Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (Review)
Introduction Elite Squad, following the fortunes of Brazil’s BOPE, was until last year the highest grossing Brazilian film. And this was a little odd as it was both part funded by the Brazilian government and severely criticised the Brazilian police force by portraying it as extremely corrupt. Well, it’s status as highest grossing film has now been usurped by a newcomer; Elite Squad: The Enemy...

Elite Squad (Review)
Introduction Rio De Janeiro.  1997. The city’s cramped shanty towns (favelas) contain hundreds of thousands of poor citizens and drug running is rife, the gangs controlling the favelas with a fist of iron. Two childhood friends join the Police Force in the hope of making a difference.  Unfortunately for them, the Brazilian Police force is one of the most corrupt in the world and they are both...

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (Review)
Introduction What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster, is it a monster? Generally there's nothing more boring than a Christmas film, the festive genre normally being saccharine rich and aimed squarely at children. Exceptions obviously with the likes of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon but they're just films set at Christmas rather than Christmas films. But lo, from Finland comes a new...

The Interrupters (Review)
The Interruptors Murder rates in the US are still incredibly high at approximately 4.8 per 100,000 people, but is actually half of what it used to be in 1980. Whilst this is a massive improvement over the last 30 years, there is clearly much more that can be done. It is thought that the majority of murders in the US are gang related but a new documentary from Dogwoof proves that in Chicago at...

The Smurfs (Review)
Introduction To start with, I’m going to regurgitate the intro to the review I did a few months ago of the cartoon compilation released prior to this film: It may surprise some, but like most childhood favourites, The Smurfs have been around for a while. They almost certainly hit a peak during the 1980's but were like my own personal faves Tintin and Asterix around for a lot longer than that....

Sarah Millican: Chatterbox Live (Review)
Sarah Millican: Chatterbox Live Sarah Millican is on her way to becoming one of the biggest comedians in this country, the South Shields lass increasing her appearances on TV screens with each passing year.  Sarah has also been nominated this year for two British Comedy Awards and completed a nationwide tour, of which this is the captured result. I have to admit that I’ve been a fan of hers...

Milton Jones: Lion Whisperer (Review)
Milton Jones: Lion Whisperer Live Milton Jones will be a familiar face, if not name, to regular viewers of Mock The Week. He’s the weird one in the Hawaiian shirts with the rather surreal one-liners. You know which one I mean? Of course, you do. Lion Whisperer, named after one of the jokes in his routine, is Milton’s second live stand-up DVD, filmed at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London. And...

The World History Of Animation (Review)
The World History of Animation Animation is all around us, whether within the mainstream or the more avant-garde. From Steamboat Willie, through the Disney classic films, The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, Akira, The Simpsons to Avatar; all use animation techniques to tell their story. Stephen Cavalier has collated a rather lavish and beautiful book that essentially tells the story of World...

Saint (Review)
Introduction Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas (hmm…), is still a great tradition in the Netherlands and despite commercial pressures, has not yet been overtaken by the more traditional Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, tradition prevalent in the UK. Saint Nicholas is thought to be a Spaniard in origin and visits the country on his December 5th birthday to leave presents for all the children who...

Deep Winter (Review)
Introduction There are skiing films and films with skiing in them. I kind of prefer the latter, whether it be guilty pleasure Bond of OHMSS or one of my all-time favourite films, John Cusack’s Better Off Dead – which is just a funny comedy that happens to have some skiing in it. Deep Winter is supposedly a skiing film about two old friends and their ambition to conquer a treacherous Alaskan...

Panic Button (Review)
Introduction It's a well known fact, ignored by everyone, that your every move is logged on the internet. Everything you look at, everything you post and everything you download is logged somewhere. Once you've posted something on the internet, it's there forever. Oddly, most people ignore this and some even behave in a way sat behind a monitor and keyboard that they wouldn't in public.  One...

Pianomania (Review)
Pianomania I'm quite a big fan of DVD documentaries, although oddly not a great fan of those shown on terrestrial TV. I suspect this is because those issued on disc are generally of much more interesting subject matter than those deemed worthy of airing to the modern dumbed down TV audience. Pianomania caught my attention when I first saw it as it was a chance to look into a  musical world that...

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (Review)
Introduction Nagisa Ôshima is a well respected Japanese director who has been making films since 1959 but his first foray into English language films was the 1983 film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. An examination of the clash of Western and Eastern cultures, Ôshima set his film within the microcosm of a Japanese POW camp in 1942, using the novel The Seed and the Sower by Laurents Van Der Post as...

Van Helsing (Review)
Guest review by Amie Key, age 14. Van Helsing - Fails to Bite The film Van Helsing has been a large success for director Steven Sommers since he won an award for his work, but what do people actually think about this 'horror' movie? The film starts of with a black and white re-enactment of the final scene from the original classic Frankenstein, which seems very confusing as an opening scene...

The Adventures of Tintin (Review)
The Adventures of Tintin Amongst my favourite childhood reading were two cartoon franchises (although I didn’t really understand that word back then…) that have endured over the decades. The first was Asterix and Obelix, adventures of two Gauls who fought against the Romans with the aid of a magic potion. The second was Hergé’s Tintin character. Both were available in a long series of giant...

Just Do It (Review)
Just Do It The world of eco activism has rarely been seen on film due to its underground nature, but director Emily James was allowed unprecedented access to a couple of the groups involved for more than a year in order to shed some public light on the secretive world of environmental direct action.  Embedded within activist groups Climate Camp, Plane Stupid and Climate Rush, James follows...

Quatermass and the Pit (Review)
Introduction Professor Bernard Quatermass is an enduring British science fiction character with immense influence on much that has followed. Created by BBC writer Nigel Kneale, Quatermass is a highly intelligent scientist with an unwavering set of morals, working as the head of the British Experimental Rocket Group. Working alongside, but not necessarily agreeing with , the military, Quatermass...

Flypaper (Review)
Introduction I have to admit from the start that I'm not a fan of comedy films like The Hangover franchise. So it was with trepidation that I received this latest comedy from Hangover screenwriting duo Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, especially as Flypaper was not a film I'd even heard of. True there are a number of films that go direct to DVD, but there's a reason for that - generally they're not...

Blitz (Review)
Introduction It seems at the moment that nary a month goes by without another Statham vehicle being released. Statham appears to be this decade's action hero of choice at the moment, but a prolific career will inevitably include some duds. Moving slightly away from his US market, Statham's latest film is a definate English film rather than his more usual European efforts. Statham stars as...

McBain (Review)
Introduction It's the end of the Vietnam war and a crack infantry squad have just been given the good news. Flying home in their squad helicopter, and fired upon by Viet Cong who don't seem to have heard the good news, they spot what looks like a POW camp below them. Rather than abandoning their comrades in arms, they set down unnoticed, sneak up on the camp with the intent to rescue the...

Cedar Rapids (Review)
Introduction I'm not a huge fan of modern comedy films, that's comedy without the action - which I think of as a separate genre entirely. With the odd exception I find that most go for the riotous laugh-a-second vibe, which inevitably just means an endless procession of tit and fart jokes. I prefer in general for my comedies to be a little more tasteful (ok, this doesn't explain why Dude, Where'...

Take Me Home Tonight (Review)
Introduction The 80’s seem to be making a small step towards a comeback in the cinema. After last year’s rather funny Hot Tub Time Machine, which featured old friends revisiting the best decade via a big bath, a new film from director Michael Dowse and Topher Grace (who co-produced and co-wrote the story) actually sees us right back in the 80’s without any time trip trickery. It’s 1988, Los...

Ninjas vs Vampires (Review)
Introduction Earlier this month I reviewed the first film to be released in the UK by Left Films, a low budget film called Cowboys And Zombies. It was released to cash in on Cowboys Vs Aliens and was pretty well done overall, or at least enjoyable. Now here comes the second… Ninjas vs Vampires is actually a sequel film. Justin Timpane and his crew have already had a minor indie hit with the...

Stargate Universe: Season 2 (Review)
Introduction Stargate Universe, or SGU as it is better known, was the latest in the Stargate franchise, following both SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. I say ‘was’ as the show was cancelled after filming finished on Season 2 – and this was despite the considerable acting promise of Robert Carlyle as scheming scientist Nicholas Rush. We ended Season One with the Lucian Alliance making a move to...

Outside The Law (Review)
Introduction Algeria, 1925. The French had been the colonial masters of the Algerians for nearly a hundred years and not shy in using the law against the simplicity of most Algerian natives lives. Here a family of 7 are evicted from the home and land they have inhabited for generations as they don’t have paper deeds and a Frenchman has claimed the land for himself. The family move to a town...

The Kremlin Letter (Review)
Introduction Despite what you may think now, maybe with an air of nostalgia, spying during the Cold War was no glamorous job. Spies were often merciless in their jobs, they had to be as their captors were even more merciless. This side of the spy game is rarely shown on celluloid anymore, thanks in part to the likes of James Bond, but may make a slight comeback with the imminent remake of Le...

Bob The Builder: The Big Dino Dig (Review)
Bob The Builder: The Big Dino Dig Bob The Builder has been fixing it since 1998 and was originally produced using stop start animation with clay models. The series has since moved to CG-animation which adds a certain gloss to proceedings as well as busy presumably a faster and cheaper way to produce the series. The latest release from Bob (Neil Morrisey) is The Big Dino Dig, where Bob and...

My Best Enemy (Review)
Introduction It’s 1938 in Vienna, Austria and Victor Kaufman (Moritz Bleibtrau) is working in his rich Jewish father’s art gallery, preparing an upcoming exhibition. To his surprise and delight, his friend Rudi Smekal (Georg Friedrich) returns from his long travels abroad. Rudi is the son of the Kaufman’s housekeeper of 25 years, now passed, and Rudi is counted as one of the family. But things...

Battle: Los Angeles (Review)
Introduction There’s nothing more staple in the sci-fi genre than alien invasion films. Generally though it either starts with a small incursion or the mysterious appearance before the big bang happens at the end of act one. Not so for Battle Los Angeles where it all kicks off from the first frame. Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is a marine veteran who realises that it’s time to hang...

Doug Stanhope - Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere (Review)
Doug Stanhope – Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere Doug Stanhope is yet another in the line of controversial US comedians who is renowned for his abrasive comedy routines and of upsetting as many of his audience as pleasing. Stanhope has been a stand up since 1990 and is the first release from new label Roadrunner Comedy. The idea for this release came after Stanhope’s photo portrait...

Cowboys & Zombies (Review)
Introduction Cowboys & Zombies was a low budget film from Left Films, originally released in 2010 as The Dead & The Damned that has been repackaged, re-titled and re-released as Cowboys & Zombies to cash in on upcoming blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens.  Regardless of the film itself, it’s a good move by Left Films as the page on Amazon for this film attests as...

Almighty Thor (Review)
Introduction Oh, here it comes…another blockbuster reinterpreted by The Asylum. Bet you cant wait to hear about it, eh? The mighty god Odin (WWF star Kevin Nash) rules the kingdom of Valhalla with his sons Baldir (Jess Allen) and Thor (Cody Deal). Then along comes arch enemy and demon god Loki (Richard Grieco), rising from hell to take possession of the Hammer of Invincibility from Odin and...

The Hunt For Hitler & Hitler's Skull (Review)
Introduction National Geographic has been around since 1888 with their stated aim to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge”. Over 375 million people are exposed to National Geographic worldwide every month though their range of output that includes magazines, TV channel and DVD releases. This release is a double feature of two episodes from different National Geographic series: The Hunt...

The Lavender Hill Mob (60th Anniversary Edition) (Review)
Introduction Ealing Studio's is one of the most famous of British Cinema's studio's, originally built in 1902 and is the oldest continuously working film studio in the world. It's peak years were certainly around the 50's with the release of classic Ealing comedies such as Kind Hearts And Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers, but more recent releases through the studio have...

Limitless (Review)
Introduction Drugs are bad, m'kay? The war on drugs continues to waged on our city streets and the debate of the pro's and cons of Class A and Class B drugs continues unabated. In Hollywood, the majority of films released show drugs in a bad light, despite more than a few of the people involved in making these films actually taking large quantities of drugs at parties out in the open that...

Army of Valhalla (Review)
Introduction In 9th Century pre-Christian Poland, a cruel prince regent called Popiel is holding the throne until his warriors return from battle. Amongst the warriors are the dead King's two twin sons, one of whom will be chosen as his father's successor. Popiel has other ideas though. He has a son to a woman slave and is desperate for his son to succeed him to the throne, egged on by the boy's...

The Smurfs: Four Smurf-tastic Episodes (Review)
Introduction It may surprise some, but like most childhood favourites, The Smurfs have been around for a while. They almost certainly hit a peak during the 1980's but were like my own personal faves Tintin and Asterix around for a lot longer than that. Similar to my favourites as well, the creator of The Smurfs was not English, dammit. No, he was a Belgian cartoonist called Peyo and the date...

The Devil's Rock (Review)
Introduction It's June 5th, 1944. The day before D-Day. Allied Command has sanctioned a series of operations in the Channel Islands designed to distract the Germans from the coming invasion of France. Two Kiwi members of the elite commando arm are sent to Forfar Island, 5 miles NE of Guernsey. Upon reaching their destination, a foreboding concrete bunker with an artillery piece, the...

The Survivor (Review)
Introduction James Herbert is or was one of Britain's best known horror writers, I read a number of his books during the early 80's including The Rats and The Fog. He was essentially Britain's answer to Stephen King and as such was only a matter of time before some of his works were converted to the big screen. Surprisingly, it was not only supernatural novel The Survivor, but also the...

World of the Dead: Zombie Diaries 2 (Review)
Introduction Sometimes from little acorns grow huge trees, and from small independent films comes something akin to success. This is the case regarding a small low budget film called The Zombie Diaries. Released at the same time as Shaun of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, The Zombie Diaries took off in a way quite unexpected by the filmmakers and suddenly they were given a full time producer to...

Hitler & Speer: The Devil's Architect (Review)
Hitler & Speer: The Devil's Architect Albert Speer was one of the enigma's of the Nazi regime. An architect by trade, he caught Hitler's imagination early on and fed upon the Nazi leader's incessant need for grandiose monuments and buildings to celebrate the Third Reich in a bigger manner than either the ancient Roman and Greek empires that still provide monuments to their own...

The Kingdom I & II (Review)
Introduction Hospitals can be big scary places at the best of time. Most people don't particularly want to visit these places with their over powering association with death as well as healing, unless you work there or have loved ones you are visiting. Hospitals are full of endless corridors at the best of times, linking various wards and departments, sometimes filled with caring people who...

Son of Perdition (Review)
Son of Perdition Now I have to admit that Christian fiction, like music, is not a genre that I knowingly engage with. Wendy Alec's Son of Perdition, the first in the Chronicle of Brothers series, was billed by the PR blurb that came my way as a book to rival The Da Vinci Code. What I've discovered since is that this isn't quite the case. For a start, the first few books in this series,...

The Mechanic (2011) (Review)
Introduction The number of remakes coming out of Hollywood these days is phenomenal, I suspect we'll hit critical mass before long and there'll be more remakes than original films being released. I'm not quite sure we're that near saturation point yet though. Still, it's bad enough when you know of high profile/classic films that are being re-made/re-booted, but it would appear that more films...

Don't Look Now (Review)
Introduction Don't Look Now, released at the same time as The Exorcist but put on a double bill with The Wicker Man, is generally thought of as a horror film. It's not, of course, anything like the definition of that genre. If anything, it would be part of a genre known as Eerie. It's a gripping examination of grief, loss and guilt that is just as compelling to watch today as it would have been...

Eyeborgs (Review)
Introduction The surveillance state has always been a concern, making it's mark in both literature such as George Orwell's 1984 and film with the likes of Blue Thunder and Enemy of the State. We know that as technology has evolved, that both keeping and uncovering secrets has become ever more sophisticated. We're aware of things such as key loggers, key word checks (both written and oral) as...

As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me (Review)
Introduction It's rare that you see too much these days on the aftermath of the fighting on the Russian Front, most documentary series focus only on the fall of Berlin. But what of all those German soldiers swept up in the advance of the massive Russian army, surrendering in their thousands due to lack of supplies and reinforcements? As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me, based on a book published...

Psalm 21 (Review)
Introduction Sweden is fast becoming a fashionable place in the world of literature and film making. Stieg Larrson's Millenium trilogy and Thomas Alfredson's vampire flick Let The Right One In have essentially put Sweden centre stage for their time in the sun, and Psalm 21 is a Swedish horror film that attempts to share some of that limelight. Fredrick Hiller's film even shares the same kind of...

Ice Cold In Alex (Review)
Introduction Ice Cold In Alex was a 1958 film based on a British novel of the same name by Christopher Landon, based on his experiences during the war. A long-time classic war film, Ice Cold In Alex is frequently shown on TV and has had a few releases on DVD and in the last year was part of a newspaper series of free war films on DVD. And now Studio Canal have decided to remaster it and release...

Nazi Hunters (Review)
Introduction The Nazi Party and the time of The Third Reich are staples of history TV channels and documentary series, in fact it's hard to think of any era in history that's been covered more. The fascination with the people involved and the events that unfloded during this time are so horrendous that they deserve not only closer examination but also repeating ad nauseum so that we never...

Zombie Undead (Review)
Introduction It would appear that Zombie films have gone through a bit of a rennaisance in the last decade or so, with the re-emergence of Romero and the landmark smash hit that was rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead. Even TV has gotten in on the act with C4's excellent Dead Set and now HBO's even better adaptation of comic book The Walking Dead. And now, here's another UK entry into the annals of...

The Hit List (Review)
Introduction Allan Campbell (Cole Hauser) has had a bit of a **** day. Turning up at work with a black eye, he is then passed over for promotion by his boss in favour of the sleazy new guy who may well have stolen his idea. Heading for home after such a great day at work, Allan is then confronted with the fact that his wife is not only sleeping with his best friend, but she wants him to know...

What War May Bring (Review)
Introduction The latest film by French director Claude Lelouch, celebrating his 50th anniversary of film-making, is a rather strange and at times self-indulgent affair. The film appears to be pushed at audiences as a war film, but whilst the main events are set during World War II this can't really be described as a war film in the more traditional sense - despite the inclusion of a few set...

The Blood Reich: Bloodrayne 3 (Review)
Introduction Uwe Boll. Just the name provokes a reaction from a myriad of film fans all over the world. Boll is a prolific director whose self-proclaimed claim to fame is that he has always delivered his films on time and within budget. Whilst others may not be able to disagree with this, although we're relying on Boll's statement for this, they will point to what they perceive as a lack of...

Civilisation: Is The West History? (Review)
Civilisation: Is The West History? Recently shown on Channel 4, leading historian Niall Ferguson looks at Western civilisation and asks whether the Western civilisation that has been dominant for over five centuries is now in decline. Civilisation's come and go, with examples such as the Roman Empire, the Greeks and the Mayans still showing us how the mighty eventually fall. Western...

Balibo (Review)
Introduction In 1975 the small nation of East Timor declared independence after 400 years of Portugese colonial rule. 9 days later, Indonesia invaded East Timor and most of the events surrounding this invasion have remained secret for for more than 30 years. The Balibo of the title is a small town on the East Timor border with Indonesia and the scene of the execution of the Balibo 5, a group of...

Assault On The Pacific: Kamikaze (Review)
Assault On The Pacific: Kamikaze By 1945 the war in the Pacific was ever turning to victory by the US forces, the carrier battles in 1942 bringing huge losses of ships, sailors, planes and pilots for the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. The Japanese war planners, similar to Hitler's own plans, had planned for a quick war and weren't geared up industrially to replace the lost equipment or men....

The Tunnel (Review)
ThumbnailIntroduction The Berlin Wall was arguably the most infamous landmark of the 20th Century, finally being brought down on 9th November 1989. The wall had been erected as first a barbed wire fence in August 1961 and thus closed off East Berlin from the rest of West Germany for the next 28 years. The decision to raise the wall in the first place was primarily an economic one. Although the division...

Forbidden Planet (Review)
ThumbnailForbidden Planet Forbidden Planet is a classic science fiction film starring the then rather serious Leslie Nielsen with its plot based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Forbidden Planet was slightly different to other sci-fi films of the time for three reasons: the use of respected actors such as Nielsen and Walter Pidgeon, the extraordinary and detailed visual style of Mentor Huebner and finally...

Blooded (Review)
Introduction Hunting foxes on horseback has been an English pursuit for a long time and a regular show in both TV shows and films, mainly in the 'jolly hockeysticks' or 'tally ho' tradition whereby its really seen as a sport for the upper classes whereas in reality it's anything but based on the last campaign by the Countryside Alliance. There have always been animal rights groups against...

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