Shameless Self Expression

It doesn’t surprise me that Martin Scorsese is a fan of cult filmmaker Sam Fuller ( “The Big Red One” , “The Deadly Trackers” ), with this surprisingly mature 1961 crime-drama starting off a little like the early scenes in “Goodfellas” . Played as an adult by Cliff Robertson (interestingly nonchalant about his actions, but perhaps a little too All-American looking for the role), Tolly is a former street hoodlum who catches a glimpse of his father’s murderers, resorts to petty crime and is thrown in jail, where he passes the time thinking of revenge. Robert Emhardt, an undervalued character actor wonderfully portrays the Sydney Greenstreet-ish crime boss (who was not, in fact, one of the men who killed Robertson’s father) who is outwardly respectable, stealing the film. Richard Rust is positively chilling as one of Emhardt’s chief enforcers (and one of the murderers), and Beatrice Kay is top-notch as the moll/girlfriend of Robertson’s father, who looks out for him as much as she can...

A supposedly dead shark has somehow (via some kind of mystical cave!) been transformed into a ‘ghost shark’ and terrorises a nearby town due to its ability to exist in any form of water, and it starts scaring children and tearing limbs. Even though it’s a ghost. Yeah. Lucky Johnson plays the shonky local mayor, Mackenzie Rosman is one of several teens trying to survive, and Richard Moll plays a seriously cantankerous town loony who actually knows a thing or two about the shark and the cave it sprouted from.   Directed by Griff Furst, I have no idea whether this 2013 SyFy schlockfest is better or worse than the infamous “Sharknado” (and comparisons are unavoidable), but I have to admit, it’s considerably more ‘fun’. On what level that fun is, well...that’s debatable I guess, but at least the film seems a bit more self-aware than the rather more po-faced “Sharknado” .   It’s certainly a better-looking movie than “Sharknado” , as cinematographer Andrew Strahorn d...

Base-jumping thrill-seekers (Kenneth Mitchell, Roger Cross, and Terry Chen among them) end up in deep poop in Tasmania (by way of Vancouver it seems) when they find that the location they have chosen for their latest jump is full of Tasmanian devils. Not just any Tasmanian devils, though. No, these buggers are huge, blood-thirsty ancestors of the relatively small, cute-ugly (in that pathetic three-legged dog kinda way) Aussie marsupials. Don’t worry, though, because park ranger Danica McKeller (yes, that Danica McKeller) is on hand, and in addition to being kinda sorta law enforcement (ish), she’s also a Masters student who just so happens to know a thing or two about Aussie wildlife. So she says, anyway. I’m still not sure about that myself, being actually from Australia.   It takes a special level of incompetence to deliver a worse SyFy Channel film than usual, and so director Zach Lipovsky (who apparently comes from a special FX background) and writer Brook Durham ...

Jonah Hill is a dipshit college dropout (well, he was suspended actually) asked by his incredibly understanding divorcee mother (Jessica Hecht, who is surely way too young to be Hill’s mother) to mind the neighbours’ (Erin Daniels and D.W. Moffett) kids for the evening, after Hecht has already arranged to go out on a double date and the neighbours’ babysitter calls in sick. Meanwhile, Hill’s manipulative girlfriend (Ari Graynor) wants Hill to score her some drugs and deliver them to her at a party. So Hill decides to take the kids with him and get her some drugs in exchange for the sex he’s clearly never going to get from her because she’s obviously using him. Unfortunately, these kids are more than a handful; Max Records plays the over-medicated wimpy kid, Landry Bender is the wannabe Kardashian celebrity who wears a seriously inappropriate amount of makeup, and Kevin Hernandez is an adopted Hispanic kid prone to running off. And taking frequent pit stops that are merely an excuse...

Lluis Homar stars as a blind writer going by the pen name Harry Caine, who used to be a filmmaker under his real name Mateo Blanco. The film flashes back to the mid 90s as we discover a tragedy from his past, and learn why he ended up changing his name to Harry Caine. He fell in love with the star of his latest film, Lena (Penelope Cruz), a former prostitute whose jealous rich lover acted as producer on the film (At the beginning of the film, in the present day, we find that the producer has just died). All of this is relayed to young Diego (Tamar Novas), the son of his production manager Judit (Blanca Portillo), the latter of whom checks in on Mateo from time to time and is clearly devoted to him. Ruben Ochandiano plays the mysterious ‘Ray X’, apparently a screenwriter who wants Mateo’s help on a script that seems like an act of revenge against an insufferable father. However, Mr. X is really a figure from Mateo’s past come back to haunt and potentially hurt him. Or does he have o...

A story of two men (Lonely but outwardly caring and genial nurse Javier Camara and sensitive journo Dario Grandinetti) and the two comatose women they love (dancer Leonor Watling and female bullfighter Rosario Flores, respectively), albeit in very, very different fashions as neither woman is expected to make any sort of recovery. Camara (who spent most of his life looking after his mother) loved but barely even knew Watling before an accident struck her down, and he has attended to her ever since. The two men, meanwhile, form a bond as Camara (who is rather obsessively in love with Watling, but clearly a devoted and well-meaning sort) attempts to get the more pessimistic Grandinetti to converse with his loved one, no matter how hopeless their circumstance appears to be. Geraldine Chaplin plays Watling’s rather maternal dance teacher, whilst Elena Anaya turns up briefly as Grandinetti’s ex.   In addition to being my favourite Pedro Almodovar film, 2011’s “The Skin I Live I...

After being blamed for the ‘murder’ of Harvey Dent, Batman hasn’t been seen in years, and brooding millionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become uber-reclusive. A new villainous threat, the hulking and seemingly unstoppable Bane (Tom Hardy) is wreaking havoc on Gotham City, and this reluctantly coaxes the Dark Knight out of exile. Meanwhile, a sexy but selfish cat burglar named Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman, for the slow-witted) has just stolen some Wayne family jewellery, which may or may not be her idea of foreplay. Let’s just say they’re both into tight rubber suits. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays idealistic young cop John Blake, Marion Cotillard plays a smouldering business colleague of Wayne’s, Matthew Modine plays Deputy Commissioner to Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon, Aussie Ben Mendelsohn plays a rich villain, and we get return appearances by Michael Caine’s loyal butler Alfred, and Morgan Freeman’s equally loyal gadget man Lucius Fox.   I don’t like the Christoph...

Margot Kidder (with a perfectly fine French accent) is Danielle, a sweet, if flighty French-Canadian model in NYC who brings home a man she met on a “Candid Camera”-style TV show they were both on. They make love, and the next morning Danielle wakes up to find the dude is dead. She blames it on her twin sister (until recently, conjoined) Dominique, who is apparently evil and murderous. From this point, the film shifts its focus to nosy journo Jennifer Salt, who witnesses the murder from her apartment across the street, and is convinced Danielle did it, not Dominique. She sets about proving it, with help from portly PI Charles Durning. Meanwhile, Danielle’s creepy-looking ex-husband (William Finley) has turned up and helps her dispose of the body inside her couch-bed combo, and clean the apartment up before Salt and the cops (led by Dolph Sweet) turn up. They’re already predisposed not to believe her because she’s annoying and has written unflattering things about cops in the past. ...