Anora

 

A Choice Between Two Indefinite Articles

Anora
USA 2024
Directed by Sean Baker
Universal

I’ve been wanting to see Anora since the end of last year. Alas, it played for one week in limited showings at my local cinema and trying to get to somewhere else to see it during the pre-Christmas rush proved impossible for me. But I knew enough from the advertising that it might well have been one of my favourite films last year, enough to give it a mention in my intro to my New Year’s Day list. And the reason for that is, primarily, because I really trust writer/director Sean Baker... even though I’ve not seen any of his prior films (a couple of them deal with subject matter I’m not comfortable with... my problem specific to me).

So why trust Sean Baker so much... and did the film live up to my expectations?

Well, back when we were in lockdown during the pandemic, I was watching a lot of those brilliant Criterion Closet videos to pass the time after work and one of them was Sean Baker and I liked his style. But the clincher was when, as America was just locking down, he flew up to the Severin Films HQ and recorded their equivalent version of the CC, the Severin Cellar. At the time, I think he was the first person to do both the Criterion and Severin movie grabs (I think there’s been one other guy since). And in the Severin one he not only did me a solid by forewarning me ( to allow me to save some cash a couple of years in advance) that Severin were working on their big Black Emanuelle box set (reviews coming to this blog at some point) but, honestly, you could see how much the guy loved film in any kind of genre and budget (as it should be) and I just have a huge amount of respect for him (not sure about his singing voice but I’ll get back to that). These can be found on YouTube here and here.

Two other things which endear me to him and this film in particular is that... firstly, the Blu Ray release in a month or two is bypassing the main distributor and going straight to Criterion... the first time a film has done that in a long while, I think. Even the great Wes Anderson generally has to go through a distributor version first before ending up with the definitive edition on Criterion. Secondly... man, the cover of the Blu Ray they are putting out is a wonderful nod to a shot of the late, great Soledad Miranda for one of her poster shots for Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (reviewed here) so, well, you’ve got to love this guy.

So, yeah, Anora.

Mikey Madison (who I hated as one of Manson’s psychopaths in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood... which means she did her job well) plays the terminally cute sex worker Ani (which she prefers over her real name Anora), who works in a strip club and, because she can speak Russian, gets hooked up with a young client, Ivan, played by Mark Eydelshteyn, who is the son of a ‘beyond rich’ Russian family who are amazingly famous for reasons we, the audience, never find out. And, after an extended ‘escort vacation’ the two get hitched in Las Vegas, marrying Anora into Ivan's family. Which doesn’t go down well with said family who send some heavies in to make the two annul the marriage pronto but, Ivan does a runner and then Anora has to work with these goons to find Ivan, primarily because she wants to stay married.

And it’s brilliant, as is one of the heavies, Igor, played by Yura Borisov, who had my sympathies right from the start because of Anora’s ‘fighting for survival’ abuse of his character... which is feeding into the wonderful conclusion to the film. Which I won’t spoil but I will touch upon in a little while.

Firstly, the film is shot wonderfully with a rich colour palette leaning into reds and blues which, honestly, just looks like eye candy all the way through. There’s lots of nudity, of course, and the film starts strongly in the strip club in which Anora works, panning down a column of lap-dancers giving shows before getting to Anora and her dance... and with the credits superimposed against her brightly lit face and body, I can’t help but think that Baker intended this sequence to be exactly as I interpreted it. Which is as a kind of ‘live and unplugged’ variant of a James Bond opening title sequence. It looks fantastic and puts us into a kind of ‘adult fantasy’ environment straight away.

So the cinematography is wonderful and... so is the editing, actually (which, again, I think was also handled by Sean Baker). Madison’s performance is absolutely blisteringly funny at some points of this frenetic movie and the comedy of the extended ‘home invasion’ sequence has some high comedy where the heavies just don’t know what to do with a kicking, biting, screaming, abusive Anora so they can calculate their best move. And that editing and timing really come into their own here, as Baker sets up a shot where the camera is just trained on Madison’s mouth while the audience are waiting to see if she starts screaming the house down again. This is a marvellous example, I would say, of the art of cinema where the performance and the editing are absolutely in synch with each other... so if nothing else, Baker is an incredible director. And the lead actress really is a force of nature.

Now the film has no musical score but it does have a heck of a lot of needle drop songs in it. Normally this would be a huge turn off for me but... even though I really didn’t think much of the majority of the songs... they fit the milieu of the characters nicely and, yeah, they didn’t frighten me away. Which is another good sign for this movie as far as I’m concerned.

What it also has is a magnificent ending between Anora and Igor which, is hard to pin down as a definitive conclusion but which acts, finally, as an emotional release for the central character. It’s a wonderful, almost ambiguous ending which, in my mind, pushes further the kind of 1970s, stylistic aesthetic which I feel the movie is kind of soaked in. It’s an ending which feels like its very important, while at the same time being completely open to interpretation as it seems to pitch different, almost contrasting emotional states and slip them into a blender together... good stuff.

And I think that’s me done, more or less, on Anora (which I shall be purchasing on Blu Ray as soon as Criterion get it out over here). It’s a hard recommendation from me and, frankly, it may well have pipped Hundreds Of Beavers (reviewed here) to the 2024 top spot if I’d seen it last year. And I’m glad to say the critical and audience response to this one has been ‘through the roof’ too. It is, I would say, very much a masterpiece of a movie and I can’t help but think that both director and stars alike are left feeling, in the singing voice of Baker in the Severin Cellar when talking about Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals (review coming to this blog at some point in the nearish future)... “so happy, like a clown.”

The Monkey

Hey! Hey!

The Monkey
Directed by Osgood Perkins
USA/UK/Canada 2025
Atomic Monster
UK Cinema release print

Warning: Some spoilerage.

I’m not the most avid admirer of Osgood Perkins (son of the famous Anthony Perkins) but I’m definitely warming to him. I kinda liked (with reservations) his movie February aka The Blackcoat’s Daughter (I really should get around to putting up the review I wrote of it during Covid Lockdown sometime soon) but I really don’t think he lands his endings well. Longlegs (reviewed here), for example, was a great build up leading to a less than satisfying ending and, I think the same accusation could be levelled at February, to be sure.

The Monkey, though... The Monkey I really liked. Now this is based on and is an expansion of a short story I read by Stephen King back in 1985, of the same name and featured in that year’s collection Skeleton Crew. I don’t remember much about it other than the toy monkey in it was the old cymbal banging kind which, because of rights issues with Disney (which also has an irony to it, if you look at the origins of why Disney have the rights in the first place... I’ll let you follow that rabbit hole for yourselves), has been changed to a drumming monkey in this iteration of the story. For the better, I would say... much is made of the way the titular automaton starts up and preps for its drumrolls of death in little montages which build tension here.

The film tells the story of two twins, Hal and Bill, played by Christian Convery as their younger selves* and Theo James as the ‘grown up’ variants. The toy monkey in their life, which they can’t get rid of no matter how much they try to destroy it or bury it, kills people. Once you wind the key it plays a rendition of ‘I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside’ while drumming away and, when the last drum beat falls, a chain reaction of unfortunate events leads to a bizarre and, certainly in the case of this film, gory death. Their mother, who meets her demise when they are just kids, is played by the brilliant Tatiana Maslany, who was wonderful as She Hulk - Attorney At Law (reviewed by me here).

Now, when one of the estranged brothers is trying to say goodbye to his estranged son (played by Colin O'Brien) in a road trip before he’s adopted by his mum’s latest boyfriend, the monkey is back in his life and he has to survive a wave of unlikely and, honestly, quite funny deaths while keeping his son safe somehow. It all leads back to his brother and, of course, that damned monkey.

And it’s so much fun. Honestly, it’s one of those films where the goriness of the grimness is so elabourate and over the top that you can’t help but laugh at it. And with the addition of Theo James’ deadpan reactions to the situations he finds himself in... it’s a pretty entertaining picture. For example, as he tries to warn a woman not to dive into a swimming pool which he’s just realised has been accidentally electrified by gazillions of volts, he has to dodge her severed leg as she completely explodes as she hits the water. So what I’m saying is that, although its dealing with death in some big, sweeping ways (such as taking out a whole town in one swoop), it’s doing it in a deliberately comic book fashion which is designed to help you see the funny side right away.

Now, being based on a Stephen King story, a lot of the film is set in Maine so, naturally, there are a few King references as you go through the movie... name drops and so on. Some people will probably like that although, the ones I spotted myself were maybe a little clumsy and I could have done without one of the characters being named after a much more famous character in King’s canon.

But that’s pretty much my only criticism of this one. I mean, I even loved the typography on the end credits which took me back to a 1950s/1960s vibe... I just loved it. Oh... and if you are thinking of staying in your seat for the credits, you will be rewarded with a post credit scene which is a first teaser trailer for Osgood Perkins next movie, Keeper, which is currently scheduled to release this year (I think). So yeah, that’s me done on The Monkey... a dripping slice of ‘splatter comedy’ which will have you laughing at the elabourate set ups for each gory demise. Absolutely brilliant. 

*A special mention goes to the set dressers for having a print of the Boris Vallejo cover art from the 1980 Ace Tempo paperback book Flash Gordon Book 3 - Crisis On Citadel II.

Broken Homes

Masking Betrayal

Broken Homes
by Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz
ISBN: 9780575132481

Warning: A very big spoiler in this one so, if you are going to read this book at some point, I would suggest you read it before digging into this review.

Broken Homes is the fourth novel in the ever popular Rivers Of London series by Ben Aaronovitch and it’s yet another follow on from the original novel in that the lead villain from that story, who main protagonists Inspector Peter Grant, his friend Lesley (also an inspector) and their boss Nightingale, in the very small division of the metropolitan police dealing with magic… is once again the main antagonist here, known only as the mysterious ‘faceless man’.  People who have read the first will remember that, in that novel, the final battle with said bad guy caused Lesley’s face to fall off and, despite many attempts to undo this surgically in subsequent tomes, she still remains no further to getting her ‘beyond scarred’ mess of a visage fixed in any way, forcing her to also wear a mask when out and about.

This novel deals mainly with the area around Elephant and Castle and a specific tower block called the Skygarden, where Peter and Lesley eventually end up taking a flat, undercover, to try and figure out what’s going on. As it turns out, the building itself is the key to the nefarious plot of the faceless man and the various murders all lead back to having something to do with the periphery of this building.

And once again, it’s a wonderful blend of procedural detective work offset by the world of magic with absolutely loads of pop culture references and other clever things afoot. So a nice parody of Orwell’s Animal Farm can be found early on when Peter mentions (the novels are written from his point of view), “It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something but some members are more guilty than others.” Another clever thing is, when recounting a battle with one of the Dr. Moreau-like beast/human hybrids from the end of the second novel, he mentions having gone ‘mano-a-mano-tiger’ with him.

And, as usual, the various references to other franchises and works of fiction come thick and fast… with nods to such things as Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones, classic era Battlestar Galactica, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who (Peter refrains from correcting a reference about the Autons for fear of looking too nerdy), Something Wicked This Way Comes, Lord Of The Rings (the Skygarden block is compared to Isengard), Monty Python and even a mention of actress Zhang Ziyi. Along with, I’m sure, many others I’m not nearly nerdy enough to have picked up on. Perhaps my favourite shout out is to Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? or, knowing Peter, the movie version called Blade Runner (reviewed here), with a lovely passage about various questions he is using to interrogate a suspect which reads “I called it the Voigt-Kampff test, even though only Dr. Walid got the joke - and he had to look it up on Wikipedia.”

Now though, I have to address the big, shocking moment from the end of the novel. Which, to be fair, I had seen coming since book one and have been waiting for it to happen but, it still took me by surprise to some degree and, funnily enough, because I’d given up on my idea of the true allegiances of one of the characters about halfway through this book because she really does help with the investigation… or so I thought. Here’s the thing… ever since the first novel (and I believe I mentioned it in my review of that one and possibly in the second book review also), I’ve assumed that Peter’s best friend Lesley will, due to her traumatic experiences in the first novel, switch sides and join with the enemy. It’s too much of a perfect character arc of betrayal to ignore in her, I thought. 

However, I’d just about given up on the idea by about three quarters of the way through this novel but then, right near the end of the book, boom, it played out just as I’d thought it would (although the nature of the betrayal was so casual and off handed that it took me by surprise). Peter has the faceless man handcuffed and in his custody when Lesley tasers him and runs off with the villain… who has presumably got it in his power to grow her face back somehow (or at least I suspect that’s what has been the promise). So at the end of the story we have a very bitter Peter Grant and the crew of The Folly, where the entirety of the magic division lives, is just Nightingale, Peter, Molly the bizarre house servant (who has a loose end set up in this story which is buried and, I suspect, which the author will come back to in another novel), a new acquisition of a Russian magic terrorist being temporarily held prisoner there and, of course, Toby the dog.

And that’s me done with Broken Homes, I think. I’ve taken advantage of Forbidden Planet’s recent restock of the series in signed editions so the next five novels in the series should be on the blog this year some time. As per usual, I can’t say enough good things about these books and they are something I’ve been heavily recommending to people.

The Count Of Monte Cristo

Dantès Pique

The Count Of Monte Cristo
aka Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
France/Belgium 2024
Directed by Alexandre de La Patellière
& Matthieu Delaporte
Pathe Blu Ray Zone B

After the recent reworkings of The Three Musketeers (reviewed by me here and here), the French have turned their attention to adapting Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale of revenge, The Count Of Monte Cristo and, it has to be said, I suspect whether you will enjoy this or not would depend on your familiarity with the original work and any of the numerous movie and TV adaptations over the last century or more.

For myself, I quite liked the film (to a point) because I’m one of those few people left alive who still hasn’t got around to reading the original novel but, my dad has always been quite hard on what previous media incarnations have been like in terms of their faithless attempts to bring the story to moving image. Judging by the alternative, constant tuts and his yellings at the screen throughout the almost three hour running time of this version, I can testify that this latest attempt has played hard and fast with the original story, adding stuff and demolishing other important stuff to make it a quite frustrating experience for the familiar onlooker.

It was the most expensive production in France for the end of last year and similarly it was one of the official selections to be sent for Oscar consideration, so one wonders if anyone in production had even ever read the original work. And every now and then, my father would interject the main narrative with cries of, “well there goes another three chapters full they’ve completely cut out.”. So yeah, if you are into Dumas then, maybe don’t look at this version.

For myself, with my brazen unfamiliarity with the original text, I found it quite watchable and even quite gripping... there were some challenges inherent in the production for me too, though.

The film stars Pierre Niney as Edmund Dantès, the titular count, who after being torn from the arms of his lover Mercedes (played by Anaïs Demoustier, who was so good in Daaaaaali!, reviewed here) at their wedding, he’s falsely accused and condemned to stay at the famous French prison fortress, the Château d'If. However, he escapes after 14 years and, with the Knights Templar treasure falling into his hands, he goes on to research, train and extract a slow vengeance on the people who placed him in that situation... 20 years after his original incarceration.

The acting in this is all good but there are definitely some issues with the way things have been portrayed. In the original, Dantès didn’t really have to disguise himself much because the 14 years hard time and 6 years additional preparation for his revenge had aged him, making him look quite different if you are not expecting to see him (or, indeed, believed him perished). In this version, however (and quite strangely), none of the actors seemed to have aged in any significant way in that 20 year gap. They all look more or less exactly the same, for some reason. So what the writers do here, somewhat bizarrely, is give his character ‘realistic masks’ which change his face somehow completely and are the low tech equivalent of the ones used by Tom Cruise and his pals in the Mission: Impossible franchise of movies. The fact that the high tech ones would never, in real life, be able to successfully work, let alone with the technology used when this film is set... well... it’s where the film jumps into the ‘totally preposterous’ zone, I would say.

The film looks really good though. To paraphrase a very good friend of mine (thanks, Madame K), the film ‘looks like an extended perfume advert’ devoted to the warm rich, colourful cinematography devoted to a doomed love (or, you know, an overly expensive perfume... which they all are because perfume should only cost a fiver tops. Right? Bloody Chanel.). So, yeah, really nice to look at but, somehow giving an air of shallow, retro pop culture at the same time. It’s also has a really brilliant score by Jérôme Rebotier which, sadly and mind bogglingly, is not available on a proper CD at time of writing (digital downloads be damned to the hell in which they were invented).  

The film is not exactly an action epic either (like the previous versions of the Musketeer movies). It’s very light on action at all, it has to be said but the story, what remains of it, is quite gripping and I enjoyed some of the cross cutting between rehearsal and execution of ‘the sting’ of various components of Dantès’ revenge, I have to say. So there it is... a new adaptation of The Count Of Monte Cristo but especially for ‘Dumas virgins’ I would say. Great as an intriguing drama but, at the cost of leaving the corpse of Dumas spinning eerily in his grave like a whirlygig, it has to be said.

Bridget Jones - Mad About The Boy

Keeping Up
With The Joneses

Bridget Jones -
Mad About The Boy
Directed by Michael Morris
UK/France/USA 2025
Universal

Warning: Some character spoilers from the outset.

So once again, after a substantial break in the franchise, Renée Zellweger returns to the role which really put her on the map, at least internationally. Bridget Jones - Mad About The Boy is the fourth of the Bridget Jones films and, to be honest, after the last couple I really wasn’t expecting all that much from it. I’m happy to say I was wrong but, more on that later.

It’s interesting in that, while most of the important regular actors from previous installments are back for this fourth time round the merry-go-round that is Bridget Jones’ life… some of the characters are no longer with us at the start of this one. So we get a brief new scene in this featuring Jim Broadbent as her father, in a scene reminding us how important he was to Bridget before it’s revealed that, alas, his character has now passed on between films. Similarly and also very importantly to the title character, Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy character has also been tragically killed between movies, leaving Bridget alone to cope with their young son and daughter on her own. This doesn’t, however, stop Firth from turning up every now and again as a kind of memory ghost when Bridget needs him to.

One important character who is back was absent from the last movie, that of Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver. He’d spent the last go round missing presumed dead until it was revealed at the end that he had been found… he’s here now as a much more mellow, vulnerable and toned down version of the character and, as usual, Grant does it amazingly well, as a true friend and baby sitter to Bridget.

And, as Bridget decides to go back to her old job, she Tinders herself into a tryst with a new toy-boy suitor played by Leo Woodall and also gets interested in her kids new science teacher Mr. Wallaker, played by the always brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor (who I shall eventually forgive for trying to kill Captain Mal in the Firefly movie Serenity). So it’s business as usual for Miss Jones (aka Mrs. Darcy) and all the usual shenanigans apply as she tries to engage with various different, sometimes overwhelming jigsaw puzzle pieces of her life at once… taking on Brazilian lip serum and negotiating the prospect of labial adhesion midst the minefield of problems life throws in her way.

Now I loved the original Bridget Jones’ Diary (don’t worry, I’m not going to make the same grammatical mistake as the people who marketed the first movie) but found the two sequels - Bridget Jones - The Edge Of Reason and Bridget Jones’ Baby to be much less interesting or even entertaining movies. So I’m very pleased to say that this last entry in the series is a much more satisfying film (despite a more linear structure than I was expecting in terms of the new relationships she has to juggle) and easily the best of the sequels, for my money. Not only that but, it also gets very emotional and, all I’m saying is there may have been tears for this audience member. Most of the jokes don’t fall flat and the actors are all absolutely great… it’s also nice to see James Callis back as the ‘one hit wonder’ millionaire who is still very much ‘in the money’ after his song is used in a viral video of a dog doing mathematics.

It was also great seeing actress Josette Simon, who I remember playing Dayna in Blake’s Seven when I was a teenager, added to the cast of characters. Glad these people are still working.

Another thing is, the film is true to the original characters quite a bit, with Zellwegger perhaps looking slightly more streamlined in the face but absolutely on point playing Bridget once more. This whole film seems like a non-starter after all this time but it’s actually a lovely way to conclude the series (although, I do see how they could maybe do one more if they wait another ten or so years, I think). So as far as I’m concerned, Bridget Jones - Mad About The Boy is an absolutely lovely film and a big recommendation from me. As I said earlier, easily the best of the sequels.

Captain America - Brave New World

Adamantium Lives

Captain America -
Brave New World
Directed by Julius Onah
USA 2025
Marvel
UK cinema release print.

Well now, it looks like I’m out of step with ‘popular opinion’ on a movie again... which isn’t always a bad way to be, I guess. At least I’m bringing a different perspective to the table. After an extended break (barring Deadpool & Wolverine, which doesn’t really count and is reviewed here), the Marvel Cinematic Universe returns to cinemas with Captain America - Brave New World, which has Anthony Mackie returning as The Falcon and taking up the legacy of Captain America, which Steve Rogers passed on to him at the end of Avengers - Endgame (reviewed here) and which he fought to keep in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (reviewed by me here). And early word from both critics and preview audiences alike are saying it’s a mess of a movie. And I’m here to tell you it’s not.

Indeed, I’d say this one is right up there with Eternals (reviewed here) and The Marvels (reviewed here) in terms of being one of the better Marvel Cinematic universe films of recent years. Although, not everyone agrees with me about those two either, it has to be said.

But I also mention Eternals because it ties in with the Celestial growing inside Earth which was disabled at the end of that film. Here, it’s known to humanity as Celestial Island and all the countries want it because it’s a rich source of a powerful new metal, finally making its proper debut in the MCU (kinda, sorta... yeah, not sure about this, it brings about continuity contradictions, methinks)... aka Adamantium (yeah, you know, the stuff Wolverine’s skeleton is coated with). So we have Harrison Ford stepping into the shoes of the great William Hurt (who died but played the character in many of the other Marvel movies, starting with The Incredible Hulk), as Thunderbolt Ross, who is trying to make a treaty around the mineral with Japan and a few other countries. I was hoping for a crossover moment when I realised Celestial Island was in Japanese waters... you know, like Captain America VS Mothra... but it was not to be.

Also around are various other characters such as the main bad guy played by Tim Blake Nelson and also the former, black super soldier, who had been incarcerated by the US government for many years (as seen in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier). All I can say is, I didn’t realise before that this part was played by Carl Lumbly (an actor I’d thought long dead). He’s actually looking very different to the role in which I watched him for years on TV, as Detective Petrie in Cagney And Lacey. We also have Danny Ramirez as the new, trainee Falcon and Ruth Bat-Seraph as the President’s aide, who happens to also be an ex-Black Widow.

And I don’t see why it’s getting the reviews it’s been getting. The actors and action sequences are all great and this one doesn’t have, compared to many of the MCU movies just lately, a huge amount of character reveals and cameos from other parts of the general franchise bleeding through here (and the two we do get seem somehow less relevant, I thought). Instead we have a simple but adult story... hey, much like you might get in a 1980s version of a Marvel comic book... which involves Manchurian Candidate style mind control, a gamma irradiated president (since it’s in most of the trailers, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say Thunderbolt Ross turns into Red Hulk) and a shady government conspiracy embedded in the movies from the early days of the MCU as a source for the shenanigans in this movie.

It all looks good though and, I have to say, I really enjoyed this one. I won’t mention the score because, as ‘the mouse’ owned Marvel seem to be doing lately, it’s not had a proper CD release (only crappy digital junk) so I don’t feel it deserves a mention if the company aren’t even bothering to put it out in the only format which best serves music (honestly, if these companies won’t put proper CDs out, they don’t deserve to have music in their movies... ‘nuff said). 

There’s not much more to say about Captain America - Brave New World other than I was on the edge of my seat quite a lot of the time and I was amazed they managed to turn Thunderbolt Ross into a genuinely sympathetic character by the end of the movie. There is one post credits scene right at the end but, honestly, it doesn’t really add anything other than trying to build hyperbole for future releases and I could have done without it. However, I really liked this one and think it’s a good addition to the MCU, for sure.

The Listeners

Do You Want
To Hear A Secret?

The Listeners
Directed by Janicza Bravo
BBC Four Episodes
November 2024

The Listeners is a BBC TV show, based on the novel of the same title written by Jordan Tannahill, who also writes the screenplay in this TV version. One of my all time favourite modern ctresses, Rebecca Hall, plays the lead, an English teacher called Claire. She wakes one morning to find she can hear a sound, a bit like a low level hum, constantly in the background of her head. Her husband and daughter assume it’s something like a mental health problem or tinnitus but she knows it isn’t. Furthermore, one of her students, Kyle, played brilliantly by Ollie West, can also hear the sound and it’s not long before, in their mutual exploration to figure out just what the sound is, they come into conflict with the education community and Kyle’s mother, who all assume the two are having an affair (which in spirit, in a way, they kind of are).

The idea for the novel came from the real world phenomena known as The Hum, which can be found in various countries and cities, sometimes named after each area in which it is found (such as the Aukland Hum or the Windsor Hum). Sounds which are audible to some folk but not others and which can provoke reactions from people who just want to be free of the noise (much like tinnitus) and which are often explained away by concrete things such as gas pipes when, yeah, it seems they’re obviously not.

The TV show (I haven’t read the novel so can’t say anything about that) is a gripping drama and Rebecca Hall continues to prove she is one of the best actresses of her generation as she and Kyle discover and then become regular attendees of a group... started by and comprising of people, from all walks of society, who are able to hear the noise. Coping mechanisms and discussions as to the origins of the sound are the order of the day there, including the advice of the people running the group to embrace the noise and open themselves to it. But, in terms of the drama or the intent of the writing, it’s not there to seek an explanation of the mystery of the sound itself (at least that’s my belief and the last episode certainly doesn’t bring the audience any closer to understanding the nature and intent of the sound, if indeed intent is something which it has) but instead, like all good science fiction or speculative fiction, to explore the very human problems which result from the pursuit of the mystery at its heart.

So, for the main protagonists, it becomes about living with and handling (or often not handling) the fallout of the noise in their family and work spaces and also takes a look at the group and flirts quite strongly with the idea that Claire and Kyle might possibly have been indoctrinated into a cult, perhaps caught up in something far more sinister and about human control. Or not in that last case… depending on how you look at it.

What can I say? The acting is wonderful, the musical score is glorious (sadly not available on CD), the cinematography is awesome (and really beautiful in some places) and the sound design, with the sound the protagonists’ hear taking over the soundtrack and being used often as an indicator of the turn of emotions and to interrupt the flow of the situations (rather like what a good musical score can do), is also absolutely brilliant. My one down point is that the ending, in terms of the solution to the mystery, is pretty much non-existent. It’s one of those endings which leave it up to the viewer but without giving them a clear option as to what it could actually be. Which makes me want to read the novel although, since it’s written by the same guy, I suspect I won’t get much more insight in regards to that matter.

So yeah, that’s me done with this one and I may, if it comes down to much cheaper, grab the Blu Ray at some point in a few years. I’d also like to see or hear an opera from a few years ago, also based on this novel and, again, with the same title but, alas, I can’t find it on CD or Blu Ray so, it looks like I’m out of luck on that count at the moment too. But, regardless, The Listeners is a great TV mini series and, if the ending is a little underwhelming, the journey getting there is certainly worth taking.

Samurai Reincarnation

Resurrection Shuffle

Samurai Reincarnation
Japan 1981
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Toei/Eureka Masters Of Cinema
Blu Ray Zone B

Samurai Reincarnation is a movie directed by Kinji Fukasaku (of Battle Royale and The Green Slime fame), although it was original supposed to have been directed by the great Hideo Gosha... but he was arrested on firearms charges and so that fell through for him, allowing Fukasaku to replace him.

It tells the story, set in Edo period Japan, of a reincarnated Christian leader called Shiro (played by Kenji Sawada). After a whole bunch of his Christians have been slaughtered by the shogunate, including himself who joins some of the many heads being displayed, he manages to reincarnate himself when his head flies through the air (wait, is this an Indonesian film... that’s the kind of stuff I expect from their film culture?) and takes over the body of an actor playing him on a stage. He then goes around resurrecting (which often includes killing them before resurrecting them) various people, including real life, non-fictional characters like Musashi Miyamoto, who was played by Toshiro Mifune in the original Samurai Trilogy (which I will be revisiting at some point in the near future for this blog) but who is here played by Ken Ogata (four years before he played Mishima in Paul Schrader’s Mishima - A Life In Four Chapters). This film takes its basis on one of the novels covering the real Musashi Miyamoto’s life, in fact (although I’m guessing half zombified hell spawn returning to fulfil a thirst for vengeance from a former severed head is not actually plucked from moments from Miyamoto’s actual, true existence).

Denouncing God, Shiro uses his weird, Christian magic to pull souls back from hell to reanimate for his cause, which is to rid the kingdom of the shogun and burn Edo to the ground. Opposing him is Jubei Yagyu, played by the legendary Sonny Chiba, presumably as a member of the Yagyu Clan (I’m assuming this is the same bunch who were the bad guys in the Lone Wolf And Cub manga and movies). His father, who is also killed and resurrected to Shiro’s cause, is played by none other than the great Tomisaburô Wakayama, who of course played Ogami Itto in the famous six film series of adaptations of that manga, Lone Wolf And Cub.

The film is split into five chapters under the title Hell, the first four of which are around ten to fifteen minutes long (where Shiro returns and then starts recruiting) and the last of which takes up the huge remainder of the film. And it all looks fantastic, it has to be said. The studio bound ‘external locations’ of the opening gives a vision of Hell in the many Christian bodies piled up and their separate heads displayed while the sky is rendered in the studio in purples and pinks, like some kind of chaotic hellscape painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

And, it has to be said that, despite all that gravitas with the blood and honour in which the Japanese seem nobly steeped, the film moves along at a fair pace and is nicely shot, with lots of colours used to brighten up the compositions such as, for instance, when an actor is shot through a series of multicoloured glass panes of a window. Just as a scene gets just a little too talky and threatens to drag, things are switched out and some kind of conflict comes to the fore, which means the film never really has time to get dull or even allow you to question the silliness of some of it. And with skilled actors like these, the film has a certain weight to it which, bearing in mind the subject matter and the 1980s cheesiness which the film almost crosses over into, is actually pretty impressive.

And I think that’s me done with this one for a while. I was quite impressed at the number of heavy hitters that are part of the cast of this one and I found the whole experience somewhat entertaining, it has to be said. The only thing which bothered me was in one scene where Sonny Chiba gets his sword out and then re-sheathes it before any blood has been spilled by his blade... surely this was against the Samurai code? Regardless of this though, I had a pretty good time with it. Samurai Reincarnation is not a film I would jump into if you’re not used to watching samurai movies but it’s well acted and has bright colours... so if you are a fan of the genre, then you might want ot take a look at this one.

Heart Eyes

Romancing
The Tone

Heart Eyes
Directed by Josh Ruben
USA/New Zealand 2025
Paramount
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Some minor spoilers on details of violence.

Well now, if you’re a long time reader you might be wondering why I booked a ticket to see an American slasher movie like Heart Eyes, a sub-genre of thriller I really hate (although I absolutely adore Italian gialli, which of course gave them their start). Well, all I can say is this film was part of the Cineworld chain’s Secret Screaming screenings, previewing the movie six days before its release on Valentine’s Day in the UK. So, yeah, I almost walked out of the cinema when I realised it was this but, I didn’t and, I have to say, I really didn’t have a bad time with it although, given a lot of negative elements in the movie (and the fact that one of the writers wrote the absolutely awful It’s A Wonderful Knife, reviewed here) I’m really surprised that I didn’t hate this one. I was also surprised because I’d mistakenly assumed that the Secret Screaming branded screenings would all be horror films but, no, in this case just a thriller.

Okay, so Heart Eyes is set on Valentine’s Day, which is a day that a notorious killer with lighting up ‘heart eyes’ (when they’re in infrared mode) as part of the costume, is continuing the yearly tradition of picking a town in the US and killing random couples on their Valentine’s celebration (in the most brutal and goriest ways that can be had, of course). In this film the killer mistakenly fixates on a new, ‘almost couple’, jewellery marketing executive Ally (played by Olivia Holt) and her emergency ‘campaign fixer’ Jay (played by Mason Gooding). Carnage ensues which, over the course of the movie, brings them both together to cement an actual relationship between the two leads.

And if that sounds like a cliché then, yeah, it really is and one of the biggest weaknesses of the film is that it’s filled to the brim with similar clichés, I mean all over the shop. Which means there are zero surprises in store for absolutely anyone familiar with the tropes of this particular genre... and I can tell you that I personally am not that familiar with them and I was still rolling my eyes at what I’m sure the writers would call a clever manipulation of plot mechanics of these kinds of movies but, nah, that’s just an excuse to hit the same tired old beats all the other similar movies seem to bash you over the head with.

Fans of these kinds of entertainments will surely relish the bloody carnage which litters the film - the opening sequence alone has a big knife through an eyeball, a crossbow bolt through a face and a woman squashed in some kind of industrial press at a vineyard, her head exploding as her eyeball pops out - so there is something for slasher fiends to keep close to their heart.

But, yeah, the terrible story and use of hackneyed borrowings from other movies doesn’t help things, to be honest.

However, the film has a few saving graces which turn it around, in my opinion. Firstly the dialogue between the two main characters is pretty good and, since Holt and Gooding give such brilliant performances, it means you can totally be behind their characters all the way and they are not just cyphers. 

Secondly, the film is a slasher rom-com with the emphasis on romance, not the killings. I mean, yeah, sure, the violence inevitably ramps up as the film progresses but it’s more like a proper romantic movie with the (admittedly cliché) extended ‘meet cutes’ and where the characters and their attitudes to each other are properly explored at a leisurely pace, just punctuated with a grisly murder here and there. And even though it’s not an out and out comedy (there are some scenes like that though, such as when they’re at a drive-in watching His Girl Friday and two characters are sexing it up in the back of the vehicle while they’re hiding from the rampaging killer) there is a sharp sense of humour injected into the movie which shines through, even when everybody is playing it straight. So there’s that.

Ultimately, my expectations of this movie were as low as they can get and so I was pleasantly surprised that, with the dialogue and the wonderful central performances, Heart Eyes manages to rise above many in this genre and I actually did find myself enjoying a lot of it. It’s probably a nice, gory thriller to see on Valentine’s Day, if that’s your kind of thing but, the cynic in me can’t help but think that this film is now going to be milked through several, probably lesser, sequels over the next few years. Which I'll now feel obligated to see because I've seen this one.

Colours of Film

Hues and Cry

Colours of Film -
The Story Of Cinema
in 50 Palettes
aka
Colors Of Film -
The Story Of Cinema
in 50 Palettes (US edition)
by Charles Bramesco
Frances Lincoln Books
ISBN 9780711270312

I’ve been wanting to read Colours of Film - The Story Of Cinema in 50 Palettes for a while now. In fact, I’ve bought copies of it for people as Christmas and Birthday presents in the recent past… so I was pleased to finally have a copy to call my own. Alas, the book is not quite as good, purely on the information level, as I was expecting… although it does look quite beautiful. The format of the book is that it’s set into four sections... which makes less sense when you realise the movies in the book are visited in chronological order instead of being bunched in with common types of colour usage and modes of operation that similar films deploy.

After a brief introduction we have the first of four sections… these sections are Over The Rainbow, Unbound Imaginations, Making A Statement and Digital Wonderlands. The first section starts off well with the author talking about the ‘vandalism’ that is colourisation (good for him) and the first colour film, The Miracle from 1912. Other items of interest from the opening of each section are that George Eastman took his own life at the age of 77 (having nothing left to achieve) and, in a section on Mad Max - Fury Road, the acknowledgement of the backlash (I remember it playing out on Twitter myself) of the cliché of orange and teal as a colour palette basis in movies. Each section then contains a number of movies with one to three frames blown up large on a page and two or three of the dominating colours displayed as a swatch alongside them. Also with a breakdown of the three colours in smaller swatches.

However, for all the spectacle of the book (and it does look great which, honestly, is worth the price of admission, so to speak), there were a few things which got on my nerves and dragged me down a little. And I don’t just mean the exclusion of Blade Runner… which in a book about colour on film seems like a cardinal sin in itself. My first inkling of trouble within the covers was the author’s description of the early Zoetropes as being… wait for it… GIF-like. Nah, mate… it’s the other way around. GIFs weren’t invented until 1987 whereas the Zoetrope was first invented in 1834. So… just no. Also, I see what you’re saying here but it’s kind of a vulgar comparison.

Secondly, the reviews of each film, while necessarily including a mention (sometimes a focus) on the use of colour are… just simply that. Just reviews and, honestly, if I’d read some of those reviews before watching the works in question, I might never have watched some of my favourite movies. Amélie is a particular sticking point for me… the film is rendered as a cynical and somehow unappealing prospect when reading this review, not helped by the author likening the shades of yellow in the palette to urine. I mean, really?

Thirdly though… let’s get to the elephant in the room. Never mind that the colours picked for the swatches are somewhat random (a pixel higher or lower with the magic wand in photoshop… which I suspect is what was done… would give a different hue) but they are not true renditions of the colour in the films in question anyway. Although the information provided breaks these down to both RGB and Hex colours, the simple fact of the matter is that we are looking at those colours rendered in print, in CMYK. There’s no getting around that, they’re never (or rarely ever) going to be the same colour you see in the movie, surely? 

Of the 52 films included in this book of 50 (yeah go figure which three films he’s bizarrely counted as a single entry), comprising A Trip To The Moon, Intolerance, The Wizard of Oz, Fantasia, Black Narcissus, The River, Singin’ In The Rain, All That Heaven Allows, The Searchers, Vertigo, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, Red Desert, Colour Me Blood Red, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cries and Whispers, Touki Bouki, Bobby, Don’t Look Now, Ali - Fear Eats The Soul, Jeanne Dielman, God Told Me To, Suspiria, Ran, Blue Velvet, Dick Tracy, Blue, Schindler’s List, Three Colours Blue, Three Colours White, Three Colours Red, Chungking Express, Se7en, Belly, Peppermint Candy, The Virgin Suicides, But I’m a Cheerleader, Songs From The Second Floor, Traffic, Amélie, Spirited Away, The Aviator, Saw II, Speed Racer, Enter The Void, Amer, Tron: Legacy, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Mad Max: Fury Road, La La Land, Black Panther and Lovers Rock… it’s the late Derek Jarman’s Blue which shows up the insanity of talking about colour in film at this base level the most. The feature film itself consists of a long monologue with the screen just showing a frame of the colour blue. So, that means the film frame and the swatch should be exactly the same colour, filling the page in a wash of that hue, right? But no, the frame and the swatch look totally different and, since they’re both rendered in CMYK, it brings a new level of preposterousness to the exercise too, above and beyond the differences of seeing hues projected by light or by printers ink.

Other than that though… yeah, Colours of Film - The Story Of Cinema in 50 Palettes is a wonderful looking book and makes a nice present (I was certainly pleased to finally get one) but, approach with caution and be wary of using it as some kind of colour bible, would be my advice.

It Came From Beneath The Sea

Depth Collector

It Came From
Beneath The Sea
USA 1955 Directed by Robert Gordon
Columbia/Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

“The mind of man had thought of everything... except that which was beyond his comprehension...”
From opening monologue from It Came From Beneath The Sea

It Came From Beneath The Sea is the first movie presented in Indicator’s excellent, three movie Blu Ray set, The Wonderful Worlds Of Ray Harryhausen Volume One: 1955 - 1960. I’m pretty sure, like the next film also presented in this set, that I’ve never seen this one... so I’m grateful to the people at Indicator (aka Powerhouse Films) releasing this bundle. That being said, I think this is going to be one of my shorter reviews because, having just watched it, I wasn’t too much taken with it, to be honest. It didn’t help matters when I came to the menu screen after I hit play and it gave me an option to watch a ‘colourised’ version if I wanted. Okay folks... people who try and colour up old films which are lit for and therefore meant to be watched in black and white... are evil. That kind of dumb attitude is a crime against filmanity and this way of watching really shouldn’t be encouraged. I wasn’t happy to see this option on the disc... and when I say wasn’t happy I mean horrified/disturbed/foaming at the mouth in anger. For the record, I watched this in its proper monotone format, thank you very much.

However, I was very interested in it. Let me get the very simple plot out of the way first. Kenneth Tobey, from The Thing From Another World (reviewed here) and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (reviewed here) plays ‘atom powered submarine’ captain, Pete Mathews. He and his crew encounter something which grabs a hold of their submarine and, after lots of wobbling of the camera and actors appearing to stumble around, they get free but with a huge piece of organic matter in their propellors. The Navy call in top notch Marine biologists Dr. John Carter (played by Donald Curtis) and Dr. Lesley Joyce (played by Faith Domergue). After over a week of study, which sees Joyce falling for the charms of both men (before settling on rugged hero Captain Mathews), they realise they are dealing with a radiation emitting giant octopus which is moving nearer and nearer to its food source (culminating in it wrecking the Golden Gate bridge). It’s up to the three, aided by the military, to kill the creature via its new jet propelled missile Joyce has invented, which burrows into the skin and can then be detonated later when it reaches the brain. And that’s enough of the plot... I’m sure you can work out what happens from here.

It’s actually an important film in some ways... because it brought together stop-motion-giant-in-the-making Ray Harryhausen with producer Charles H. Schneer. It’s a partnership which would stick and see each man working together for film after film until their joint last movie together, Clash Of The Titans in the 1980s. Harryhausen’s animation is pretty good here on the titular giant octopus, managing to hide the budgetary problems of only being able to afford six legs for the octopus but, I have to say, there aren’t that many minutes of the creature in this film. It’s mostly a dry film apart from when Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue get together for the romantic scenes... Domergue is smoking hot as a somewhat ‘atypical of the time’, temptress of a scientist. Of course, only one month before the release of this movie, Domergue played in the role she will be forever remembered for in the hearts and minds of science fiction afficionados everywhere... as Dr. Ruth Adams in the sci-fi classic This Island Earth (review coming, relatively soon). The tension in that film as she awakes and is released from a suspended animation tube a few minutes before the others, then chased around the alien craft by an iconic Metalunan Mutant, is something I’m sure nobody forgets.

And, being as this is a Harryhausen movie... I can’t help but assume that the name of the other doctor in this film, Dr. John Carter, is a deliberate homage (in name only) to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ much loved Barsoomian explorer of the early 20th century. Another homage, perhaps, is that the titular creature has been swimming down from Japan after being hit by H bombs so, yeah, perhaps a little sly reference to Toho studios successful kaiju eiga from the previous year, Godzilla (reviewed here)?

All in all though... it’s not a great film. There’s a constant voice over narrative filling in between the main scenes and I can only assume it was intended to add a documentary feel to the whole proceedings because, frankly, it’s pretty unnecessary and could, perhaps, have been done in better ways within the main storyline. There are some odd choices in the movie too... with a jeep going around a sign in the middle of the road with a quick swerve but, once it’s speeding away from the giant octopus, instead of doing exactly the same thing, it opts to go through the sign instead... for no apparent reason, as far as I could see.

And that’s me done already with It Came From Beneath The Sea, I think. A nice one to see lumped in with a load of similar movies in a marathon screening event, perhaps but, as a stand alone watch I mostly found it cold... although the chemistry between Tobey and Domergue is definitely warming up the scenes they share together, for sure. I’m glad I saw it though and will end by quoting William Hurt’s character when watching this exact same film on a television in the great movie The Big Chill... “Sometimes you have to let art wash over you.”

Beyond Darkness

Exorcise Regime

Beyond Darkness
aka La Casa 5
aka Evil Dead 5
Italy 1990 Directed by Claudio Fragasso
Severin Films Blu Ray Zone A

Warning: I guess this has spoilers.

Well, this will be a short review.

Okay... so I bought Beyond Darkness from Severin, mainly due to the fact that the film’s score by Carlo Maria Cordio was included on a separate bonus CD. Turns out though... that’s really only one of two things worth making this purchase for, the other being the special limited edition slipcase with the film’s more notorious and completely inaccurate alternate title of Evil Dead 5.

So the film has nothing to do with the much more famous Evil Dead franchise. However, the Italian title, La Casa 5 is also a direct reference to the Evil Dead movies (which were called La Casa movies in Italy) but, of course, none of these later films were continuations of those films... just a quick title to cash in on the success of the US franchise (so I really should watch those one day), much in the spirit of the gazillions of unofficial Django movies made in the wake of the original Franco Nero movie, most of which didn’t have a character called Django in them and were nothing to do with the first one.

So...  really wasn’t expecting all that much from this movie but I was expecting a much more fun time than I ultimately got. The film starts off with Father George (David Brandon) trying to read the last rights to a female serial killer on death row who says, basically, not to bother... I ate all the souls of the kids I killed and you’ll be joining me in hell soon. She also gives him a demonic bible and he now starts seeing hallucinations of her in his daily life. He then leaves the church world and becomes a drunken wino, who now sees things like the dead demonic lady driving the kids around town in a bus etc.

Meanwhile, Father Peter (Gene LeBrock), his wife Annie (Barbara Bingham) and their two sprogs have been moved into a possessed house with a portal to hell in the hopes that they can clear things up there (not that they find this out until demons from hell start turning up). It’s actually the same house in Louisiana that was used in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond (reviewed here) so, you know, you’d think they would have known something was amiss.

And not much else happens and, when I say not much, I actually mean quite a lot happens but it’s all so dull and plodding that I was finding it really hard to make my way through this one. I mean there’s a black swan rocking contraption with a life of its own, a doorway to hell which calls to the kids, zombie like creatures in black, diaphanous robes invading the house in a fog a few times, a kidnapped child and various quick possessions as people’s eyes glaze over with white contact lenses every now and again when they enter what I shall only call ‘the fog dimension’... and then Father George turns up to try and redeem himself and help Father Peter exorcise one of his own kids in what must be the most boring exorcism scene I’ve seen committed to film. And David Brandon is not subtle in his scenery chewing performance... which is probably how he’s been directed to be because, lets face it, the film is not too subtle either. He’s also the only one who seems to have a strong personality in this so at least he’s mostly watchable in an otherwise unbelievably dull film, it has to be said.

The cinematography comes through with a penchant for stressing verticality in the shot composition a lot of the time (very easy to do in the jail and interior house scenes and it’s emphasised a lot) and there’s a nice shot looking down at one of the characters through the spoked sections of a door arch at one point but... yeah, the cinematography doesn’t even come close to saving this picture, I’d have to say. It’s dull, dull, dull and when there is a nugget of interest where Father Peter’s daughter is left with the man in the local church and finger points to him being someone more sinister, the plot thread is not only not investigated but the daughter drops out of the picture unexpectedly. We never see her in the narrative again and everyone just seems to have forgotten about her, which is strange and makes me think there might have been more planned for this movie and maybe the budget or shooting schedule got sliced at some point, perhaps.

Carlo Maria Cordio’s score was, it turns out, worth the purchase and I shall be putting on the CD later today but, I’d have to say that, while it’s typical of the sort of synthesised disco horror scores of the time in Italian cinema, when everyone was trying to be Goblin and were mostly failing miserably, it does feel inappropriate to the movie and really doesn’t help it any. I can tell it’s going to be good away from the confines of the movie though so, at least there’s that.

And I really have nothing more to say on this one. I haven’t had time to watch the extras on this but, you know, it’s Severin so it’s a shoe in they’re going to have good extras and, probably, they’ll be a darn site more interesting than the actual film. All in all, it’s another good package from Severin but a really dreadful movie, as far as I’m concerned and nowhere near as good as similarly themed movies such as Beyond The Door (reviewed here). Sorry, I just can’t recommend this one, even to the friends who, like me, usually love clunky Italian horror movies. It’s just not good.

Companion

AI-ble Silence

Companion
Directed by Drew Hancock
USA 2025
New Line Cinema
UK cinema release print.

Warning: The same amount of spoilerage as in the trailer.

So... Companion. Yeah, kinda but... mostly naaah/meh, I would have to say.

I was looking forward to this one a lot as the two trailers I saw for the film looked very interesting. And, to be fair, the film is well shot/edited/acted (for the most part) but, for a film with a great (if already overused) cinematic premise, the writing was really not too good on this one.

So lets start with those trailers... and the poster for that matter... we can see very clearly that the title ‘companion’ role, played by the always great Sophie Thatcher (who has been so good in Yellowjackets), is obviously a robot sex companion who is, at some point in the movie, going to go into kill mode. And, yeah, I know that ‘sexbots going into homicidal revenge territory’ seems to be a trending cinematic topic of late (at least with independent movies... this may be the first of them released theatrically in this cycle) but, hey it’s a plot I’m always a sucker for so, again, I was expecting a lot more from this. However, the fact that the film spends the first quarter of the movie building to the reveal that Thatcher is, indeed, a controlled robotic companion... really does seem like a total waste of time.

So the big ‘twist reveal’ (or first of them) is no twist at all if you’ve seen the marketing materials. And I would normally go on to say that, had I not seen the publicity for this one I may have been taken by surprise and had a better time with it... the truth is that the dialogue is so loaded with precursors to that reveal that I would have figured it out pretty quickly anyway. And then of course, there’s a little ‘revelation building’ on that reveal which, given a certain character’s ‘meet cute’ implanted memories, is very much a case of ‘fool me once, shame on me... fool me twice’...

In other words, Companion has absolutely no surprises in store for the audience and, again unfortunately for the viewer, it’s not half as clever as it thinks it is. And that’s such a shame because, honestly, I really wanted to like this one.

So good points... well, almost everything else about the movie apart from the writing is pretty good, it has to be said. Thatcher is absolutely magnificent as the ‘Stepford Wife’ so to speak and, funnily enough, Jack Quaid (son of Denis Quaid and Meg Ryan) as the almost comically ineffectual antagonist of the film, is also pretty great in this. These two actors specifically have some great comic timing between them, for sure. And fans of gory violence will also find this movie ticks their boxes, some of which is definitely not lingered on anymore than it has to be... for example, after we see a person with his face repeatedly bashed in, when the body is revisited shortly after, the aftermath is not revisited and its other characters’ reactions which tell the story.

Actress Megan Suri is also pretty good in this, playing the girlfriend of a red herring of a main antagonist who proves to be anything but. So more movies from her please.

Other than that though... yeah, I can’t think of anything more I want to add to this review. Companion is a film that I suspect has a built-in teenage audience who will lap it up and love this film, mostly because a lot of them may not have seen anything like this before. I think many others in the audience, though, may find themselves a little jaded to the film’s obvious charms and realise that, maybe the script isn’t as intelligent as one might expect from a marketing campaign that manages to hit all the right spots... alas.

Gate Of Hell

The Endô Times
in Daieis Of Old

Gate Of Hell
aka Jigokumon
Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa
Japan 1953
Daiei/Euraka Masters Of Cinema
Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some major spoilers here.

Gate Of Hell aka Jigokumon is one of those films where you just have to give a huge pat on the back to the label., Eureka Masters Of Cinema, for getting it out there into the wild. This one was the first Japanese colour production to travel out to an international audience and also the very first colour film put out by Daiei.

Based on a play by Kan Kikuchi, this tells the story of samurai Morito Endô (played by Kazuo Hasegawa) and the lady in waiting of a sister of the current Emperor of the time in which this was set, Kesa (played by Machiko Kyô, a very successful leading lady who worked with such luminaries and Kurosawa and Ozu). During a rebellion, Kesa volunteers to be a decoy for the Emperor’s sister. She is taken to safety by Morito but he then becomes infatuated with her (with no real encouragement from her). When order is restored and the Emperor is handing out rewards, Morito asks for Kesa to be his wife. Alas for all involved, Kesa is already married to another samurai, Wataru Watanabe (played by Isao Yamagata) and Morito refuses to back down with his affections and intentions towards the good lady, even going so far as to directly compete with the husband in that year’s big horse race. As you might expect, the story ends in tragedy with shame and the weight of the world on both of the male antagonists and, yeah you guessed it, death for the female character who is the one who is truly the victim in the film.

It looks great though. The colours the director employs are really quite rich and very well put in the service of the characters. For instance, the various costumes worn by Machiko Kyô as Kesa are often in contrast with the environment in which she finds herself, allowing her to be a stand out presence in whatever scene she is in. Such as during the horse race sequence where everyone is seen in or around big, blue tents, she is wearing bright orange clothing. Or, during the end game of the picture, when she is wearing light pink., it’s set against the dull, greyish browns, again pushing her into the foreground.

The director is also giving a lot of depth to the 1.37:1 aspect ratio of the film. Using lots of vertical and horizontal lines found within the structures of the sets and locations, often layered over the top of each other in different plains in the shot (like an old Victorian peep show box), to create a wealth of depth in the image. He will also do things like look through or past things which are in the foreground in order to give a sense of scale to the picture. For instance, during the panic of the battle at the start, when the Emperor’s house is all people fleeing the arrows and swords of their attackers, he might shoot some of it looking through the diaphanous silk curtains separating inside and outside. Or he might put a big foreground object like a few trees of a forest in the bottom right of a shot, past which you can see armies riding by on a horse. Or, in one memorable moment early in the film, the panic of battle in the background is seen with several cocks fighting in the foreground, perhaps even offering a visual metaphor of what is really going on at this point in the story.

It’s an engaging film but the one who really comes out of the mess of a tragedy with his honour in tact is the husband. It’s hard to get too attached to Kesa (who seems to be holding back sometimes in her negation of Morito’s wrangling... quite possibly because he saved her life). As for Morito himself, he’s a complete eel and at no time did he gain my sympathies, even when he cuts his top knott off in shame at the end of the picture. A good example of his character is when he’s just brought Jesa to safety but she’s passed out on the ground. It’s an interesting moment, he is drinking from a container of water, observes she is still passed out and, instead of throwing the water on her to revive her, instead takes a sip and then spray spits it out onto her face... followed by filling his mouth with water and then kissing it in between her lips, which eventually revives her. It’s strange stuff and not what I would expect to find within the confines of a 1950s movie, to be sure.

Other than that, my only other surprise was when Morito kicks a dog in rage. The dog clearly takes a foot in the ribs which lifts him into the air and, considering the BBFC’s policy on animal cruelty, I was surprised to find that this had not been excised from the film on a UK zoned Blu Ray. Talking of which, the film is presented in a wonderful transfer of a very fine print but there are no extras on the disc, although it is presented with a booklet. Gate Of Hell is not my favourite of films set in the time of samurai but it’s very watchable and entertaining, especially considering the unlikeable nature of the main male character. Certainly one I would recommend giving some time too if you enjoy Japanese cinema, for sure.