culturalfatwa Reviews

Lifeforce (1985)

Skipping the actual rating

[24 September 2023]

9 for absolute stellar entertainment value 3 for the actual cinematic experience It's very hard to believe Aliens 2 came just after this in terms of effects and atmosphere.

Where to start ..a huge special effects budget with the end result of effects and prosthetics that often look worse then plan 9 form outer space.

Acting Oh dear lord The true star unfortunately but truthfully one woman's naked body (Mathilda May) Special mention Patrick Stewart ..how did he ever get another acting gig after that mad screaming and sort of kicking spider act!

Very very special Will bring a smile to your face Spoilers..you couldn't sum up the plot on 2000 words Over long well look yes and no.

Princess Cyd (2017)

Reach out and tux faith

[7/10 · 4 July 2021]

Nice coming of age movie. Possibly too much faith in the power of literature to renew and redeem but it's heart very much in the right place.

Paprika (2006)

Trippy and absolutely wild

[8/10 · 4 July 2021]

Loved this extraordinary imaginative aime.. Never lets up. Ray Bradbury in Japan in 2006.. The parade is every day at work..

Invasion (1969)

Came mostly for the Borges

[8/10 · 27 June 2021]

This is great. Full of tension with a sort of po faced over seriousness. Lovely editing and angles. The city looks dour and wonderful.

Haven't a clue what's going on but it's very important and complicated. The working day in nice black and whites. Stylish and urgent. Other reviews here have pointed out that it also, in many ways, anticipates real events in Argentina which I missed of course. Nice film.

Songs for While I'm Away (2020)

Gorgeous

[8/10 · 13 June 2021]

Look there's maybe an argument that she welched out a little on the drugs story.

But.

This is an amazing Philo tribute, stylishly and artistically put together with so much of the coolest bash street character himself menacing and prancing and pulling in the light.

Another thing I loved.. You actually get to hear quite a few songs.. Some music documentaries try to do snippets and a lot of taking heads.

(the talking heads are great here too and well spaced and edited.. It appears there is one cool one in U2 who knew? Scott Gorham should have his own show he was cool as)

Beautifully and artfully presented if a little too much of a hagiography perhaps.. But then he was something else

First time back in a cinema and it was a good one to soak in.

Shiva Baby (2020)

I like it

[8/10 · 11 June 2021]

Unlikely to change the world but deftly and lightly done and very funny.

I do get where some of the other reviews are coming from..there is a slight horror/ claustrophobic dimension ..social anxiety as comedy even.. Killer line

"I think we should end thsis..

Before your wife runs out of money...sure"

The Woman in the Window (2021)

Decent

[7/10 · 16 May 2021]

This film is taking some pasting here. I thought it was a fairly way passible re - run of rear window. Amy Adams does all the heavy lifting. Maybe a bit heavy handed.

Barbarella (1968)

Spacejampsychedlicromp

[8/10 · 25 April 2021]

Finally got around to seeing this.

Just wonderful glam camp nonsense.

Wonder was it any influence on the nineteen eighties Flash?

No remake needed ever!

Highly entertaining!

Beyond Clueless (2014)

Liked it

[8/10 · 26 February 2021]

I'm a sucker for high school movies anyway. I think some of the little mini sketches of the films with the dead pan and sort of totalising narrative wasn't for me. Where the film succeeds much better is where it totally free styles.. Repeating the same corridor walk, bedroom scene, gun loading, locker checking etc etc.. Also sneaky peaks from the likes of American History X, Donie Darko etc.. The music from Summer Camp really adds to some pretty deft editing. Some really unusual choices (Bubble Boy!) and juxtapositions. No one really ever entirely gets out of school and that needs recording. I've seen this film catogarised as 'shallow and uninteresting' but sometimes your depths are, first encountered mucking about in paddling pools. An interesting premise which sort of delivers..

Prey (1977)

Not too bad

[7/10 · 11 February 2021]

Bizarre and almost stilted as a horror. No cliche about 'man hating lesbians' is left unturned.. Yet there's a weird dialectic between two 'preditors' which kinda holds your interest. The bizzare slow motion black water scene is amazing...as is the pulsing modular synth score

The Vanished (2020)

Not bad

[7/10 · 6 February 2021]

Not a film I'd have picked out myself.. In fact I was more or less coaxed into watching. Initially not watching.. But it gets better and better in not being the movie you think it is.. Enjoyable dark effort.

Bacurau (2019)

Trippy

[9/10 · 31 January 2021]

This is very well put together and enjoyable. I certainly get the notions in other reviews that it's an allogary for the cruel impersonal forces of Brazilian and, indeed, any society v quotidian friendship and neighbourliness.. Could it also be a sort of remake of 7 samurai / magnificent 7 with a little more female input. Also loved the use of sky.. Big skies. Great film.

Dredd (2012)

Good

[8/10 · 1 January 2021]

Superior high grade escapism I didn't like the new bike design.. Should have stuck with the old Ezquerra choppers from the comic.. But otherwise well cast and put together.. Karl Urban did the trick nicely

Finding Jack Charlton (2020)

Amazing

[9/10 · 21 December 2020]

Yes You could argue the subject and times were almost an open goal but this is exceptionally well done. It doesn't back off his dementia or the faults and failings of both Jack and the team but also captures the time. Great editing and stringing together of a huge variety of source material. One of the weirdest things is where they combine the Romania penalty shoot out with Lankum's version, of 'the wild rover' .. Much like David O'Leary taking the peno.. Shouldn't work.. But does!

#Alive (2020)

Decent

[7/10 · 22 September 2020]

As zombie flicks go this is slow to get going but actually turns into a pretty decent film if you give it time. The zombies are well done with loads of jerky body motion and pretty athletic and relatively intelligent retaining bits of their human behaviour almost at a reflexively. Very watchable.

Dracula (2020)

Good campy fun

[8/10 · 10 August 2020]

I'm not sure why precisely everyone is so aghast about that last episode (or why they see the first one as somehow so ahead of the rest) . Bram Stoker wrote a book and now someone has a bit of fun riffing off it. Doesn't take itself too seriously. I absolutely loved Dolly Wells in it and Mr. Bang's does a good comedy Nietzschian aristo as it goes on.. The discourse between them drives it along nicely.. The deconstruction of the original, especially that last episode, which seems to have caused much apoplexy among the other's of the review crew here, actually worked really well for me.

Porco Rosso (1992)

Swoon

[9/10 · 1 February 2020]

A grumpy japanese swine pirouettes in one of the most graceful red fighter sea planes ever to grace the screen in a glamorous version of the 1930s Mediterranean.

True romance.

Happy! (2017–2019)

Happiness

[9/10 · 17 January 2020]

I dodged this for a long time and I had a feeling I'd like it And being what it was I didn't particularly want to. But I did.

Not precisely a plot spoiler, but there's a ton and a half of ultra violence, often played for laughs.. So if that's not your thing..

Wasn't sure about number two initially.. Now begining to wonder if its not actually better than one.. Be warned violence levels don't decrease.. More if anything..

Also as series two drifts on it seems to involve more and more of the look, method and (vaguely) plot of series one of American God's.. This also Is good thing.

Demonic and demotic in equal measure

A Mighty Wind (2003)

So good

[8/10 · 5 January 2020]

This stuff is so inherently po faced it almost writes itself. Great fun, great performances throughout.. Don't tell me the producers/ casting directors of Schitts Creek didn't take a glance at Mitch and Mickey and sense a comedy power duo right there..

The Expanse (2015–2022)

OK ish

[7/10 · 18 November 2019]

Six episodes into Seaon One and its a fairly decent effort. Some great ideas, decent effects, a fairly good space opera. One glaring thing so far.. The acting is almost comically cardboardish..

I'll expand and develop this review as I get more into it..

Black Spot (2017–2019)

Masterful

[9/10 · 12 November 2019]

One of the strangest, most off kilter, darkly comic things ever to grace a screen. Occasional twin peaks references, occasional woodland god references. More bizarre deaths than Mid Sommer. Terribly satisfying TV.

Seems ridiculous but if you like to go by American series I'd have to say to think:

Twin peaks meets Northern Exposure

Oui Parfait

Wounds (2019)

Deserves more love this

[7/10 · 20 October 2019]

Slow burner with a lot left unexplained.. Descent into alcoholism, madness or some weird variation of gnosticism (maybe a little unfair on gnostic) good performance from himself and variable from the rest (sorry can't stick Dakota Johnson personally) Builds to a bizarre ending. Sort of a strange mixture of horror and indy naturalism. I like it..

Casino (1995)

Severely Overrated

[6/10 · 28 September 2019]

Never got this cold, pointless overly long film. People are greedy. The mob control Los Vegas ...

Zz

..