The Artist (2011)

The Artist (2011) | In 1927, George Valentin is one of the most famous silent actors. While attending a premiere of his latest film, Peppy Miller bumps into him and ends up with her photo on the front of the newspaper. She begins appearing in films, eventually becoming quite big herself. Then in 1929, talkies are introduced and while Miller makes the transition successfully, Valentin doesn’t have such good luck.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. Despite rave reviews, I thought perhaps people were playing up the ‘silent’ card or something. But not so much. I’ve read a few negative reviews that were either by people who have never watched a silent film in their life and passed it off as boring and dumb and others that thought the silent card was too gimmicky. But I disagree. Some people were too quick to compare this to a silent film from 80 years ago, which is just silly. Yes this one does attempt to bring that feel but this is a new era we’re living in.

The acting was quite good all around. Jean Dujardin in particular was fantastic. His face is so expressive and he is instantly likable. You can’t take your eyes off him as he owns the screen every second. I did not like Berenice Bejo as much. I’m not sure if it was the character, the actress or a combination of both but I found her difficult to watch. The character was too ‘peppy’ and annoying and precisely the kind of person I don’t like. I didn’t think she really fit the part either, it felt very forced, although the chemistry with Dujardin was not.

The story was light, but it was entertaining. It did drag a little in the middle though. Going silent probably helped lift the plot a little as well. The music was great giving it a really nice mood and helping it flow very smoothly. Some of the music choices were questionable, but overall it worked.

A very entertaining film that [almost] never overdoes the silent techniques. George Valentin is one of the most easily likable characters and he is great fun to watch. Some more depth to Peppy’s character and perhaps an actress who suited the part more would’ve made this much better.

7/10

Blood Diner (1987)

Blood Diner (1987) | Two brothers who also happen to be cannibals run a diner and are on a quest to acquire assorted body parts in order to restore life to the goddess Shitar. They are aided by their dead uncle who is just a brain and a pair of eyes in a jar.

This is one of the strangest movies I’ve seen. It was very energetic and fun and never slowed down – although this also hurt it. A very 80s B-horror film, it comes with the typical traits of bad acting, effects and dialogue but hopefully no-one would go into this film expecting otherwise. The gore is also fairly bloody and funny and I had quite a few laughs, although mostly out of shock.

It doesn’t try to be serious and this makes it a lot more enjoyable to watch, but it also tends to go too over the top, like it’s trying too hard to be crazy. Overall it was pretty fun, but sometimes I wished it would slow down for a minute.

6/10

Reipu 25-ji: Bôkan (1977)

Reipu 25-ji: Bôkan (1977) | A rapist is being chased by a homosexual gang and takes an accomplice out with him to rape women.

This film was literally strung together by tons of rape scenes. The plot was hardly even there, it was just rape, rape, rape. And it was pretty boring. The acting was surprisingly ok, but there was little development of anything. The women getting raped would always end up enjoying the rape and ask for more, which apparently was supposed to be disturbing but was just silly.

The film wastes too much time on naked Japanese women and endless rape scenes instead of attempting a story or going anywhere really shocking. Once you’ve seen one or two of the rape scenes, which are pretty harmless, you get pretty fed up. The ending was kind of funny, but overall the film was pretty flat.

5/10

Koroshi no rakuin (1967)

Koroshi no rakuin (1967) | Hanada is the third best hitman and wants to be number one. He is given a particularly difficult job which gets him involved with a strange woman and on the run from the number one hitman.

This was very much style over substance, and there was very little substance at all. It didn’t really make sense and it was not a fun ride at all. It kept going completely off into random subplots (I guess they were subplots) that weren’t amusing or interesting and added little to the film.

I don’t mind a movie going completely weird, but there needs to be something going for it, whether it be atmosphere or visuals, but this has nothing. A tough watch that will probably only appeal to very specific people.

4/10

Emanuelle in America (1977)

Emanuelle in America (1977) | Emanuelle is an American journalist traveling the world in search of a good story. She joins a harem, travels to Venice for the diplomatic parties and stumbles upon a group of people making snuff films.

I don’t know why the hell I’m even reviewing this. This is 1/2 porno and 1/2 exploitation. The only reason I watched it was because it was on the Deuce list (which I also have to thank for making me sit through my first porno, Deep Throat). This was also disgusting but seemed to not be able to make up its mind what it was.

It starts off with typical tame exploitation stuff, bad acting and a stupid plot of course. Then it decides it’s a porno and inserts several penetration shots and a woman masturbating a horse.

It was completely pointless and being a disgusting porno, not worth watching unless you are a pervert or trying to complete the Deuce list.

1/10

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) | Frankenstein is reanimanited by Dr Hertz to prove that the soul doesn’t leave the body after death. When his assistant, Hans, is executed for the murder of the local pub owner his girlfriend Christina commits suicide. Frankenstein replaces her brain with Hans’ and brings her back to life and she starts to kill those responsible for his death.

I assumed from the plot it was going to deal with the issues of a man in a woman’s body or something to that effect, but it didn’t touch on this at all. It basically consisted of ‘Christina’ hearing Hans’ voice telling her who to kill. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t that entertaining either. I am also getting really sick of Peter Cushing.

5/10

Sonatine (1993)

Sonatine (1993) | Murakawa, a yakuza, is sent to settle an argument between two factions. He finds it all suspicious but goes anyway and several people are killed. He hides out in a house on a beach with a few of his colleagues and a woman who he saves from an attempted rape. He realises he has been set up and starts to plan his revenge.

It started off poorly and I could barely work out what was meant to be happening (admittedly I was also very tired). Once they ended up at the house it picked up a little bit, but not much. There were some nice scenes and the music gave it all a really nice atmosphere.

Unfortunately, there was little character or plot development. None of the characters were very interesting and the actors don’t bring much life to it. Kitano attempts a sort of zen-like coolness, but it comes off as lazy acting and a character with no personality. The story never seemed to progress anywhere and since I didn’t care about the characters anyway it just kept plodding along with no end in sight.

Despite being having some really nice cinematography, and a few amusing scenes, this was pretty bland.

5/10

Nora inu (1949)

Nora inu (1949) | Murukami is a young homicide detective who loses his pistol after having his pocket picked. He goes undercover trying to find the person who took his gun.

The story was interesting, but the execution was not so much. Acting was fine, and other technical aspects were alright too (aside from a few Kurosawa things, like that side swipe edit), but it never grabbed me.

It was fairly slow paced, but it failed to build up any intensity or develop the characters very well. It dragged even more in the middle and I was just unable to get really involved in it.

5/10

Nostalghia (1983)

Nostalghia (1983) | The poet, Andrei Gorchakov and his translator, Eugenia are traveling through Italy to research the life of a Russian composer. He meets Domenico, a lunatic who imprisoned his family in a barn to save them from the evils in the world and becomes drawn to him.

Despite having some nice visuals at times, this was one bad movie. Directors like Tarkovsky seem to be too focused on making their films look like a painting that they forget to put any content of depth in the film as well. This was disjointed and a mess.

I love long shots, as I’ve noted many times. Unfortunately they are completely misused here. I am rarely bored during a film, but this was one of the most boring films I’ve ever seen. It was bordering on painful. The shots look nice, but they are empty. They don’t enhance the film, they don’t bring out any emotion, they don’t cause me to reflect or think. I did quite like the one at the end when Andrei was carrying the candle, but even then it didn’t evoke any emotion in me.

And as usual, the characters are not characters but mere puppets. The dialogue they’re speaking doesn’t seem to have any relation to the film, or even to each other. They aren’t even having conversations most of the time, it’s just strings of random sentences. The ideas put forth by most of the ‘conversations’ are just silly and dull as well.

An extremely boring movie, although nice to look at at times. Another failed attempt at making cinema ‘art’, forgetting that films consist of more than pretty pictures.

3/10

Black Shampoo (1976)

Black Shampoo (1976) | Mr Jonathan is the owner of a hairdressers and is well-known for his skills as a lover for which he is much sought after. His new secretary’s past catches up with her and he tries to protect her.

For the most part, I felt like I was watching a softcore porno. There were more sex scenes in this than in The Room. They were pretty unpleasant. Even when they are running through a swamp, she sounds like she is making sex noises. The rest of it was like an action movie, not a very good one, but it was ok for blaxpoitation.

The acting was amusingly bad, and I got a few chuckles out of John Daniels. The scene when he finds his salon ransacked was pretty funny. The music was cheesy, but fit the mood so it didn’t bother me much.

It was a bad movie, but somehow managed to be entertaining sometimes. For exploitation lovers only.

4/10