Lima

It's like Jodorowsky fathered a child with Panos's daddy George. Definitely a distinctive film, visually impressive, from a man with a vision. Interesting color palette, functionally applied filters, but at least in the first half (which many here criticize, but I liked it better) brimming with atmosphere and remarkable visual ideas, all underscored by a unique soundtrack. The second half is grindhouse carnage, uncompromisingly straightforward and simple, but still retaining a visual identity. The half-deranged Cage is a casting triumph, Riseborough has something magical in his intriguing, deadpan face, and Roache is a charismatic villain but also a woefully comic figure, and this is not an easy thing to grasp as an actor. Mandy is a remarkable film, it's not for everyone, certainly not for the mainstream, but it beats with the heart of a filmmaker who’s not bland and loves to tell simple stories through atmospheric imagery. PS: I enjoyed it even more on a second screening. This film is so out of step with 99% of filmmaking, and yet it's not stupid; hats off to it. I'm not surprised by the worldwide enthusiastic critical response (currently 8.2 on Metacritic) and I’m happy for Cosmatos from the bottom of my heart.

The script is mediocre, even stupid at times. The story isn’t boring, but nor is it thrilling, it has none of Argento’s visual magic, the murders aren’t as sophisticated as it’s usual with him. After watching twelve of his seminal films, Argento's cult status escapes me entirely, and it's clear to me that the distinctive Fulci leads the pack in comparison.

Visually it’s very beautiful, but the story and the twist are so stupid. Argento had a flair for composition, but his scripts – with rare exceptions – are rubbish.

If the film adaptations of Marvel were to go in this direction – i.e. flesh-and-blood characters who hurt with every punch, actions that make sense, witty dialogue, a plot that is not rudimentary and free of clichés – I would be all for it. So far it hasn't happened (honorable exceptions like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok, at least they are distinctive and funny). The series Daredevil and especially The Punisher are complete counterpoints to the film's generic CGI attractions, even though they are backed by a common studio, which is interesting. The Punisher in particular has such a great imprint of realism and believability that I wonder if it has anything to do with comics anymore, and it does a really great job of scriptwriting.

For about three quarters of its runtime, it still feels like a classy four-star animated film, with lots of visual flourishes and ideas, some predictable sequences, and one weaker scene that I've seen in other films (the reveal of the bad guy to the public). But then it builds up to an incredible moving moment, and the pivotal scene with the song at the end made me cry like a little kid – something that hasn’t happened to me in a long time. It's true, the most important thing in life is the family being together in mutual love and respect for the elderly. On top of that, the eye-pleasing Mexican setting, unusual in Hollywood productions, its flair and positive mood. Yeah, it was very good.

The day before, I saw an overstuffed digital coloring book, the new Avengers, and those endless fights didn't breathe any life, the only thing that sweated during them were the computer processors as they rendered the CGI. In Cruise's film, on the other hand, the contact fights oozed animalism, they were raw and you could feel every punch, it was such a relief to see that old-school action flicks are still being made. The charismatic Cavill is a stud, I can imagine him as the new James Bond, even with that fabulous mustache. And Cruise? I don't know how he does it, if eating umbilical cords to prolong his youth, or if he made a deal with the devil, Hubbard, or Ashtar Sheran, whatever, but to look like that at 56 and still perform those stunts, hats off. I'm 11 years younger and when I take my groceries to the 6th floor, by the third floor I'm already putting on an oxygen mask because I feel like I'm going to die :o)

An incredible clean film in its simple message and the modest power of the image. Admittedly, it clashes with my worldview, and in the future I'll always prefer Scorsese's subversive and much richer interpretive masterpiece, but Davis's take on "the most famous story of all" through a woman's eyes was refreshing, and you can’t even say that it’s strongly conservative (seemingly), because as the end credits will also enlighten you, the figure of Mary Magdalene has been treated a little differently, euphemistically speaking, in the eyes of churchmen for centuries. And Mara a Phoenix deliver masterful performances.

For some, the children of Cannon Films are a synonym of bad taste, others can't have enough of them, I myself stand on the fence between the two opposites. This documentary focuses mainly on the era of the two main bosses, Israeli friends Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. It shows the cheap beginnings (Schizoid, X-Ray, House of the Long Shadows, the charmingly bad "worst musical of all time" The Apple), the flirtations with Asian themes (Nero's Enter the Ninja, the sequel Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III: The Domination), genre fusions (Hercules, America 3000, Hooper's overwrought Lifeforce), sparse attempts at art (Zeffirelli's Othello, Sahara, where Golan was convinced to Oscar for Brooke Shields, lol, Konchalovsky's very critically successful Runaway Train) and rides on the popularity of break-dance (the hellishly bad Breakin'2: Electric Boogaloo, Beat Street). There's a nice explanation of the studio's efforts to "woo" acting stars so that the viewer identifies a particular face with Cannon Films. So, they talked Chuck Norris into producing his most trashy flicks of the 1980s, starting with Invasion U.S.A., Delta Force and the Missing in Action series, discovered Dudikoff (American Ninja) and confirmed the popularity of Van Damme (Cyborg), high-fived a fading Bronson (four sequels to the cult-classic Death Wish) and brought the world the popular sex symbol Sylvia Kristel (Emmanuelle one to a million). They tried to ride the wave of popularity of the Indiana Jones movies, so they farted out three (bellow) average adventure flicks with Allan Quatermain. It was commendable, however, that they occasionally lent a helping hand to progressive or somehow clever directors, so I was very surprised by their production of Barfly, about Charles Bukowski, by Barbet Schroeder, or financed Tobe Hooper's work at the time (Invaders from Mars, and the flop Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2). The last quarter of the documentary goes into a deeper analysis of why Cannon went bankrupt. While other comparably sized studios were producing 5 to 7 films a year, Cannon was producing 50 or more. This greed gradually caught up with them, and the final nail in the coffin was the costly flops Over the Top (Stallone's dull tale about an arm wrestler) and especially Lundgren's overblown Masters of the Universe and the awful Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The financial bubble burst, longtime pals Golan and Globus went their separate ways, and Cannon ended up in debt. Not that I feel sorry for them, but I can't deny them the significant part they had in shaping the aesthetic and creation of 80s pop culture, whatever we think of it.

Poster tagline: SEE ASTRO SPACE LABORATORY!!! SEE BRUTAL MUTANTS MENACE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!!! SEE CRAZY CORPSE STEALERS!!! SEE BERSEKR HUMAN TRANSPLANTS!!! Ted V. Mikels, the star of midnight TV shows, has the same cult status overseas as Ed Wood Jr. Unfortunately, he's almost unknown in Europe, which is a shame because the guy is a lot of fun. There's no rush in his low-budget C-movies, and especially not here. The then B-movie star John Carradine (for the less knowledgeable, the daddy in Kill Bill) performs his "operation" (as the film says: inserting radio-electric implants, coagulating blood, extracting memory and installing solar power in the heart), he appears in a good 20 minutes of runtime, during which he explains in detail what he's doing, with constant boring cuts to his leering hunchbacked servant, agents from various organisations going around in confusion, or chasing each other in a hotel for a quarter of an hour in – for an already convoluted plot – an irrelevant scene, and an astro-zombie running around strangling women in all that mess. The sexual revolution that had been gradually gaining momentum is also manifested, so that the female victims are stripped of their tops, the legendary Japanese sex symbol Tura Satana, here in the role of a kind of chief of agents, has a distinctive slit in her skirt, so that she constantly shows her thighs and her cleavage, and throws around orders. The contact fights and the whole story structure in general they the absolute worst. The opening and closing credits are absolutely bizarre, they have children's robots and model tanks running around the screen shooting at each other. It makes as much sense – i.e. none at all – as the lizards in Robot Monster. And what is the absolute gem for a cinephile? That this screenwriting mess is the work of Wayne Rogers, later the lovable Trapper in the M.A.S.H. series. Everybody has to start somehow :o) Summary: amused 1* for the disbelieving laughter, but don't be fooled, it's actually a terrible long-winded bore :o)

Poster tagline: SEE THE DANCE OF DEATH THAT WILL SHAKE YOUR NERVES!!! LOOK AT THE WOMAN-EATER WHO CAPTURES BEAUTIES ON TWO CONTINENTS!!! BEHOLD THE HIDEOUS TENTACLES THAT ENGULF WOMEN IN A DEADLY EMBRACE!!! Surprisingly good for a low-budget British B-movie. Of course, if I were to compare it to Hammer's output at the time, it wouldn't hold up. Hammer produced visually sumptuous horror films, full of colour and beautiful props, while The Womaneater is black and white and not as visually appealing. But I appreciate that it was filmed outdoors (although in the scene when the main villain Dr. Moran is looking for his victim on the street, the surrounding pedestrians throw direct curious glances at the camera, which is quite disturbing), George Colouris plays his villain brilliantly, and the carnivorous plant hidden in his basement is amusing and nice to look at, it looks like a hairy tree with tentacles that move in different ways, and in two scenes it clutches screaming women with them, accompanied by the tam-tams of the doctor's henchman. The plot is, of course, one big cliché, the natives speak in Caucasian English (a cliché typical even today), but the actors are fine, the runtime is reasonable, so you don't feel the urge to look at your watch and the whole thing didn't offend me with its stupidity. I've seen a lot more nonsense from the Golden Age, and Saunders, a mediocre craftsman, didn't disgrace himself here.