MOscarbradley Reviews

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)

Perhaps the least highly regarded of Ozu's masterpieces.

[10/10 · 18 April 2024]

In post-war Japan a middle-aged couple's arranged marriage is in trouble. Made just before "Tokyo Story", Yasujiro Ozu's "The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice" is one of the director's least highly regarded works and yet this is as incisive a study of marriage as anything by Bergman or Albee, the only difference being that Ozu's characters are so much more gentle, more humane. Even as the wife, (Michiyo Kogure, superb), wishes her husband would just disappear there is none of the harshness we find in films and plays from the West. Ozu clearly has a deep affection for all the characters in his films.

The husband Mokichi, (an equally superb Shin Saburi), may be a bore to his wife for no reason other than he is a good, quiet man whose life is simple and unexciting yet neither is she a typical harridan , just a woman who could have had more and who has, not too unhappily, settled for what she sees as her lot.

There is a subplot involving the wife's niece, (Keiko Tsushhima, excellent), who is now rebelling against her own planned arranged marriage and once again Ozu seems very much on her side. Like so much of Ozu's work this is another study of the role of women in Japanese society, mature, often very funny and absolutely essential.

The Eternal Daughter (2022)

Is this really a ghost story?

[7/10 · 15 April 2024]

Having made two films on the essence of cinema or at least on the filmmaker's craft, (her own), Joanna Hogg has now turned her attention to ... a ghost story albeit one without a conventional ghost. "The Eternal Daughter" is set in the kind of hotel that says very loudly either 'Downton Abbey' or 'The Haunting' and it's on the latter than Miss Hogg has decided to concentrate but being an art-house kind of director this is no "Scream"; rather it's closer in tone to the kind of ghost story or horror movie Chantal Akerman might have made in her best "Jeanne Dielman..." mode.

Tilda Swinton is the daughter and she's also her mother and they are staying in this stately pile together and they both seem to be cut from the same cloth but Swinton, who is at her very best here, isn't someone you would want to spend too much time with. For a start all the creaks and bangs and the things we usually associate with haunted houses all seem to start with her, at least with the daughter, (her mother is more amenable).

It appears that the hotel was once the mother's family home and Hogg's film is really a journey into the past, an attempt to reconnect that doesn't appear to be working. In both roles Swinton is superb, the daughter presumably yet another incarnation of Hogg herself and apart from a few minor characters, she's really the only person on screen. In dramatic terms nothing really happens and yet the film is haunting in its own pervasive way, proof that Swinton could hold our attention just reading the telephone book and that Hogg is a singular talent no matter what material she turns her hand to. Hopefully next time, however, she will make something a little more lively.

Ripley (2024)

The best on-screen Ripley so far!

[10/10 · 12 April 2024]

I didn't think it possible to improve on what I considered to be perfection but Steven Zallian's 8 part television series "Ripley" puts all previous screen 'Ripley's' in the shade. Adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel "The Talented Mr. Riley" it has in Andrew Scott a Ripley not so much talented as lucky. Tom Ripley kills twice in the course of the series without really thinking too much about the consequences of his actions and once he decides to take over the identity of his first victim, Dickie Greenleaf, he seems to be living entirely on his wits as well as on Dickie's money, barely keeping one step ahead of the police.

Scott, one of our finest actors, is simply magnificent as Ripley, full of nervous charm and tightly controlled terror and there's terrific work, too, from Dakota Fanning as Dickie's girlfriend Marge, suspicious of Tom's motives from the start and from Maurizio Lombardi as the dogged Italian detective on Ripley's trail without actually knowing whose trail he's on.

The murders themselves, (the two take up almost all of two of the eight episodes), are messy and gripping in ways that murders seldom are on film and benefit considerably from being shot, 'Psycho-style', in perhaps the best black and white cinematography I've seen on any screen, large or small, certainly in recent times; the cinematographer is the great Robert Elswit. In fact I'm pretty sure I won't see anything better than this again in the coming twelve months. Oh, and it's also very funny in its grisly way and has the best 'performance' by a cat that I can remember seeing...ever.

Luminous Procuress (1971)

Perfect 'Midnight Matinee' fare for those who like this sort of thing.

[5/10 · 12 April 2024]

Clearly aimed, if aimed at anyone, then at a 'midnight matinee' audience turned on by experimental erotica, "Luminous Procuress", like "Pink Narcissus" which came out the same year, came and went in the blink of an eye only to be rediscovered decades later and heralded as something of a cult classic.

Plotless, dialogue free, except for some 'spoken' gibberish, and impossible to describe, this is a partly engaging though, more often than not, mostly boring piece of pop art that makes no real sense and, like so many films of its kind, is also highly pretentious; a home-movie accessible only to those involved and yet, in its wildly over-the-top fashion, it is also difficult to dismiss. Visually it's often remarkable and in the end, like other similar experimental pieces, perhaps best seen as an installation in a gallery rather than in a cinema.

Totem (2023)

Establishes Aviles as a director with quite a future ahead.

[9/10 · 8 April 2024]

Tona is dying and this is the day of his birthday and his family are holding a party for him. Lila Aviles' stunning debut feature "Totem" observes the events of the day in almost forensic detail and how they impact on all the participants; Tona's father, his sisters, his extended family and friends, his carer and most of all on his young daughter, Sol, who doesn't know her father is dying yet senses it nevertheless.

There's nothing sentimental nor particularly dramatic in Aviles' film. It's as if she and her camera just dropped by to record the events of just one day in these people's lives and what happens is both funny and moving like life itself. All the performances are superb and Naima Senties is often quite extraordinary as Sol. On the strength of this one film Aviles would seem to have quite a future ahead of her.

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

More of a parody than a homage.

[8/10 · 28 March 2024]

More of a parody than a homage, Sam Raimi's western "The Quick and the Dead" is something of a one-off, an ultra stylish exercise in what might best be described a 'pure cinema' with style of the pop-art variety dominating virtually every frame and if the, admittedly gorgeous imagery isn't enough, there's always that cast, (Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pat Hingle, Keith David, Kevin Conway, Lance Henriksen, Gary Sinise, Roberts Blossom et al).

The thin plot has Stone riding into town with the sole intention of avenging her father's killing only to find herself in the middle of a gunfight competition, a kind of last man, (or in this case, woman), standing and the incentive for all this gun-play and almost surrealistic killing is a large pot of money for the eventual winner.

Of course, Raimi's name on the credits should be a clue as to what kind of film you are going to get. Dante Spinotti provides the sometimes mind-boggling images and Pietro Scalia's editing is as quickfire as the gun play but it's Hackman who owns the film, giving it that added touch of class it would otherwise have lacked. Naturally it draws attention to itself from one frame to the next but it's also ridiculously entertaining. Perhaps too popular to be called a 'cult movie' it's some sort of classic nevertheless.

Rye Lane (2023)

Funny, charming and inventive.

[9/10 · 22 March 2024]

When the opening credits of a film announce 'a BBC film and/or B. F. I presents' I still get a frisson of pleasure because I know from past experience the film is likely to be pretty good and "Rye Lane" is certainly no exception, even if the opening scene just might make you cringe which, of course, it's meant to do.

Debut director Raine Allen-Miller has fashioned a genuinely sweet romantic comedy about a couple of strangers who meet in, of all places, a unisex toilet and spend a day together in South London, getting to know each other and basically falling in love.

It's a small film with a very big heart and leads David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah are superbly cast; they don't seem to be acting at all, just being themselves which works perfectly in a film like this. At times it might look like a series of sketches but it also looks great, makes terrific use of its London locations, is funny, charming and inventive and of how many films can you say that these days. I loved it.

Inner Sanctum (1948)

If the production values had been better this might have been a classic.

[8/10 · 18 March 2024]

Don't worry if you haven't heard of "Inner Sanctum"; I certainly hadn't until now but this 1948 B-Movie is surprisingly good, if not in terms of cinematic skill then at least in terms of storytelling. It's actually a story within a story as the mysterious and apparently psychic Dr. Valonius, (Fritz Leiber), regales a woman on a train with a tale of a murderer hiding out in a small-town boarding house.

Clocking in at just 62 minutes it's the kind of story you might find in something like "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" and it has a surprisingly good script and some very decent performances from the likes of Lee Patrick, Billy House and Roscoe Ates. There's even a lot of genuinely funny and intentional humor running through the picture as well as some real suspense. If it isn't quite in the class of "Detour" it's still a Grade A Guilty Pleasure.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Do we really need a Part Three?

[8/10 · 15 March 2024]

When Denis Villeneuve decided to remake David Lynch's film "Dune", or rather adapt Frank Herbert's novel for the screen, he claimed there was too much material for just one film and that a "Dune Part Two" would follow. Well now it seems even a lengthy Part Two can't contain it all and it ends, like any other serial, with audiences hungry for what-happens-next. Or are they since Villeneuve's "Dune Part Two" is no "Star Wars" but an often ponderous meditation on the mystical, more Tarkovsky than George Lucas and whether audiences will really want to come back for more remains to be seen.

Whereas Villeneuve's first "Dune" film was an exciting sci-fi adventure yarn, coupled with just the right amount of character development to draw audiences in, this second film seems to have dispensed with character development altogether, save for making its hero, Paul Atreides, (a glum Timothee Chalamet), arrogant and not very likeable. Instead it opts to go heavily into the quasi-religious mysticism hinted at in the first film, a plot device that only succeeds in weighing the film down and it isn't until close on the halfway mark it actually kicks off thanks in no small measure to Austin Butler's first appearance in a sequence filmed in black and white in a massive CGI arena.

Butler is one of the villains of the piece and like the Devil he has all the best tunes. It isn't a big part but he steals every scene he's in. It's hardly great acting but it's definitely a star turn. For acting one must look to the great Stellan Skarsgard as the film's chief villain and perhaps to Charlotte Rampling but neither have sufficient screen time to make much of an impact. Visually, of course, it's a treat; a movie to be seen in cinemas on the largest screen possible. The action scenes are splendid and they do manage to keep boredom at bay but a third part? Surely not, Denis; "Dune Part Two" conjures up enough mystical gobbledygook to last a lifetime. Enough is enough.

Fremont (2023)

Jarmusch and Kaurismaki would be proud.

[9/10 · 12 March 2024]

Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki would be proud. Babak Julali's gorgeous "Fremont" is minimalism gone wild. So little happens over the ninety or so minute running time you might (just) be forgiven if you drift off. Donya, (newcomer Anaita Wall Zada), is an Afghan who worked as a translator for the US military and who now lives in Fremont, working in a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Desperately lonely and unable to sleep she cheats her way into seeing a psychiatrist, (a wonderfully deadpan Gregg Turkington), who just wants to read Jack London's "White Fang" to her.

One day Donya slips a message into one of the fortune cookies giving her name and phone number and waits for the result, hoping it will lead to romance or at least a blind date like the ones her friend and colleague Joanne, (Hilda Schmelling), goes on. What happens next is as sweet and unexpected as you will find in any rom-com for, in its quiet, unassuming way, that's what "Fremont" surely is. Beautifully photographed in black and white by Laura Valladao and superbly acted by the entire cast this is an out-of-nowhere gem that really shouldn't be missed.

No Hard Feelings (2023)

One of the best comedies you are likely to see this year.

[7/10 · 21 February 2024]

If you think Jennifer Lawrence has sold out her street cred for rom-com anonymity think again, "No Hard Feelings" is no ordinary rom-com. For starters it's a lot raunchier and a lot funnier than your average rom-rom and Lawrence is as good as she's ever been. She's the foul-mouthed, over-sexed bartender who answers an ad to date a shy 19 year old college student, (placed by his parents, no less, in order to bring him out of his shell). She does this because she needs a car and that's what's on offer.

With a cracker of a script by Gene Stupnitsky and John Phillips and surprisingly intelligent direction from Stupnitsky as well as a terrific performance from newcomer Andrew Barth Feldman as the son, (and nice work, too, from Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti as his parents), this is as sweet-natured as it is laugh-out-loud funny and is certainly a cut above most multiplex movies aimed at a young audience. One for all the family, in fact, just so long as the family are over fifteen.

The Teachers' Lounge (2023)

Hitchcock himself would be proud.

[9/10 · 12 February 2024]

Nominated for Best International Film at this year's Oscars "The Teacher's Lounge" is a genuinely disquieting thriller and one that is all the more chilling since it involves children. It begins with an investigation into a number of thefts at the school with a child the prime suspect, (he is also the child of immigrants), but the child's teacher, (a superb Leonie Benesch), has considerable reservations about the way the school authorities are conducting their investigations. As she pursues her own line of enquiry what she discovers makes her question where she stands in her relationships both with the students and her fellow staff members.

The fact that Ilker Catak's film only once, and then briefly, leaves the confines of the school adds to its claustrophobic effect and the heightening tension. What begins as perhaps a small problem becomes a powder keg about to explode. Here is a thriller filmed with an almost documentary-like zeal and it's brilliantly played by the entire cast, adult and child alike. It's definitely a movie to put knots in your stomach and yet one that is ultimately deeply moving. Hitchcock himself would be proud.

Red Sun (1971)

Surprisingly good action-packed western.

[7/10 · 11 February 2024]

As international co-productions go, Terence Young's "Red Sun" isn't at all bad, thanks in large part to its starry cast, (Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon, Ursula Andress and Capucine). It opens with a fairly spectacular train robbery and it never really lets up after that. Best of all is the plot. You see, on that train is the first Japanese ambassador to the US and he's carrying a valuable ceremonial sword as a gift for the President. When Delon steals the sword and tries to kill fellow train-robber Bronson the chase is on to retrieve it with Mifune's samurai naturally taking centre stage turning this into a highly enjoyable Samurai Western, ("Yojimbo" meets Randolph Scott by way of Sergio Leone). Very handsomely shot by Henri Alekan, action-packed throughout, (the climax is an Indian attack), and, of course, Mifune and Delon add that touch of class if might otherwise not have had.

Nyad (2023)

Lifted out of the ordinary by Bening.

[7/10 · 5 February 2024]

"Nyad" is yet another inspirational, true-life story, this time about how champion long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad reached the age of sixty and decided she wanted to fulfill her lifelong ambition of swimming from Cuba to Florida, something she attempted in her late twenties but failed at and it's distinguished, not so much by its story, exciting as it is, but by a terrific performance by Annette Bening in the title role. Indeed Bening is so good she lifts the movie out of the realms of the merely conventional bio-pic.

Co-directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi just seem to have sat back and allowed Bening loose on the material. Perhaps not knowing anything about Diana Nyad helped me to appreciate the handling better. There is a good script by Julia Cox, fine supporting performances from Jodie Foster and Rhys Ifans and it's beautifully photographed by Claudio Miranda and while it may not break any new ground on its own level it really is rather good.

Carrie (1976)

A camp horror classic.

[9/10 · 29 January 2024]

A camp horror classic and one of the most enjoyable horror films ever made, "Carrie" was the film that really launched Brian De Palma and Sissy Spacek into the big time. Based on Stephen King's novel it's about the high school ugly duckling with telekinetic powers who is the victim of a truly cruel 'prank' at her school prom and who then uses her powers to take revenge on the perpetrators.

As Carrie, Spacek is simply magnificent and Piper Laurie, in her first film role in 15 years, is scene-stealingly brilliant as Carrie's mad-as-a-hatter mother. As somewhat over-aged students John Travolta, William Katt, Amy Irving and Nancy Allen work wonders with their formulaic roles. It's also, as you might expect from its director, ultra-stylish while the bloody prom climax and final shock ending have already passed into film folklore Almost 50 years on it still stands up and in 2010 was voted the greatest horror film ever made by the Guardian newspaper.

Othello (1951)

If it's not a masterpiece it comes close...

[9/10 · 26 January 2024]

Trimmed to a sharp ninety or so minutes and 'told' in flashback, (Othello's dead, Iago's a prisoner), Welles' version of "Othello" is naturally more Wellsian than Shakespearean and is none the worse for it, (no written credits; they are spoken by Welles and it's visually stunning despite, or perhaps because of, the five credited DoP's).

It had a troubled production and was filmed over a period of three years so it's not just remarkable that it's as good as it is but that it exists at all. It's not perfect and purists may hate it but if it seems less than great Shakespeare, it's certainly great Welles. He's a wonderful Othello yet even he is upstaged by Micheal MacLiammoir's Iago. Suzzane Cloutier's Desdemona is a weak link as is Michael Laurence's Cassio but when everything else is so good that's a small price to pay. It's also a hundred times better than Welles' disastrous version of "Macbeth".

Crash (1996)

For those who like this sort of thing...

[6/10 · 22 January 2024]

For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like as Miss Jean Brodie might have said and "Crash" certainly has its fans. There's no denying it's brilliantly done for what it is and there's the rub since what it is is a thoroughly unpleasant picture of thoroughly unpleasant people doing thoroughly unpleasant things. I've never liked the film but I certainly wouldn't advocate censoring it or banning it as happened at the time of its release.

Based on J. G. Ballard's novel, David Cronenberg's film is about people maimed in car accidents who get their rocks off simply from that very fact; it's their wounds and the pain that provide the pleasure, the ultimate S&M trip, the ultimate body horror movie. Sex predominates and a brilliant cast, (James Spader, who just happens to be playing a character called J. G. Ballard, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette), throw themselves into it like there's no tomorrow which for some of them there might not be. It's also superbly photographed by Peter Suschitzky though you might feel like averting your eyes from the screen every now and then. Far from pleasant, then, but undeniably erotic and often quite brilliant.

Sisu (2022)

Ultra-violent but very well done.

[6/10 · 18 January 2024]

"Sisu" is an ultra-violent Finnish action flic set during the closing days of WW2 in which grizzled old warrior Jorma Tommila slaughters hordes of Nazis as he tries to hold onto the gold he has found. Dialogue is kept to a bare minimum, (Tommila doesn't speak until the last minute, literally); blood and spilled guts are the order of the day and if it's about as nonsensical as any of the John Wick movies at least it's terrifically well done like an X-rated Roadrunner cartoon brought to gory life.

Whether director Jalmari Helander could handle a rom-com is another matter but with this kind of thing there are probably very few who can touch him. You might even say this is a brilliant example of its kind though I'm amazed that something this violent got away with a 15 certificate while "Poor Things" was slapped with an 18 certificate because of the sex scenes. Go figure.

Poor Things (2023)

A cinematic tour-de-force

[10/10 · 17 January 2024]

I can virtually guarantee you've never seen a mainstream movie like "Poor Things" nor are you likely to ever see anything like it again. Adapted, (brilliantly), by Tony McNamara from Alasdair Gray's novel this is a cinematic tour-de-force from director Yorgis Lanthimos, (his masterpiece and is he likely ever to surpass it), with a career-defining performance by Emma Stone.

She's Bella Baxter, the 'creation' of Dr. Godwin Baxter, (a never better Willem Dafoe), who likes people to call him God, in the same way that 'the monster' was created by Dr. Frankenstein, (Godwin resembles Karloff's 'monster' rather than Colin Clive's doctor); a cadaver brought back from the dead with the brain of her own unborn baby planted in her head.

This is, however, far from any conventional horror film. Rather it's a work of pure imagination; a vast, darkly comic epic, (and a very funny one), that blends past, future and pure fantasy in one glorious X-rated mix, (think a porn version of "The Bride of Frankenstein"). It's a movie that never quite goes where you expect it to and in ways that at times seem revolutionary.

Stone commands the screen, (she's seldom off it), for its two hours and 20 minutes running time backed by a brilliant supporting cast. As her creator Willem Dafoe gives us the most sympathetic mad scientist in movie history. Mark Ruffalo, brilliantly cast against type, is the roue who doesn't so much seduce Bella as take her on a mad sexual adventure. Ramy Youssef is Dafoe's kindly assistant who loves her while both Hanna Schygulla and Kathryn Hunter are remarkable as women who befriend her for good or ill. By the time Bella becomes the mistress of her own future and domain you may just feel like standing up and cheering her on and if you do the kudos will lie with both Stone and Lanthimos, an actor/director team made in heaven.

One Fine Morning (2022)

Another simple, passionate masterpiece from Hansen-Love.

[10/10 · 16 January 2024]

With a Mia Hansen-Love film you know precisely what you are going to get; love stories filled with passion yet passion so artfully disguised you might even mistake it for indifference. No such chance of that happening in "One Fine Morning", however. The passion in Hansen-Love's new movie is almost tangible. Sandra, (a never better Lea Seydoux), is a single mother who also looks after her elderly father, (Pascal Greggory), while working as a translator. One fine morning she meets Clement, (Melvil Poupaud), an old friend and embarks on an affair with him despite his being married.

The passion here isn't just sexual. Hansen-Love gives us a sometimes angry but always passionate account of the ageing process, of illness and of a daughter's love for her father and it's certainly one of her finest and most moving films and every performance is superb down to the smallest part. The director has great affinity, not just with the professional actors but also with the non-professionals she casts as well and that affinity allows her to turn her characters into real people that we, too, can relate to as clearly as Hansen-Love does. Funny and at times painfully sad, just like life, this is a truly wonderful film.

Tam Lin (1970)

No classic but a lot better than I expected.

[7/10 · 15 January 2024]

Probably no period in the last one hundred plus years has dated as badly as 'the swinging sixties'. Looked at today the fashions, music and behaviors in general of that decade now seem as remote as Ancient Greece though Roddy McDowall's sole effort as a director, "The Ballad of Tam Lin" made in 1971 but clearly a product of the sixties, tries to circumvent that by making a 'Wicker Man' style piece of folk-horror.

Ava Gardner is the undeniably beautiful, 'ageless' but ageing Earth Mother who seems to keep her youth, not in a box at the bottom of the bed as the old joke goes, but by surrounding herself with beautiful young things, chief of whom is current lover Ian McShane but when McShane sets his sights on vicar Cyril Cusack's daughter Stephanie Beacham, (yes, she too was young once), Ava doesn't take too kindly to it.

Nicely shot by Billy Williams around the Scottish borders and actually rather well played by Gardner, Beacham and a surprisingly good Richard Wattis in a rare dramatic role as Ava's sinister secretary this is a lot better than its reputation would suggest, (a commercial flop, it disappeared and is now considered something of a cult movie). It may not work as a 'horror' film, (it's really rather silly), and yet McDowall handles it all with considerable brio. It's certainly stylish and suggests McDowall could have had a future as a director. Good music, too, from the folk group Pentangle.

The Dam Busters (1955)

Directed with documentary-like fidelity.

[8/10 · 13 January 2024]

Stiff upper lips seldom came quite so stiff as they did in "The Dam Busters", Michael Anderson's really rather splendid tribute to British wartime heroism and British wartime ingenuity. It's the story of how Barnes Wallis, (Michael Redgrave, excellent), designed a bouncing bomb for the precise job of blowing up German dams and of how Guy Gibson, (Richard Todd, also very good), and his squadron carried out Wallis' plans to the letter.

Anderson directs with a documentary-like fidelity, R. C. Sherriff provides a surprisingly engaging and intelligent screenplay and a whole host of British actors do their best in ensuring those upper lips remain stiff throughout. The superb cinematography, both on the ground and in the air, was handled by the great Erwin Hillier and, all in all, this is one of the best of British war films.

The Night Holds Terror (1955)

An excellent little B-Movie thriller.

[8/10 · 7 January 2024]

An early John Cassavetes performance, (it was his first credited film role), isn't the only reason to see this excellent B-Movie thriller from director Andrew Stone, (he also wrote and produced it). Cassavetes is one of three hoodlums, (the others are Vince Edwards and David Cross), who hijack Jack Kelly on the road and then hold him and his family hostage hence the title "The Night Holds Terror". Stone may have been no auteur but he certainly knew how to make a good suspense movie and this is one of his very best, a first-rate police procedural done in an almost documentary fashion.

Based, we are told. On a true story and shot largely in the locations where the events portrayed actually happened this is a movie that deserves to be a lot better known that it is. The performances may not be Oscar material but they are more than competent, (Cassavetes and Edwards are the stand-outs) and it's very nicely shot by Fred Jackman Jr. See it.

Cross of Iron (1977)

One of Peckinpah's masterpieces.

[10/10 · 3 January 2024]

Despite the odd casting, (James Coburn, James Mason and David Warner as German soldiers), "Cross of Iron" remains one of Sam Peckinpah's masterpieces, one of the greatest of war films and one of the most important and most undervalued American films of the seventies. Based on Willi Heinrich's novel it deals with one particular platoon of German soldiers fighting and losing on the Russian Front during World War Two and for the most part all anti-Nazi, fighting a war they don't believe they can win.

Peckinpah handles the battle scenes superbly but at the heart of the film is the battle of wills between Maximilian Schell's cowardly officer who will do anything to get the Iron Cross and Coburn's sergeant who hates the very uniform he wears and which places the film in the same ballpark as Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" and Aldrich's "Attack". Terrific performances, too, from Coburn, Schell and Mason. Now if last year's German remake of "All Quiet on the Western Front" were only a tenth as good as this...

Fallen Leaves (2023)

A masterpiece.

[10/10 · 29 December 2023]

Ansa, (Alma Poysti) and Holappa, (Jussi Vatanen), are the "Fallen Leaves" of the title, cast adrift on the winds of fate and finally blown together as people often are. You might say they are two of life's losers; she works in a supermarket but is fired for taking home out-of-date produce while he is an alcoholic manual worker, fired after having an accident at work while drunk. In fact, you could say they are destined to be together.

Often laugh out loud funny, touching and melancholic in almost equal measure "Fallen Leaves" is one of cinema's great love stories and confirms director Aki Kaurismaki as one of the finest and most original directors alive today, a man whose empathy with the characters he has created is totally true and utterly lacking in condescension. I can't think of another director who could have told their story in this way without resorting to digs at the characters just to please his audience. Rather Kaurismaki and his two wonderful actors draw us in gradually until no outcome other than the one he gives us could possibly be the 'right' one. This is his best film in years and is quite simply a small masterpiece.