Fullmetal returns

I have been looking forward to seeing this film since I finished watching the series earlier this year and Conqueror of Shamballa more than lives up to my expectations. The film begins a couple of years after the end of the series with Ed still stuck in Germany between the World Wars. In the time between the series and the film Ed has befriended Alphonse Heiderich, the doppelganger of his brother Al, and has been working on the science of rocketry. Meanwhile back in Ed's own world Al has been studying Alchemy all the while looking for his lost brother.

This film is a great follow-on from the excellent Fullmetal Alchemist series and if anything outdoes its parent series in animation, story and excitement. Although the film is slightly more serious than the series there are is still the odd comic moment to brake up the drama. The animation is great, as would be expected, and I liked the choice of using more muted tones to represent this world compared to the brighter tones of Ed's world. Conqueror of Shamballa is a great way to rap up the Fullmetal Alchemist series and although anyone new to the series should watch that before attempting to understand this film, any true fan of the series will love it.

Gorgeous Art

One of the most sensuous and beautiful films i've seen. Caught it at London's ICA cinema couple of year's back and have been waiting for a DVD to emerge. Finally - courtesy of Second Run - this gorgeous piece of Art is finally going to be available.
It's a film that's almost impossible to describe - a love story; a journey into an unknown land - but breathlessly serene and totally mesmerising.
Can't wait to see it again !

A masterpiece

It's almost unfathomable that a filmmaker like Miklos Jancso is virtually unknown here. His films are incredible, painful, beautiful. Like an Eastern European Sergio Leone, his films are both epic and intimate.
THE ROUND-UP is (possibly) his finest film - set in a Hungarian detention camp in 1869, it unflinchingly demostrates the dehumanising effect of war and abuse of power.
Powerful, visually stunning and above all relevant - this is a film that should not be missed by lovers of cinema.

A very generic horror.

One missed call opens with a creepy premise that people hear their dying words as a message on their phones a couple of days before its going to happen. It soon becomes apparent that the calls are linked by the telephones internal phone book and when the victim dies a message is sent to someone else randomly from the list.

There are a few good scares and at times it is genuinely creepy. Most of the performances are OK but don't expect to see anyone break out to become a huge star.

The problem with the film is that if feels like what it is, and that's a paint by numbers remake of a Japanese film. When The Ring and The Grudge came out they felt fresh and were both terrifying. Then we had sequels to both these and Dark Water, amongst others came along which just ended up diluting the power of the originals and they all became carbon copies of each other. The problem with one missed call is that whilst it is entertaining, it just feels very generic and is another on the production line of remakes.

Overall, One missed call is enjoyable enough, but instantly forgettable once it's over.

the last of the best

seris four is amazing, i can't hide the fact, however you should know, it is the last great seris, after this one it just rolls down hill until it dies at episode 220, unfortunately they will go through several seris of fillers before anything interesting happens.

but anyway, seris four is the best, if you're going to get any of the naruto seris, get this one, this seris firt does the very satisfying job of rounding up the cliff hangar left in the wake of seris three, after everyone recovers and the hokage's funeral is delt with this seris is one long chase as subordinates of orochimaru 'steal' sasuke following his recovery from the battle with gaara, it features great fights such as choji's only good fight, which is amazing by the way, neji in all his glory aswel as kiba.

but the fights to really look out for are of-course, rock lee vs kimimaru and gaara vs kimimaru, and the awesome final conflict of sasuke vs naruto.

Could someone give a better review?

I bought the US version of this box set, but they did a poor job with it. There's no Sante Sangre (is it in the UK box)? The sound is poor and seems to be out of sync (at least on Fado y Lis). And they letterboxed Fando Y Lis, not to mention they didn't do a very good job at restoring it. Can someone give a more detailed review for this, so I can tell whether I should get rid of my US version & get this?

Terrific!

I enjoyed this one very much. The plot has been already well explained by others so no need to go over it again here. (If I had to say anything about it, I'd say it's a story of obsessive love from beyond the grave). The ghost lady seemed to have been borrowed from Ju-On, (The Grudge) at times, though admittedly not as effective as that one, but the whole movie was very interesting and absorbing to follow and very well done indeed. I didn't get bored at all and loved every minute of it. No annoying laughs and attempts at humour, just a very dark story, and creepy atmosphere. There was a song featured in it, when the couple were driving along in their car, heard then only briefly, and then the whole song played out over the end credits, and featured on the dvd for the photo gallery section, and I wanted to listen to it over and over again. It did say in the credits what the song was called and who by, but as I didn't write it down and it was in a language I'm not familiar with, I can't say what it was called or who by, but it was credited with the date 1965 so maybe was a wellknown release round about that time in that part of the world. Whatever, it was a lovely song and I'd love to get a recording of it if it's available. It seemed really creepy in relation to the movie, and it was so nice to hear a theme song that shows the makers of the movie seem to have used some imagination in deciding what to use, whereas so often the music used in a movie is a bit of a disappointment. So full marks for that too. Very satisfying indeed.

Sexually charged brief encounter of the cross channel ferries

Writer director Catherine Breillat creates an absorbing brief encounter film between sixteen year old student Thomas (Gilles Guillain outstanding in his first film role) and the early middle aged Alice (Sarah Pratt). There are only two characters, but the quality of Breillat's screen play is such our attention never strays.

The growing intensity of an unexpected relationship between the pounding hormones of the young student and the bitter disillusion of the older woman creates sizzling slow burn erotic sequences. Sarah Pratt is outstanding in a drama that seems suspended in time as it moves through the shopping and restaurant areas of the multi deck P & O ferry on its way to Portsmouth.

English and French language in more or less equal parts this is very much a French film, as only the best French writer directors can achieve.

Am absolute must for all lovers of this type of French film.

Vivid and visionary philosophical western that points the finger at the peace and love generation cast adrift.

El Topo was director Alejandro Jodorowsky's second feature film - following the low-budget surrealist parable Fando and Lis in 1967 - and, as a result of its violent content and scenes of grotesque symbolism, was the first film to bring him to the attention of a western audience. At its heart, the film is a violent and deeply mystical dream-play about a mythical gunfighter cleansing himself of the violence of his past, only to discover that the world itself has already been corrupted by the bloodshed of the present (with the film making barbed cultural references to the escalating violence of the twentieth century; with the atrocities of the holocaust, the violence of the Spanish Civil War, the massacres of Vietnam and the escalating tensions in the middle-east all informing the heavily-stylised and overruling spirit of anger and aggression).

With this in mind it is important to point out that despite the sense of violence and the scenes that seem to be intentionally designed to provoke a drastic reaction from the audience the film is in no way lurid or exploitative; with Jodorowsky placing the violence alongside Eastern philosophies, religious symbolism, situationist-inspired absurdity and a genuine sense of compassion; with his aggression being more of an existentialist scream of pain and torment, as opposed to one of masochistic excess. The film also explores a number of mystical themes that would be later fleshed out even further with The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky's second of only three films produced in the 1970's, which, much like the film in question, unfolds through a series of surrealist vignettes, rife with the aforementioned factors of religious symbolism, sardonic satire and distancing cinematic shock tactics.

As with The Holy Mountain it remains a film that polarises audience to this day, with El Topo, to some, remaining a monumental achievement of philosophy, mysticism and surrealist satire (according to some; a film capable of changing the viewer's entire perspective on life itself through the wisdom of its central character and the potency of its imagery). To others however, the film has already become something of a dated relic, with some viewers arguing that the cartoonish violence, casual nudity and notions of questing for inner peace and tranquillity have become throwbacks to the late 1960's flower-power aesthetic; which is always easy to discredit through blind cynicism (although this is the point).

So, with these considerations in place, you'll no doubt be asking yourself how you'll react to the film on a personal level, and - if I'm being completely honest - then I couldn't possibly say. I will say however that it's best to approach the film with an open mind and with some familiarity with other films of this nature (surreal, deeply metaphorical art-house cinema) as well as with Jodorowsky himself.

What surprised me the most when viewing this film for the first time was the tremendous amount of depth that can often be lost within the giddy barrage of sights and sounds that burst from the screen in a vibrant vivid collage of philosophy, art, sex and religion. As a result, I often find it annoying when people discredit Jodorowsky as simply throwing images on the screen to shock and disarm the viewer for no apparent reason. I find similar arguments regarding the work of filmmakers like David Lynch, Shinya Tsukamoto and Miike Takashi similarly offensive. Simply listen to the audio commentary on this DVD to hear Jodorowsky taking the film apart image by image; explaining the incredible amount of minor details purged from every religion, steeped in every form of art and combined in an attempt to overload the audience's senses and perceptions to effectively change the very fabric of their own personal universe. It worked for me, though as you can possibly gather from the previous reviews, opinions are mixed.

As you can imagine from the sketchy plot outline, what follows is fairly episodic in design, sometimes tapping into the cinematic absurdity of Luis Bunuel and at other times reminding me of the epic opulence of early Ken Russell (in particular, films like The Devils, The Music Lovers, The Boyfriend, Mahler, etc). For the most part though, the film is pure Jodorowsky, with the central character (played by the director himself) tapping into the intensity of The Holy Mountain's iconic shaman-esque leader; whilst the constant barrage of cripples, dwarfs, freaks and geeks cut adrift against a backdrop of raped priests, slaughtered villages, philosophical gun-play and an all-mighty sense of fury as the world of peace and love comes crumbling down as a harsh-reminder of the character's once violent past, all stand out as a testament to the pure, unbridled genius of Jodorowsky himself.

Obviously, it's not going to be a film for everyone, but those already turned on to Jodorowsky's ideas will no doubt take away a great deal from the film's central message, and from the dizzying kaleidoscope of visual ideas, interpretations and sight gags that explode from the screen in a veritable barrage of colour and movement. The Tartan DVD features some fine extra features, most notably Jodorowsky's informative and fascinating audio commentary, while also doing a fairly great - if not quite perfect - job of re-mastering a film that has remained in the vaults for well over thirty years.

Haven't seen anything like it before.

This film does a wonderful job of portraying the utter joy and utter heartache that can exist when you're in love.

The actors speak rarely, but still manage to convey their feelings and thoughts via actions and body language. I felt the actors in this film were really very good at getting across how their characters were feeling.

This film was very enjoyable to watch, it is unusual and beautifully shot, Why not give it try!

"I bid you good night."

Jean-Pierre Melville's La Silence de la Mer now seems an atypical work in light of his later, more widely-known gangster films, but this 1949 adaptation of Vercors' hugely popular WW2 novella can lay claim to having influence both Robert Bresson and the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers both in terms of its style and its production. The book was written under an assumed name by Jean Bruller and published by a (literal) French underground press during the Occupation, and it's a surprising work to have been written during the war, not demonising its central German character but rather making a kind of plea for understanding - but not understanding the enemy, rather making him understand why even his best and idealistic assumptions are so wrong.

The story is simplicity itself: Howard Vernon's German officer is billeted at a French farmhouse where the owner (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (Nicole Stéphane) resist in the only way they can - by refusing to say a single word to him. Introduced as a figure out of a horror film yet transformed in the same shot into a less threatening figure the moment he crosses their hearth, he's not a stereotypical Nazi thug, but rather a more sensitive and naively idealistic figure. Soft spoken and polite, he never imposes his will on his reluctant hosts but rather tries to win them over through conversation, never losing his temper at their refusal to respond like a patient suitor. He dreams of a marriage between Germany and France that will take both nations to a higher level, achieving through the reluctant use of force what pre-war politicians failed to do with diplomacy. He doesn't want an empty conquest but, rather, wants France to come willingly to its embrace. He sees the Occupation in terms of Beauty and the Beast, with the proud Beauty destined through time to see that the ill-mannered Beast is not nearly so brutal as it appears. He even admires their silence, taking it as a sign that France is not some easily won over craven coward but rather worthy of Germany's attentions and the effort to woo her to its side. Yet after an ill-fated trip to Paris it is their silence that ultimately wins him over to the realization that the Beast is far worse than he imagined, a rapacious, soulless figure without redemption, eating away at his idealism with the same ingrained contempt with which it destroys the culture and character of those it conquers.

The film itself had a bizarre history: refusing to sell the screen rights, Vercors eventually agreed to allow Melville to shoot the film after the director promised to submit it to a jury of prominent resistance figures and destroy the negative if any were opposed to the finished film being shown. Made completely outside the studio system over a period of months as and when he could raise the money and film stock for a few days shooting, shot with a non-union crew and going through two cinematographers (Luc Mirot and André Vilar) who objected to Melville's unconventional lighting request before striking lucky with Henri Decae (making his first fictional feature after working in documentaries), and filmed in Vercors' house in the very same room the author had shared with the real German officer who inspired the story, in many ways it's an exemplary no-budget film, a virtual three-hander that makes a virtue of its economy, although it's not a perfect one. There is far too much narration at times, particularly in the early scenes where what we can see is constantly described (Ginette Vincendeau makes a particularly unconvincing argument that this isn't the case simply because there could have been even more narration in the booklet accompanying the DVD) and the relationship with the niece isn't particularly well-handled: there's little sense in Nicole Stéphane's performance that she's trying to hold emotions back, and even small moments like her missing a stitch at a crucial moment in one of Vernon's monologues seems muffed in the execution.

Yet the strengths outweigh the limitations. The situation is a compelling one, the act of passive resistance more intriguing than the more conventional heroics of resistance cinema, and the minimalist treatment is often fascinating. In many ways the film is a bridge between the classic tradition of quality style of pre-War French cinema while heralding a more adventurous and stylised approach, with Henri Decae's often strikingly modern cinematography giving notice of why he would become one of the great cinematographers of French cinema with films like The 400 Blows, Lift to the Scaffold, Plein Soleil and several more collaborations with Melville such as Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge. Indeed, Decae's importance to the film cannot be underestimated: as well as being willing to experiment and at once be `anti-cinematographic' yet `classical' as Melville demanded (or to risk the film"looking like crap" as Mirot allegedly put it) he would even work on the post-production and editing of the film alongside Melville. To those unfamiliar with Melville's early work it's a world away from his later crime films (although a brief prologue with resistants exchanging a suitcase with copies of the book on a street corner offers a hint of what was to come), and it's not as powerful or accomplished as his masterpiece L'Armee des Ombres, but it's still a remarkably assured and accomplished debut.

Although it has to be said that the film works better on the big screen than the small one, the Eureka Masters of Cinema PAL DVD is absolutely stunning quality: not only is it better than any of the theatrical prints available for years or Waterbearer's NTSC video release but, considering the technical problems that plagued its production, probably looks better now than it did in 1949. Aside from an interview with Melville expert Ginette Vincendeau, the DVD also includes an excellent 56-page booklet including and extract from her book on Melville about thefilm and, better still, Rui Nogueira's interview with Melville about the film from the long out-of-print 'Melville on Melville.'

All the Fun of the Fear

During the early 1980s, slasher films were very popular; there seemed to be at least one released at the cinema every week. One of the best from this time is Tobe Hooper's `The Funhouse', a highly visual piece that has, at long last, been released on DVD.

Amy (Elizabeth Berridge) is all set for her first date with Buzz (Cooper Huckabee). Along with friends, Liz (Largo Woodruff) and Richie (Miles Chapin), they visit a travelling carnival. A ride on the ghost train gives them more than they bargained for when they decide to spend the night there.

There is little in the way of character development for our four friends. Their dialogue consists of little more than banalities. However, Amy seems to be almost hypnotically aware of the barkers trying to drum up trade for their various exotic delights. Their one-note patter seems to be directed at her,"Alive, alive, alive," intones one in an eerie invitation to peruse his collection of animal freaks.

The film is populated by weird characters, for example, the scavenging bag lady who spouts hellfire and damnation, and the truck driver who invites Amy's yong brother, Joey (Shawn Carson), to take a ride with him before aiming a rifle at the boy. However, most of the tension is gathered from the carnival itself. There are a number of short, clipped scenes with Amy and company on various rides and amusements. For all its gaudy splendor, the carnival is presented in such a way that you feel its inherent malevolence is always about to surface. The sequences inside the funhouse are neatly handled. Its automated models, designed to scare the ghost train riders, become more spooky as they sit lifeless in the shadowy darkness, only to reanimate unexpectedly in front of our blundering foursome.

If you're a gorehound, be warned: for a slasher movie, there's not much on show here. Most of the violence happens off-screen. `The Funhouse' relies more on atmosphere for its chills and in this respect it achieves what it sets out to do. It does come a little unstuck with its lack of character development, and because we don't know enough about the characters' backgrounds, it's difficult to care overly about them on a personal level. Nevertheless, this is an effective piece of horror entertainment. It's a pity that the DVD includes no bonus material.

Memory is all

There have been many dramas and documentaries of what happened in the death camps of WWII but put altogether they would not cut as deeply or inform so completely as 'Shoah'.
Covering in particular Chelmno,(where Jews were 1st killed by gas in vans), to Treblinka, Auschwitz, Birkenau and the Warsaw ghetto Lanzemann does not embellish or re-enact anything, he simply films as survivors, perpertrators and bystanders all tell how they see what happened. I say see and not saw because many have convinced themselves of their own innocence by dismissing what happened. It is for this reason that 'Shoah' needs to be so long in running time, everyone has their own skewed perspective for whatever reason and it is only when enough evidence is gathered from so many differing sides and personalities that you can begin to see a little of what happened.
Bystanders who had rather seen the Jews returned to Israel but were glad to see them go nonetheless, guards"following orders" and a general apathy to one of humanities greatest crimes.
At over 9 hours this is a huge work and requires you to sit through heartbreaking interviews over and over again.
The truth is though that in a society where we are becoming jealous and resentful of those who are not us or do not believe what we do this account is a stark reminder of just how quickly and terribly humans can turn on each other on a massive scale if we allow ourselves to de-humanize others.
I love films but I cannot think of a single other that HAS to be seen. This is without peer and is essential.