Reviews

A really hilarious Candid-Camera like series of skits on the unsuspecting public. Although I should mention that a few of the hoaxes are staged because they contain real actors as members of the public.

Someone here mentioned racism. I find that idea ridiculous. First of all while this film was made in the time of apartheid it can be clearly seen that the maker treats people of all colour the same. In fact the narrator makes a few insulting statements about some of the white victims. Whites, blacks and coloureds (what people of mixed descent like to be called in South Africa) are made fun of - we're all human.

The separation of the cables to undo the explosion is a natural human reaction, I mean imagine seeing an explosion seemingly caused by you, what would you do immediately - probably that, I know I would.

What is also wonderful to see is that ordinary South Africans of that time had tolerance for each other and treated each other with respect. You see both black and white people on the street, in shops, etc. In some scenes you even see a black man and a white woman - who has just eaten 'dog meat' laughing in empathy together.

Why politically incorrect? A few shots may appear to some as cruelty to animals and women are made fun of on two occasions although in a mild way.

This film is available on DVD in South Africa where anything remotely racist is cut down immediately.

The film seems too contrived for me. I can't believe that soldiers who were endocrinated to hate their enemy and who suffered years of war and personal loss, would lay down their weapons to have a Christmas dinner.

Secondly what's with the "yokels on horseback" remark about the Polish defenders in 1939. The so called yokels held the Wehrmacht back long enough to evacuate the bulk of their forces to be able to fight on the Western front when the time came and they held on for much longer than the French and British did in continental Europe. A WW2 movie which insults a country which lost 22% of its population while glorifying the Axis powers? Get real.

All in all, this film seems to naive in its premise. Maybe an event like this transpired but the way these actors play their parts, well I wouldn't imagine it so.

SPOILER

My personal feeling about this movie is summarised in the subject line. Too many bad things happened to this girl (Meg) for it to be realistic, for example, Lily's death was totally pointless. It also would have solved the family's financial trouble for they should have sued for negligence, the psychotic child (any mediocre medical student would have picked up on her delusional preoccupation with angels) was a high risk for suicide- intentional or not and had already been in a psychiatric ward. I cannot imagine how a multi-million dollar settlement could not have followed from this tragic event. See how unreal this film is? Meg leaves home, travels to Florida, where her gentle supportive teacher practically rapes her. It is a pity the pig was not arrested but in real life he would have (hopefully) been exposed, humiliated and promptly put behind bars. There are other points too, but for me - Lily's psychosis and death was the point where the word "kitsch" flashed across my mind.

Contains some spoilers.

At first this is a light hearted comedy about a very inappropriate situation however as time passes the movie becomes quite inappropriate itself with the older male character trying his best to sleep with this 15 year old girl at every opportunity, even if he later says he is joking - come on. Obviously she is terrified and in one scene for example he undresses in front of her - in order to terrify her, I guess the comedy in that scene was the audience laughing at the poor schoolgirl wanting to run away from her perverted adult husband.

The very end is clichéd and I would say it condones underage child-adult relationships - which is ridiculous and depraved. It seems that she finally gives in at the end and stops running away from him. Is that an appropriate theme for a comedy - maybe a dark comedy or a satirical look but this film is not about satire - it's a farce.

Contains possible spoilers.

Key the Metal Idol was one of my first anime series and is still one of my favourites. It's a series of half hour episodes about a young girl who believes that she is a robot, when her grandfather dies she discovers that she will become human if she can make 30.000 friends, otherwise her batteries will run out and she'll die.

Key travels to Tokyo where right from the beginning she becomes involved with the wrong crowd, she is almost raped by some street punks and almost forced to appear in a porn movie as well. The socially withdrawn, child like and yet very sympathetic Key is rescued by her friend Sakura, and a male friend of Sakura's. Meanwhile the people responsible for her grandfather's death start looking for her in an effort to solve design problems that their own military robots suffer from.

Key is a sci-fi drama series. It is a bit like Pinocchio but Key is more like the anime heroine from Lain (Lain Iwakura) yet Key asks few questions - she follows her path to 30.000 friends in a rather docile manner - except when - her humanity shines through. Key's neutral expression and zombie like appearance change during certain occurrences, especially when people are rooting for her. She gains a dear little smile and her eyes gain a human look - all the while she imagines or sees in her minds' eye her friends - and strangers and above all her mother calling out her name.

Key The Metal Idol has a number of bitter sweet moments and some moments which are really thrilling. The really sad parts concern Key's friend, Sakura, especially when we see a glimpse of her family home - all boarded up - while Key's longing for her mother are up there too for some pretty sentimentally touching scenes.

Key the Metal Idol, is a rich sci-fi-drama series, with a good vs evil motif. Key is a character one can easily fall for, her childlike innocence and the mysterious force she possesses contrast each other greatly - for now mechanical monster can stand up to this girl.

A worthwhile anime series - fans of Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost in the Shell series/movies and Blade Runner will find this series appealing as will those who like complicated yet ultimately explained plots.

***SPOILERS***

Noir is an anime where two ultra cool looking assassins - a hot Parisian blonde and a cute Japanese schoolgirl go on a long journey to discover their past. Throughout each episode the girls have to fight unending legions of suited assassins sent by a mysterious organisation which seems to have its roots in the 10th century. Whether based on the Illuminati or the Templar Nights, this group - led by mysterious well dressed and groomed middle aged suited men who hold council meetings around fire places seems to be the main obstacle the two girls face, until we see scenes of another foe - another beautiful yet slightly older woman in a mysterious place who also sends assassins who are on par with two girls.

The Pros.... well.... the anime has two of the hottest characters, Mireille and Kirika. Both girls are deadly assassins who kill without any remorse, the endless disposable armies of Armani suited footsoldiers which are sent against them in almost every episode. There is an air of mystery as neither woman can really remember her past and flashbacks plus an appearance of an ancient text describing two female warriors appear. There is much action and there is quite a bit of interaction between the two girls which borders on love (non lesbian mind you) and even hate - Mireille promises to kill Kirika when they discover their secret - why?

The cons... In most episodes the girls exterminate a myriad of similarly dressed, incompetent footsoldiers. The body counts range in the 50's for each episode and seem only to act as filler - adding no real substance and making you want to fast forward each scene. It may be amusing to watch poorly detailed suits getting killed bloodlessly with a single bullet for the first few episodes but afterwards the thing really becomes repetitive and pointless. The mysterious organisation called Soldats - er...Soldiers? seems to forever be sending these clone boys. Secondly when everything is revealed in the last 5 episodes of the series you realize that the plot is indeed very shallow. You also start to wonder what the purpose of Noir is.... yes they are super assassins but why would a special ceremony cement their relationship? Where are the previous Noir girls? How are they trained to be so good? You almost expect something supernatural. The Manor is a location between Spain and France which is unknown to all but a few people in the world but why is that so and how can it be so? The Manor is nothing more than a ruin, a place that time forgot but it's occupied by at least 2 people and who feeds them and sends them supplies? Do they have running water and toilets? Yeah this may all seem very trivial but if you like me thought that the Manor was a mystic place somewhere like maybe the alternative planet in Escaflowne or maybe a place on a different planet you will be disappointed that it's just a Mediterranean climated location high in the mountains somewhere, where no-one bothers or cares to go. It also seems silly that a huge organization which runs the world secretly - would be preoccupied with two assassins - the preoccupation bringing the only clues for the two assassins in ultimately being able to penetrate the said secret organisation - if only they left Noir alone - Noir would never find out anything.

The ending is good. Kirika's conscience returns, she redeems herself to Mireille and the rest of the world, and the two girls become another Dirty Pair/Burn Up W or hopefully something similar. It would be great to see a lighter version of Noir as a sequel maybe - the two women pitted against scumbags around the world, with more wisecracking and less butchery. Overall.... a good anime but not brilliant.

SPOILERS

Armitage III was one of my first animes I saw in the 90's on Sci-fi channel. It was also one of the first anime series I purchased, together with the other 2 Pioneer/AIC classics Pretty Samy and Moldiver, on Japanese DVD. The Japanese DVD release of the OVA series by the way only features the dubbed version and the Japanse audio version, there is no subtitled version.

Armitage III is an anime set on a Total Recall like megalithic city on Mars. The plot is very deep, it includes issues of self identity, faith, hope, longing and every other possible emotion in the book, likewise the lead character - Naomi Armitage goes through each of these human states. Naomi herself is a Battle Angel Alita like heroine, a bit too Lolita like for me perhaps, yet she is a beautiful babe, with a conscience who packs a mean punch and is able to dispose off both psychopath driven giant robots and street thugs. If you're looking for lovable characters worth caring about, stop searching.

The plot of the film has to be summarised by Naomi's memorable words, "If Humans did not want me, why did they create me?" You can hardly ignore the previous church scenes before this cathartic moment, which no doubt also serve as a metaphor for peoples' religious struggles with faith and purpose.

There are two other particularly touching moments for me in this brilliant series. One is the battle in the desert between Ross (her partner) and Armitage and a droid army. It features Armitage with wings and Ross in an armoured robot suit blasting away at the military robots and helicopters while sleepy electronic music plays in the background.

The images of the battle are superimposed on a news report of the merger between the Earth and Martian governments and are being viewed by female robots in the Martian city. For once we see these beautiful anime robot girls stop being babysitters, waitresses or personal secretaries and we see them staring mesmerised at video monitors as the battle is played out before them. It is difficult to say if they understand what is going on, but they do seem to behave beyond their simple programing. It is quite obvious that their human counterparts can not see this battle - a battle which is about these very robots because part of the deal in Mars joining Earth was Mars getting rid of Robots.

Another touching scene had to be that featuring parental rejection, where Naomi's creator - a person she always though was her father, who disappeared a few years before finally stands before her, yet he fails to acknowledge her humanity and simply ridicules her - even to the point of pity. If this won't move you than I don't know what will.

Armitage III (4 part OVA series) is one of the best anime series out there, I highly recommend you see it, see it with other greats like Serial Experiments Lain, Battle Angel Alita and Ghost in the Shell. You will care for Naomi as you cared for Alita and Lain and the story is just as thrilling and through provoking. Beyond that, it is also a good detective murder story.

***SPOILERS***

An Italian cruise liner is found adrift near the Bering Strait after it's crew and passengers are killed off. A group of salvagers is hired to recover the ship who promptly discover that it is haunted and predictably they are killed off one by one, until only the woman remains.

The only scary and horrible scene of this film was when the original killers march the crying and screaming little girl to her room (as if they knew which cabin was hers) to murder her, which they accomplish by hanging her in her closet. This is the only sad part of the film for me. The rest is pretty much nonsense really and you don't care who will die next or how they will die as it is all irrelevant.

The premise for the film is that this group called The Management (Satan and Co or whatever or maybe Horus) is laying a trap to exploit peoples' greed and allow people to murder each other in an effort to collect souls for hell or wherever The Management may be... I mean come on, would a ship be the best place for that, how about all these wars all over the world wouldn't that be a better source for souls? The little girl ghost on the ship is however able to show the lead female protagonist what happened because she has a 'pure' soul and cannot be controlled by the devil (presumably) who is running the ship and enticing others to board it - as he did with the crew of this ship. I never trusted the guy who hired the salvagers from the first moment but expected him to be a mere criminal instead he turns out to be the instigator of the original massacre on the ship - and we are lead on to believe that 40 years previously he was picked up from another ship which presumably met the same fate. If hell is gathering souls on ocean liners than that means we must all be pretty good people across the board, pardon the pun. The plot is very illogical, notwithstanding the fake death sequences of the passengers during the film's opening - if you are sliced in half and your AORTA and SPINAL CORD are severed you will not look on stunned at everyone around you for a few seconds before falling over, neither will you use your arms to try to reattach yourself lower torso to your upper body while you are supine on the ground and your intestines are spilling out. Sorry but someone should have done some research. The real lack of logic in the plot comes from the fact that the devil or whoever the supernatural Management guy really is hires a crew to refloat the vessel because it has undergone a leak and instead of allowing them to refloat her he allows the ghosts and ghouls on the ship to murder them off one by one. He brags that he has control over the ghosts on the ship which actually reveal his identity to the captain - there are both good and bad ghosts on the ship - the Captain and the little girl are good while the sexy chick in the red dress is obviously bad, we see her in the MTV murder video as siding with the group of killers who use WW2 German submachine guns and rat poison to kill off the crew and passengers (rat poison by the way will make you bleed and not vomit up soap bubbles, it also takes many hours for that effect to start as people on the drug Warfarin probably know).

Others have already mentioned the relative warmth of the ship and the sea despite the high latitude.

Overall this is a film full of plot holes, with unreal death scenes and lots of nonsense added on. This film is not Aliens and it's not Titanic either. I cannot say what it is but can only advise you to avoid this movie and watch a real horror film instead like the Ring, if you're in the mood for that sort of thing.