Shameless Self Expression

Alain Moussi plays an amnesiac who wakes up in a U.S. military outpost after being attacked by an unseen entity and jumping off a cliff somewhere in Myanmar. Marie Avgeropoulos is the tough intelligence officer assigned to question him. However, before she gets much of anywhere with him, Moussi is whisked away by martial artist Tony Jaa and several other people (Frank Grillo and JuJu Chan among them) who apparently know the guy. Eventually the premise kicks in: Every six years a portal opens and an alien arrives through that portal to battle nine warriors. Nic Cage turns up as a warrior mentor of sorts. Rick Yune is jiu jitsu warrior Captain Sand.   I figured at the very least a sci-fi action movie with Tony Jaa, Nic Cage, and Frank Grillo wouldn’t be dull and that a film called “Jiu Jitsu” would contain some actual jiu jitsu. Directed by Dimitri Logothetis (the quite solid martial arts film “Kickboxer: Retaliation” ), this 2020 film is barely tolerable at best, and there’s no...

Horrible, scheming husband Andre Morell murders his wife (Catherine Lacey) with the assistance of servants Andrew Crawford and Freda Jackson, and they subsequently bury the body. The resident tabby cat witnesses the murder and Morell becomes obsessed with killing it. All perfectly sane behaviour. Barbara Shelley plays Lacey’s niece, who is one of several relatives who come to stay whilst the police investigate Lacey’s ‘disappearance’. Meanwhile, more murders happen, and the cat somehow seems to be causing them.   Although the company is strangely not mentioned in the opening credits, this 1961 John Gilling ( “The Brigand of Kandahar” , “The Reptile” ) chiller is surely a Hammer film. Scripted by George Baxt ( “Circus of Horrors” , “City of the Dead” ), in terms of plot it actually feels more Amicus or AIP, but the atmosphere is all Hammer right from the thunderous opening and the credits are full of Hammer names. It was even shot at Bray studios, so at the very least I’d say it...