was headed. Worth a watch for any fan.

After watching the fantastic 1959 original, I'm expecting to be a little disappointed with this. The premise is the same, random group of strangers (or are they), invited to a spooky venue for the night. Get through it and pocket some money. The haunted house is actually an asylum this time. It too has a history and quite a horrible one with a doctor Vannacutt doing unspeakable things to patients who revolt and torch the building. Lots of ghosts. In the present day we're introduced to Stephen Price (Geoffrey Rush) with a terrible moustache (clearly a dodgy ode to Vincent Price) and 90s sunglasses being interviewed by Lisa Loeb. It really could get much more 90s in style and feels oddly more outdated than the original that's 40 years older. He's got money and is not getting on with his spoilt wife Evelyn (Famke Janssen). She wants a birthday party in the asylum that she's seen on TV and so guests are invited as Marilyn Manson sings 'Sweet Dreams'. It tries too hard to be scary. Thats its main issue. It doesn't engage. The couple enter the house with 4 guests, plus Pritchett (Chris Katten) who's connected to the 'house' and its history. They're not the guests Stephen or Emily though. Something is going on. Two of those things are terrible acting and shockingly bad editing. I've nothing against a nonlinear narrative but this is an absolute mess. With everyone locked in, it's survival time. Pritchett didn't want to stay, he knows the danger, but like everyone else, sets about finding a way to get out. It seems that they've all quickly forgotten about the game to stay until dawn, but it struggles with details in general. No one trusts anyone and perhaps rightly so. Stephen for instance has Schecter (Max Perlich) in the basement. Watching on CCTV and pulling switches to scare the guests. Stephen you see runs theme parks and this is his gimmick. It does all feel like theme park faire to be fair. Before long, they're all wandering around abandoned corridors with flickering lights and upturned wheelchairs, that lead to filthy creepy rooms with cobwebs and hospital beds. There are some neat devices and decent effects, it's not all jump scares, but the cast are so damn annoying, you want them to all get killed as fast as possible for this to be over. The original for its flaws has purpose, this has none. Just lots of visuals that wouldn't look out of place in a NIN video. A truly terrible film. Don't bother, just watch the original.

I'm watching this in prep for the 1999 remake, but this is quite arresting from the get go. We're told of a haunted house by Frederick Loren (Vincent Price), whose wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) is throwing a party at said house, it's her party, remember that. Not a regular party though. One that if you survive, you pocket 10 grand... if. Everyone is introduced and knows what they're getting in to and they all need the money. It's like a Twilight Zone episode with the emphasis on ghosts. The location looks fantastic and I believe is still standing high up in the Hollywood hills. Five souls enter and soon realise they're not leaving unless they survive the night. Price is at his very best. Suave and sinister. He unsurprisingly carries this, but the cast are all good. Like Prichard (Elisha Cook Jr.) who knows of the house's history of murders and sets the skittish tone. He's a believer. Lance (Richard Long) and Nora (Carolyn Craig) are the young beautiful skeptics, but they'll soon be convinced. As will I. This may be an old kooky black and white b-movie, but the scares are effective. Granted they might feel a bit tropey to modern eyes, but it's genuinely thrilling. Are there really ghosts, or just a cunning killer and if it's the latter, just who might that be. It's wonderfully creepy. The score is brilliant. The lack of colour only helps with the spooky shadows and Carolyn Craig sure can scream! It's got its flaws, but it's still very entertaining and 65 years on, that's not bad going. The remake has big boots to fill.

Everyone loves Bob Marley right? I do, but other than some vague knowledge of him not being as perfect as the legend suggests, I'm not at all clear on his life. There's none of that in One Love though, which leads me to think it's not the best film to fill in the blanks. It's a slick surface puff piece. That doesn't mean it's bad though. The focus is one Bobs search for peace. Jamaica is volatile in the 70s, political struggles overflow into violence. Bob (Kingsley Ben-Adir) plans to unite the country and the world with music. It helps that the music is incredible and it's never far away. It leans heavily on the back catalogue. It sort of works in that the lyrics of songs like 'I Shot the Sheriff' carry messages that work in context, but it does feel a bit crowbarred in places. Bob may trust in Jah, have faith in peace, but his countrymen don't all agree. In guns they trust and there's a lot of shooting. That's the story in a nutshell, Bobs spirituality and stubborn belief verses the real world violence. Ben-Adir isn't bad. He looks the part, gets the mannerisms, sells the voice (not the singing one, he mimes over the real Bob), but he feels authentic, even in the live concert sections, but the structure feels televisual, back when TV wasn't the art form it is today. It's clunky, reminding me of the dream sequence nonsense of Gladiator, schmaltz laden with stings. At best it lacks grit, at worst it feels like a cast of caricatures, especially when Bob goes to London and watches The Clash. How that got signed off is beyond me. It feels like a wasted opportunity. Jumping wildly around without any backbone. It doesn't get under the skin. James Norton, usually capable of real depth feels ridiculous as Bobs English manager. Despite all these many problems, it is still quite watchable. I don't feel like I learned a thing about Marley and his life, but it did make me want to put a Marley record on. Maybe this was just to flog the name. That's how it feels. Great tunes though and you'll learn more by listening to Bobs lyrics than watching this film.

This is tense from the outset and for two and a half hours it rarely lets up. As we meet Sandra (Sandra Hüller), she's being interviewed in her snow surrounded chalet home. Until her husband starts irritatingly blasting calypso music upstairs. We don't really get to meet him until in the pre title scene he takes the apocryphal fall. He's found be his partially blind son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) and his dog Snoop. The question is of course, did he fall? There's obvious suspicion. Sandra leads us through her version of events as she recounts them to Vincent (Swann Arlaud), a friend... and lawyer, possibly something more. He's there to help Sandra, but he points out what we're all thinking. Sandra is a murderer. We're in dark scandi thriller territory and it's well executed. Leading us and Sandra through awkward reenactments, that uncover the hidden details. Details that Daniel's blindness alone can see. He's to be the star witness in the trial, but with the suspect being his mother, checks are put in place. One being Marge (Jehnny Beth) who I'm a little surprised to see after last seeing her on stage singing in the band Savages. She's very good, as is Hüller, Arlaud and Samuel Maleski who plays the deceased. That pivotal opening scene anchors everything that follows, with a slowly unfolding whodunnit played out in the courtroom and the audiences minds, deftly revealing its narrative in a natural way as it digs its way to the bottom of a thoughtfully psychological drama.

From the very first frame you can tell that Yorgos Lanthimos is going to take you on a fantastic ride. Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is in the care of mad scientist Goodwin (Willem Dafoe). We meet them in opulent black and white surreal surroundings, half shot with a fish eye lens. When I say surreal I mean literally as a dog with a ducks head follows Bella around the house. Goodwin likes putting things back together. Bella likes breaking them. She's learning you see. A young woman, she's the mental capacity of a toddler. Goodwin is loving, if not always responsible, a product of his tortured childhood, his understanding of love is somewhat... altered. Max (Ramy Youssef) an eager student in Goodwin's macabre surgical classes is invited to help on a project, Bella. Despite its grotesque Victoriana, it's sweet. Bella, innocent and fearless, is trying to find her way. It's quite a story and wastes no time. Goodwins controlled world for Bella is complex and a little terrifying. She's an experiment and Max doesn't really approve. Especially when he learns of how Bella monstrously came to be. Never the less, Max falls for Bella, which complicates things with the arrival of Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). He's not a nice bloke, but he offers freedom and Bella is hell bent on grabbing it. The men here are the poor things. They underestimate Bella's veracious capacity and curiosity for life and life in a Lanthimos film offers much to be curious of. Every frame is packed with metaphor and mystery. I feel like I could watch this ten times over back to back and still find something different each time. As Bella explores, her world is saturated with colour in hyper fantastic scenes that explode from the screen in much the way Bella does. She has no filter, acts on pure instinct. Loves the things she likes, cares little for those she doesn't, like a crying child in a restaurant, "I must go punch that baby". Witty, satirical, bloody hilarious. It's easy to enjoy, but you have to embrace it. It's a decedent trip, but the crafted visuals mask its real majesty. Who are we, what are we, why are we. As Bella's eyes are opened, ours of focused. Stone is magnificent, her character commands every scene and she carries it with ease. Ruffalo is great too and Dafoe even with the easy win of fantastic make up delivers a typically magnetic performance. It's lavish, but doesn't make anything hard to follow. Allow it and it's quite accessible. A feast for the eyes and the mind, with a cast of characters blessed with hidden depth. I really wasn't expecting to love this as much as I did. It's a must watch for any fan of cinema, for anyone at all in fact. A rollercoaster with a delightful sting in its tail. We should all be more Bella.

Gangster films can be very hit or miss. The great ones become classics, the rest feel like cash ins. That probably sets the bar too high for The Outfit... or does it. We meet Leonard (Mark Rylance), an English tailor in cold 1950s Chicago. He's particular, precise, a details man who reads others, notices things, he's respectable... or is he. He allows his shop as a drop off front for the local mob. An unassuming figure, he looks out for his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch), who's fallen in with Richie (Dylan O'Brien), one of the mobsters with a chip on his shoulder who comes to collect. It's a nice set up. We learn of 'The Outfit' who drop envelopes that Richie and his mate Francis (Johnny Flynn) collect and we learn that Mable in envious of Leonard's well travelled past, all while never leaving the shop. Leonard is calm in a crisis and with mobsters comes crisis. There's a turf war going on and The Feds are sniffing around. Leonard finds himself sewn into a story he wants no part of... or does he. This is The Outfits strength, it burns slow, but picks up pace with carefully crafted dialogue just when needed. The narrative is drip fed and twists with bluffs and intercut timelines that draw the viewer in deftly. Watching, I'm guessing this has been adapted from a play. It's got all the hallmarks. Small cast, one location and lots of talking. Flynn is great, Deutch too, in fact the entire cast does a sterling job, but none more than Rylance, he elevates this to something much more than a gangster film and delivers a performance packed with style.

I was talking with a friend about how I've come to accept that I love musicals, after denying it for years, and wondered if it stems from my mother having a VHS tape of Calamity Jane that got a real hammering in the 80s. I'm sure I hated it at the time, probably because I wanted to watch cartoons, but I don't think I've ever sat down with it and given it a proper watch. So here goes... In case you're not aware, we're in the Wild West. It's not that wild, but there is a lot of singing. In fact it doesn't hold back, with 'The Deadwood Stage' "whip crack(ing) away" bringing Calamity Jane (Doris Day) into town to the local saloon, the Golden Garter. Now there's some questionable gender politics at play here. Calamity is accepted by the yeehaw cowboys of Deadwood because she dresses and acts like them. It struggles with the role of Native Americans too, who according to 50s American Hollywood politics were "painted vermin". Different times I guess, but still it's dated badly. Calamity is only interested in fending off Indians on the trail, telling tall tales about it and delivering goods to the great unwashed. Oh and Danny (Philip Carey), she's "kinda soft" on him, although it's clear that's not gonna work out. Everything is a bit upside down actually and I guess that's the fun, no one is quite what they seem to be. Particularly Francis Fryer (Dick Wesson) an entertainer mistakenly booked as a woman, then forced to dress up as one or get lynched. Not really. There's no serious violence here, just plenty of farce and a cast of caricatures. Honestly if it weren't for the songs, I'm not sure this would've got very far. Calamity has a good heart and sets out to help the Golden Garter that's in need of a proper starlet actress to entertain the braindead masses. Setting out to find Adelaid Adams (Gale Robbins) who's rather pompous, she insteads mistakes her for Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie) a wannabe actress who spots her chance at making it to the stage, only to find it's in the backwater. Deadwater fawns over her and after moving in with Calamity, soon everyone, including Wild Bill Hicock (Howard Keel) sees a different side to Calamity, as the inevitable change from cowboy clobber to pretty frocks takes place. Schmaltz right? This is all safe and saccharine, but it's entertaining too. Utterly ridiculous, but entertaining... and I'll have "whip crack away" stuck in my head for weeks!

6/10.

This is a vibrant story of broken hearts, hopeful futures and "sockless wonders". Set in South London, Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) are surrounded by the hipsters and colourful characters of Rye Lane. They are both instantly likeable, even lovable. Dom is shy, Vivian outgoing. As they walk around the Neighborhood to a fateful meeting for Dom, Vivian helps him open up. It sounds serious and dramatic right? And it kinda is, but it's all delivered with a healthy amount of comedy making it all the more engaging. Now when I say it's funny, I mean genuinely bloody hilarious, simply because it's not trying hard to be. It's all so beautifully woven into the characters and their dialogue, it feels authentic. As the duos day begins to reveal more of their lives to us, so it is to each other. It's wonderfully entertaining, brimming with heart and one of the most enjoyable films I've watched in some time.

I suppose this is destined to be a little controversial. After all it's the other side of the story isn't it and perhaps not the side that many want to hear. That said, we now live in a world when people lap controversy up and wallow in the tearing down of fame. Don't watch this for that though, there's real people at the core and thus this demands a little more respect. Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) is a teenager (there's the controversy) dragged out to a German airforce base with her parents, where "there's nothing to do". Turns out this is where Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) is based too. Rather oddly she's invited to a party at Elvis' place and things go from there. I'm not saying this is grooming, but she's 15 and 10 years younger than Presley. This really isn't all that comfortable viewing. Elvis is a bit creepy and certainly manipulative. Granted it's a different time as they say, but no one's under any illusions as to what's happening. "Just what is the intent here?" asks her father to Presley, but that's about as far as any objection goes. It could be said that while Priscilla is mature (debatable), then Elvis is immature (or good at pretending). Take his fame away and he's just a predator. Allow him the fame and everything we know, still just a predator. There's a reason there's none of his music in this film, I'm sure his estate tried to block this. It's all based on Priscilla's book though, so I guess it's her word against those intent on upholding the myth. Back in the States, Elvis invites her to Graceland where other party goers remark "She's young. Looks like a little girl". Certainly not ready for what's to come, a rollercoaster ride with a pill-popping playboy. Drinking, gambling, sex (with everyone but Priscilla), drugs... but no rock n roll. This doesn't show the day job. What it does show is a young girl lead along, treated as a play thing when it suits Presley. She's a doll. Kept in a box that is the inner sanctum of his trusted world. Spaeny is very good and she's holds the focus well. As she should, it's her story. Elordi is great as Elvis though and is overbearing when on screen. Again that's the point. It all looks the part. It's well acted. It's paced well, but it's not enjoyable. It's frustrating. A story of abuse. Is it all Elvis' fault. Well maybe not all of it, but he's certainly not a nice bloke. In fact everyone is pretty obnoxious. Poor Priscilla.

I'm a car fan, but not a fanatic. I'm an F1 fan, but think it's lost its way. I'm more than aware of the myth of Ferrari. It's just that though, a swirl of romanticised history lost in a flash of red. The question is, is it better that way or is there some worth at looking under the hood. Expect lots of style and sheen here as we head back to the mid 50s to meet Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) in post war Italy, trying to build fast cars to match his lifestyle. It's dangerous of course, as is his wife Laura (Penélope Cruz) who tries to keep his philandering in check with a revolver. It tries valiantly to add some heft to the story. A family shrouded in tragedy, from the war, lost children, failing marriages and both Driver and especially Cruz portray it well, but it still feels like padding. This all services the myth, but it's not until we hear an engine roar that this finds any traction. It's not a Ferrari though, it's a competitor, Maserati. Even then it's ironically slow. Enzo is cold and controlled. Unwilling to compromise, even as the company spirals into debt. In short he's stubborn. The solution posed is obviously to win more races and promote the brand, "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday". It all feels a bit muddled though, the racing is fun, when we finally get there. There's plenty of history, but it's mostly surface and its biggest problem is Enzo, he's just not very likable. I found myself not rooting for him and his cars one bit. He seems incapable of the romance we're sold on, he just strings people along, like his mistress Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). Aside Cruz, the acting is all a bit wooden, although a small role for Patrick Dempsey is fun, at least he's authentic as a proper petrol head. He's one of a team of drivers that will compete for Ferrari in the Mille Miglia, a 1600km race across Italy. The race sequences are fun. Full of low angles and gear changes. The cars look spectacular and the guttural engine sounds are magnificent. It helps too that the Italian countryside and towns both look incredible. It's the very definition of cinematic. Neither this or Cruz (who carries this) is quite enough to save this though. It's not terrible, just a bit flabby and unfocused or maybe, just maybe there's not that much substance behind the myth.

I've been on a bit of a spree of Jewish themed films of late, trying to inject a bit of hope in between the inevitable darkness. Going from Shoah to Yentl and The Zone of Interest to One Life, which I think will likely bridge the horror with some lasting positivity... hopefully. I say this, as like many, I'm aware of Nicolas Winton from his appearance on That's Life! A stunning piece of television that will stick with anyone who remembers it being broadcast. I was very young though and I'm sure there's more to the story than I recall. Winton was a man who saw what the Nazis were up to, whilst many were covering their eyes and was moved to do something. That something was the Kindertransport or more accurately an extension of it. One Life is based on his true story and it doesn't shy on the details. We first meet an older Nicolas (Anthony Hopkins), doddering perhaps, slowing down a little but still motivated to help. Haunted by his past. You don't unsee the things he's seen. As he stares into a darkened window, we drift back to the 30s, where he's played by Johnny Flynn, trying to convince his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) that it's a good idea for him to travel to Czechoslovakia to help the refugees from the advancing Nazis. Flynn not only portrays Winton magnificently, he also feels perfectly in step with Hopkins. He's a bit of a chameleon. Nicolas though isn't on the surface. He's a well to do stockbroker. A desk man. Head in paperwork type. The harsh Prague winter is not what he was prepared for, but he learns quickly that without help, these displaced people have been forgotten by the system. The British government is not helping Czechoslovakians. When Nicolas is quizzed as to his motives, what skin he has in the game. His response is gripping. Heartfelt, unwavering, determined and spine tingling. The scenes of people saying goodbye at train stations, children with numbers on cardboard around their necks are intercut with the bureaucracy that Nicolas, friends and his mother navigate with steely determination as a score of thick string and piano laden melancholy fills the score. It's this drive/melancholy that defines Nicolas. The drive is his nature, the melancholy what he's left with when there's time think. It's this time that dictates older Nicolas's life. He realises there's sadly still a lesson to be learnt. This timeline isn't perhaps as fraught and terrifying, but it's what lead to that TV moment, this film and Anthony Hopkins reducing me to tears. The pace is kept up by jumping between Hopkins and Flynn in the eras of his life, where although some things have changed, the focus hasn't. It's not an easy watch, amazing as it is what they're doing, as Babi Winton (Bonham Carter) says "Nicky, you must know you can't save them all". What a world we live in. Where this happened and still the danger persists. Thank god for people like Nicolas Winton. A magnificent story brought about by the evil that people are capable of.

I've never seen Yentl. I shy away from musicals, pretending I don't like them, but honestly, I love a good one. Is this a good one? In Poland at the turn of the century, a young girl, Yentl (Barbra Streisand) wants to study the Talmud, but as the book seller calls out around the square "Story books for women, sacred books for men", it's clear she's got her work cut out. With the support of her father, a house full of books and the power of song, Yentl strives to find answers and her place in the world. On her father's death, she finds her life at a junction. To follow tradition, get married, have children or take a different path. You know, it's going to be the latter right? Cutting her hair, she sets out posing as a boy. Singing through her grief and struggles. With a new name, in a new village, she makes new friends in Avigador (Mandy Patinkin) and Shimmele (Allan Corduner), who help her get into Yeshiva to study. It's all rather wonderful and uplifting for a period drama made in the 80s. The question is of course, how long before she's discovered. That's what makes this a good musical, not the music, although that's fine, it's the gender stereotypes and how Streisands character navigates them. How she directs it too, which is deftly through a story that twists as the deception deepens and an unlikely love triangle forms with Hadass (Amy Irving). Steisand is brilliant. She carries this, the way Yentl (or Anshel) carries the hopes and dreams of those around her whilst fretting over her secret burden. It's funny, entertaining, thought provoking and Streisand's singing is stunning.

Coming off watching Claude Lanzmann's 9 hour documentary on the Holocaust, Shoah, I'm not sure how I'll take to The Zone of Interest. First of all this is dramatic, cinematic and stylish. All things that feel a bit fluffy with a part of history like this, but hang on. The same could be said of Schindler's List and that worked rather well. A dissident ambient score softly introduces a young German family, enjoying the countryside on a fine day as a slow discomforting rumble takes over. Scenes of idyllic family life, slowly interrupted by glimpses of razor wire and lookout towers. For this family live next door to Auschwitz. Where the father, Rudolph Höss (Christian Friedel) murders Jews. It's unnerving to watch as the family get gifts of new clothes and food, clearly taken from those recently gassed and burned. Each scene held under a kind of stark microscope, with the camera locked off like Roy Andersson film. The children reenact executions with toy soldiers and proudly wear the uniform of the Hitler youth. The point is, they're all evil 'bar stewards' really iMDB, a little profanity is sometimes warranted), keeping their hands clean, pretending some faux sophistication. In a picture perfect world they've created, whilst ignoring the horrors that we can only hear on the other side of the camp wall. That is until Höss finds out that although he's powerful in this fabrication, it's only that. On finding out they're to be transferred, his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) is not best pleased. For she thinks they live in paradise. It's unclear what this film is trying to say. It tells a different side of the story and although it doesn't glorify it, it's doesn't exactly condemn it either. It feels almost eerily indifferent. Soulless. Heartless. Like the people it portrays. It's an odd film, not one that I can say I enjoyed, although it has something about it. It just struggles under the weight of its history, which is perhaps why the jarring final scenes of present day Auschwitz are tagged on in a surreal twist. It's beautifully shot though and the sound design is fantastic.

I'm going to attempt a short review of a very long film. The question to many potential viewers may well be, is this worth nearly ten hours of my time? The simple answer is a resounding yes from me. Through an extensive series of candid interviews, intercut with suitably bleak footage shot in the present day 70s, Lanzmann documents in great detail the atrocities of the Holocaust, or Shoah. It's mostly slow and sombre, with a sense that Lanzmann leaves nothing out. All the uncomfortable pauses. Moments of dark reflection as horrors are recounted, from those that facilitated, those that witnessed it happening and those who miraculously survived. It's all disarmingly honest. Both from those speaking, Lanzmann's delicate probing questions and from those behind the camera, who manage to tease answers out of each subject without it feeling forced. Well aside from the Nazi beauracrat operating the train schedule who insists he had no idea about the 'final solution' until the war was nearly over. Or the Nazi death camp SS Commander, Oberhauser, now hiding as a barman in a Munich restaurant, who refuses to engage. Despite knowing many of the details of the Nazis systematic murder machine, to see it and hear it talked about from eyewitnesses is chilling. There's things that your mind just can't comprehend and certainly many horrors that I'd never thought to picture. It demands though that you think. There's no archive, no emaciated bodies, no swastikas. Just stark recounts of hell on earth from those that endured, escaped... or inflicted. The latter of which often with a pleaded suggestion that they didn't know what was happening. Lanzmann often passive in the interviews, clearly astonished at the reluctance to admit any kind of fault, rightly speaks out. "You were part of the vast German power structure". Interviewees are trapped by the camera, there is nowhere to hide. This is a harrowing period of Jewish history, of all our history, but as to the question posed at the start... please watch this.

This looks right up my street, a suspenseful sci-fi drama. Claire Rivers (Rachel Shelley) is an awarding winning fiction writer that's struggling with her next book. With her agent on her back and post it notes strewn about her office, she needs help. That doesn't sound very sci-fi does it, but the little futuristic details put us in a world slightly beyond our own. Screens projected on walls, QR codes on car number plates and... The Retreat, a country pad getaway run entirely by AI. It's a simple premise, writers need quiet, people make noise, remove people, problem solved. Something is going to go wrong though, delivering a film that's part Gattaca in its styling (it's very stylish), part Misery, with a dose of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. Like Misery, Claire has an enthusiastic helper. Rita (Heida Reed) looks human, but is a bit cold, a bit... repressed. Like the 1950s housewife on which she's modelled, she's sort of blank. So is Claire's page, the writers block not solved by the isolation. There's something she's suppressing, something dark. It's beautifully shot, stark where it needs to be. Teasing its audience as the tension gently ramps up. Claire is damaged. Drinking every night, repenting with a morning run, flirting with Henry (Wayne Brady) a holographic assistant that would seem superfluous with Rita around, but he's much more engaging. At least he is until a glitch resets everything, leaving Claire trapped, with seemingly only one way out. Some cynics may question its originality, but they'd be only denying themselves the chance to get lost in a really fun film. One that takes all its component parts and assembles them masterfully. Keeping you on your toes, whist never pushing too far. With just three characters, this could struggle, but dream like flashbacks take us to another world, filling in the gaps and helping us understand Claire, as her memories and situation blur in a nightmarish battle for survival.

Let's address the duration of this at the start. It's far too long and full disclosure I've split my viewing into three sessions. Maybe that offends the purists, this is Scorsese after all. He doesn't really make short simple films though does he and to be fair, this one is pretty great. We open in the 20s (can we still say that, now we're firmly in our own 20s). There's an oil boom in Oklahoma. On Indian territory. Making its people, the Osage Nation very wealthy. That's not going to last is it. Enter the white man. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) back from the war, he's new in Fairfax. There to stay with his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro) who's got lots of advice for Ernest, but he doesn't strike me as the best mentor. He seems to respect the Osage, lives amongst them, keeps the peace as the deputy sheriff. But something stinks and it's not the oil. I guess where's there's money, there's people there to take it. Fairfax feels like the Wild West. Wooden buildings and dirt roads, horses, but cars too. It's like a playground for grifters. Ernest earns his keep as a driver. A taxi service. He picks up Mollie (Lily Gladstone), who's "full blood estate", meaning she's got Indian money and William smells an opportunity. Ernest seems a bit slow, but a nice guy. Truth is though he's not a nice guy, he is pretty stupid though and ruthless too. He's honest with Mollie, to a point. Which is just as well, she's sharp. They fall in love and William escalates his manipulation. The pace is slow to start, despite there being a lot going on, but his is a simple story of greed and being patient. Ernest, William and all the white men are like a cancer or better put, "like buzzards circling our people". The Osage see what's happening with the cunning, sneaky parasitic white man, but how to stop it. The cast is impressive, the score fantastic. It looks authentic as you'd expect with the budget this has. I mean what I know about this era is limited, but you're thrust right into the narrative of this world and it certainly looks faithful. Ernest and Mollie are the focus, but it's a clash of cultures. One that it's easy to take sides on, there's no mixed messages, even if DiCaprio is brilliant caught in the middle. De Niro is great too as the back stabling, scumbag villain, but no one outshines Gladstone, shes magnificent, understated yet powerful. Even when prayed upon. Insightful, she's the shining light of hope in an otherwise bleak tale, the one we hang our hopes of justice on. There's a tense unstated score that pulses away as things get more dangerous. It grabs you by the throat and helps you forget your arse has gone numb. With the FBI snooping (Jesse Plemons makes a fantastic FBI man) and other complications, things could get messy and they do. It's not really dawned on me whether we're dealing with historical facts here, but I'm guessing the characters are dramatised, they feel like Scorsese gangsters, but the backbone is probably based in fact. Yes it's long, but stick with it, it's great throughout and brilliant at its end with some lovely touches to round out the story.

There seems to be trend for overly long films at the moment of writing. It's certainly not a new phenomenon though, as this proves at nearly 3 hours. We're quickly introduced to a squad of eager young soldiers in army training, all with daft names, led by the spritely Spud Wilson (James McKechnie). It's all a bit farcical and good fun as they raid a Turkish baths in an army exercise and defeat old Major General Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) before the exercise has got going. This is because he's seen as past it, stuffy with a silly moustache and that maybe so, but it's not always been that way. He was once young as we rewind to the turn of the century and well to be honest, he's still stuffy. Tally ho officer type. He's happy to break a rule for good reason though and makes his way to pre war Berlin to help a damsel in distress, Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr). This starts a chain of events that shape his life. Together they're on a mission to restore the good name of England. See, tally ho stuff. Things get entertainingly out of hand and before we know it, Candy finds himself in a duel. His opponent Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbtook), another army man, German of course, hence the name. Things aren't about to get gory though, this is not that film. This is prim, cordial, gentlemanly etc. Hysterically proper, purposely so, highlighting the ridiculousness of taking sides and the war that defines Candy. He is a rather loveable and honourable scoundrel and in Theo (I can't type all that again) he finds an unlikely friend. At the half way point, it could be said that not an awful lot has happened, but it's still wonderful and as we learn more about Candy, the more this warm hug of a film makes you smile. Well aside perhaps the scene with Candy displaying his hunting trophies on the wall. Why on earth was mounting dead animal heads ever a thing?? We're reminded he's an army man as we find ourselves in WWI, where he meets another girl, a nurse named Barbara (Deborah Kerr). The sets although half painted when outside are delightfully of the period, as is the string laden score. Candy is never in mortal danger despite his occupation, but Theo finds himself on the losing side and things only get harder as we fast forward to WWII. All these world events could seem a mere canvas for Candys story and those who weave through his life. His loves, his loses, but its war that shapes him and brings people into his life that he cares for, like his driver Angela (Deborah Kerr)... spotting a theme? The man we know at the end has travelled a long way, as have we, through near three gripping hours, that really need to be watched than read about. Sit back and enjoy. Bravo!