Some films hit you fast, like a bullet, while others come on like a shot of good whisky, warming you slowly, leaving a burning, smoky aftertaste. Such is the way with Slow West from 2015, starring Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn.

This deliberately paced, slow burn film, the quirky debut feature from director John Mclean (who writes and directs here), takes us on an episodic journey from a beach in Scotland across the plains of the American frontier, with events leading to an inevitable and brutal confrontation across a wheat field with a widescreen sky.

Smit-McPhee plays a young pilgrim travelling westward to find his lost love, and finds himself in the company of loner Fassbender, their fates more intertwined than the boy suspects, a fact made more complicated as their journey sees them both learning to rely on and like each other.

Beautifully shot by Robbie Ryan, Slow West has the feel of some of the great films from the 1970s, a hint of Terrence Malick’s poetry with a dose of the hopelessness of Monte Hellman’s Ride in The Whirlwind. We know for certain things are not going to end well for one or more of these characters, particularly when Ben Mendelshon’s greasy, fur coat bundled bounty hunter arrives to complicate things further.

Fassbender is exceptional value as always, bringing a likeable unpredictability to his role and Smit-McPhee and Mendelsohn compliment both him and each other well. The excellent casting goes a long way to filling out the slight characters.

A feeling of melancholy runs through the film like a deep cut, as the journey winds through forests and plains, leading to the final explosion of violence and a bittersweet climax where love may not bring the results everyone wants, but takes some to the place they need to be.

Mclean’s film was overshadowed by the release of both The Revenant and The Hateful Eight in 2015, but stands easily besides these other Westerns as a more elegiac and engaging entry into the genre.

There are many remarkable things about Robert Eggers’ horror film The Witch, but foremost of all is that the story takes place in a time and environment that none of us have ever experienced and yet succeeds in telling an utterly recognizable and terrifyingly human story that hits home all too familiarly.

Set in 17^th century New England, we follow the plight of William and his family, excommunicated from their village as a result of the father’s “prideful conceit”, who establish a small, austere farmstead on the edge of a dark, foreboding wood.

When the newborn baby disappears while in the charge of the eldest daughter, events are set in motion that will challenge their faith, their family and their lives.

What follows is a tale that we’ve perhaps seen before, but told with such care for period authenticity and with such sheer intensity that it’s hard not to consider this one of the finest horror films made for a long time.

Eggers infuses each sequence, each shot even, with a deep sense of dread, making this incredibly intense viewing, barely giving us room to breathe for 93 minutes. The film gnaws at you, building to a disturbing, emotional climax I doubt will soon be forgotten. This is great filmmaking that doesn’t fall back on easy scares, there are no black cats jumping out unnecessarily or doors banging to create false scares.

What we get instead is a horrifying view of a family falling apart, of building resentments and suspicions laid bare, mixed in with deeply unhealthy doses of religious fervour (or belief, your mileage will vary), with little hope for a happy ending. Christian love and compassion are quickly subsumed by religious hysteria, and Christian fear of sin and the dark forces of evil.

However one of the film’s strengths is also one of its weaknesses. We’re quickly left in no doubt that there is a genuine supernatural presence at work here, but because the story is so compelling and the performances are so strong I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps a little more uncertainty might have made this an even richer, more layered experience. The final shots in particular left me wanting a less is more approach, but the film is at least strong in its convictions.

Talking of performances, Ralph Ineson (as William, the father) and Anya Taylor-Joy (as eldest daughter, Thomasin) are both achingly brilliant here. Ineson is always a pleasure to watch, and really runs with the bit between his teeth at this co-leading role, making you both admire and curse his character’s pride. Newcomer Taylor-Joy is equally magnificent, giving her character’s eventual fate a great deal of poignancy. In fact the entire cast, including the also always great Kate Dickie, is uniformly excellent. Of course, because this is a horror film these are the kinds of wonderful acting roles that will never be remembered at Oscar time, see Essie Davis in The Babadook as another example of this blind absurdity, but should in fact be showered with awards.

The Witch also features one of the best cinematic goat performances ever, and I guarantee Black Phillip is creepy as all get out.

Superb acting, directing, editing, lighting and production design (which shouldn’t surprise, as Eggers is a former production designer) are topped off by Mark Korven’s score, sombre and jittery and guaranteed to get under your skin. The Witch comes layered in authenticity, everything’s beautifully textured – you can practically feel the mud and smell the forest, and the smart use of period dialogue underlines this.

When the majority of horror films involve impossibly beautiful young people with interchangeable (barely) characters, it’s remarkable that Eggers has given us a film that not only speaks to human experiences and failings, and not only makes those experiences recognisable and relatable, but also manages to resonate and unnerve.

The Witch is that rare film that makes me want to immediately watch it again. Next time though, I’ll do it with the lights on.

What might the clearest, or at least the fullest, reveal of Toho’s newest iteration of the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has come from a toy advert.

Banpresto’s Big Sofubi figure advertises the “13.4” vinyl beauty by Yuji Sakai (the foremost Big G sculptor in the world), to be released in late July, and sold as a lottery prize in “bookstores, hobby shops, game centers, movie theaters, etc” as translated from the original press release by noted Godzilla and Japanese film expert, August Ragone.

As is usually the case, many Godzilla fans are up in arms about the new design, despite only being given a few glimpses of the creature in the just released trailer for Toho’s new film, which will be released in Japan on July 29th.

Shin Gojira (which can be read as New, True or God Godzilla) will be titled Godzilla Resurgence in the west, is directed by Neon Genesis Evangelion creator, Hideaki Anno and  Shinji Higuchi, who directed the special effects for the wonderful 1990s Gamera series (and if you haven’t seen those films yet, you should drop whatever you’re doing and seek them out at once).

It’s not yet clear whether we’ll get to see this film released theatrically outside of Japan, as its status in regards to the recent Legendary/Warner Bros film (about to spin off into its own Godzilla-verse, courtesy of both the forthcoming Kong: Skull Island and indeed Godzilla 2) is yet to be clarified, but I doubt lawyers and licensing deals will stop the Big Guy trampling his way here eventually, if only on home video.

Source: August Ragone

Based on the novel by ex-gangster Goro Fujita, the five films encompassing the Outlaw Gangster VIP series were released in Japan by the Nikkatsu studio, between 1968 and 1969 (a quite breathtaking run) and both prefigured and influenced the more widely known later series of yakuza films, Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity (also released as a sumptuous box set by Arrow).

What sets these films apart from the Battles Without Honour series is the sharp focus on Goro (here renamed Fujikawa) as a central character, and the women and men who orbit his story, friends, lovers and enemies, which gives this series a stronger emotional core. In fact, the series is definitely elevated by the way it looks at the roles of the women, and gives them frequent and effective voices, as they are caught up in the dramas instigated by the men around them.

Simple and direct storytelling holds sway throughout the films, but that isn’t to say there isn’t cinematic beauty to be found here – a knife fight taking place on scaffolding, another beneath the pillars of a bridge, a back alley fight as dust billows the wind up around the protagonists, a knife duel through a city river as teenage girls unknowingly play a game of netball close by, an assassination in a rain drenched children’s playground, Goro taking on an entire gambler’s den under the ballad accompanied open titles or a climactic fight in a paint factory,  this series is consistently visually inventive.

A sequence in Outlaw Gangster No 2 highlights both this inventiveness and deeper heart, cutting back and forth between Goro in Yokahama and his friend Yumeko back in Hirosaki City on her death bed – a cigarette snuffed out, the lights of a train station switched off – is heart rending in its simplicity, as Goro’s boss has previously destroyed the telegram informing  Guro of her illness and the assassin carries out his business unaware of her passing.

Towering above all this is Tetsuya Watari as Goro. The actor strides through this saga like an acting behemoth, moving effortlessly between gangster cool and gangster cold, all the while battling the raging conflicts within him caused by the demands of honour and duty, compromise and betrayal and those of a man in love. It’s a constant throughout the series, a fearless, heartfelt performance that deserves attention and respect.

The series is also filled with great performances from the likes of Chieko Matsubara (as Goro’s love, Yukiko) and fans of the Female Prisoner Scorpion and series can catch Meiko Kaji in the second film, as an appetiser for Arrow’s box set release of those films later in 2016. Of course, Kaji also stars in Arrow’s excellent release of the two Lady Snowblood films.

Colour looks great throughout the films, mostly drenched in the greys and browns of yakuza offices and backrooms, but vibrant when splashed with the hot neons of nightclubs and bars, the dazzling snow of the countryside or the lush green of a mountainside cemetery.

Extras include commentaries, visual essays and trailers and it’s worth noting that this set is the first legal release of the films in the west, and so features the first official, English subtitled editions.

Arrow’s box set is a treat from beginning to end, a saga of love and honour, brutal violence and sweeping romance, that becomes almost soap opera like in its twists and turns. Sit down with the first film and you’ll find yourself emerging a day later, like the yakuza version of a Netflix show. And while certain tropes do reappear from film to film, the sheer power of Watari’s broiling intensity and the elegantly direct but layered storytelling will carry you through the few low points.

Limited to only 3000 copies, you should pick this up as soon as possible, this is a VIP presentation of a VIP series of films that will stay with you long after your first viewing.

Anything that comes from the delightfully obtuse mind of Nicolas Winding Refn is worth your time and his latest film, The Neon Demon, looks to be no different.

The plot describes the story of Jesse, an aspiring model, who moves to Los Angeles, where her vitality and youth are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means to get what she has.

With an intriguing cast including Elle Fanning, Alessandro Nivola, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Abbey Lee and Jena Malone, the first trailer promises hints of Black Swan and Suspiria with its wild and beautiful colour stylings.

The Neon Demon will premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and go on general release later this year. This writer for one will happily trample across an artfully arranged room full of models to see it.

Source: Fandango

Welcome to the first in a continuing series of reviews that will look back on films that might have slipped under the radar or simply have passed you by. With the continuing dominance of streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon Video, it’s become easier to catch up with unsung gems or avoid outright stinkers.

First up is Love & Mercy, otherwise known as ‘that film about Brian Wilson’…

Thankfully eschewing the standard biopic format (see Ray, Walk The Line, blah, blah, blah…), Bill Pohlad’s 2014 film, Love & Mercy, instead positions itself more as a character study of the achingly productive and terrifyingly troubled Brian Wilson and attempts a more interior look at the man rather than simply recreating the edited highlights of his career.

Structurally cutting back and forth between the late 1960s and the 1980s, Wilson is portrayed by both Paul Dano and John Cusack and the film is at its most vibrant when showing Wilson’s incredible gift for songwriting and production, but also submits us to the grueling and heartbreaking treatment meted out to Wilson by both his father and the Svengali-like Dr Eugene Landry (who held Wilson in a horrific grip for years), and draws a clear line between the two figures. Dano and Cusack couldn’t be further apart in their more usual screen personas but here they blend seamlessly to give a fully fleshed out a layered portrayal of this fragile genius.

Performances are strong throughout, with the two leads backed by Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti, but the film’s finest qualities are that it leaves you appreciating Wilson even more, allowing us a glimpse into the beautiful, spiritual sounds he heard so clearly in his head, and thankful that he has been able to find some measure of peace and renewed creativity in his later years.

Finally, Love and Mercy leaves you wanting more and leaves you with the desire to go out and discover (or rediscover) Wilson’s astonishing body of work, and that in itself makes the film both worthwhile and successful.

Image © Lionsgate

In every way a superior production to its predecessor, the makers of Daredevil season two have definitely looked back on their previous failings (and taken note of what made Jessica Jones so successful) and given this run a far stronger sense of identity. This feels more confident and assured in every way, and while I maintain the thirteen episode seasons do more harm than good (every one of these shows has run two or three episodes too long, and would benefit from a healthier HBO/Game of Thrones style pruning down to ten episodes), the shows are improving constantly.

After a stunning first episode, this season takes a measured approach with a strong arc across the next three instalments. The next two arcs fold into each other neatly too, but if there’s one strong criticism to be made it’s that the three core threads don’t finally come together in the way you really hope. There’s a big scene missing, one which you’ll definitely want to see, that actually occurs in a somewhat diminished form. To say more would involve spoilers, but you’ll feel it when it comes (or rather, when it doesn’t come).

Still, there are surprises along the way, especially for those paying attention to Daredevil’s fellow Netflix shows, and several threads are set in place for forthcoming series. One particular thread promises what could be the first strong link to the eventual team up show, The Defenders (bringing together Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist).

Jon Bernthal finally gives us a definitive Punisher, not just a cold hard killer but a fractured, broken soul who frequently seems more like a wounded animal than a man, and his nuanced performance breathes life to a character attempted several times onscreen before but never quite humanising him the way Bernthal does here. This take on The Punisher is genuinely interesting and definitely leaves you wanting to see more. You hear that, Netflix…?

The same applies to Matt Murdoch’s long lost love, Elektra. Last seen several years back portrayed by Jennifer Garner in a generally rotten movie, Élodie Yung essays her as playful and dangerous, the bad girl that Murdoch can’t let go of. Fans of the comic book iteration are certain to be pleased with this take on the beloved character.

Charlie Cox has settled well into the dual role of Murdoch/Daredevil, making him a multi-faceted and far from perfect man, both in and out of costume. Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson (as Matt’s partners, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson – far less of a douche here, I’m glad to say) share greater chemistry with the lead and have more to do this time round. Thankfully, what they do feels, for the most part, more intrinsically a part of the main narrative rather than leaving them with the wheel spinning duties of the first season.

This season’s big bad is far less earthbound than the strong, focused villainy of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin, and opens a very definite door for things to progress into the wider Marvel Universe, but its slightly diffuse nature does leave a less satisfying whole. However, this deficiency is more than made up for by the introduction of The Punisher and Elektra. Both characters are given room to breathe and shine throughout the twisting, turning narrative.

The superheroics are much more fun this time, Daredevil’s costumes and weaponry receive significant upgrades along the way, and we’re finally presented with full on action from the billy-club that became his trademark weapon of choice in the comics (and we’re even treated to the wonderful sight of Hornhead using it to swing across a rooftop or two).

And for those who felt season one kept things too street level, this second season takes turns into far weirder and darker corners of the Marvel Universe. Action is plentiful, constantly exciting (sometimes even breathtaking) and frequently positively brutal, and with more than one costumed character running around this feels even closer to the source material than ever.

Themes of love and responsibility weave through the action alongside questions of what exactly makes a hero, and though the TV budget does occasionally show (the climactic battle feels just a little lacking) this is a wilder, generally more satisfying ride and finishes with multiple endings which, while a little predictable, also leave the door wide open for more adventures with The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen!

With the Netflix shows improving each time, and with early word suggesting that Luke Cage will hit with torn-from-the-headlines subject matter of police brutality against the black community (giving the kind of emotional heft that accompanied Jessica Jones), I’ll be glued to my sofa (again) come September 30th!

There is a sequence near the beginning of this film which perfectly illustrates the frustration I felt coming out of the cinema some two and a half hours later: after the obligatory (read: redundant) recap showing us Batman’s origin (…just in case we’d forgotten about it since Batman Begins in 2005, or Batman in 1988, or any of the other myriad retellings across the past 75 years or so), we cut to the battle of Metropolis which occupied the last hour or so of this film’s nominal predecessor, Man of Steel. As Superman and fellow Kryptonian General Zod wage war, director Zack Snyder reminds us of the terrifying collateral damage caused by their conflict. Into this comes grey-at-the-temples Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), roaring through the panic stricken streets in an attempt to reach the Wayne Enterprises offices.

Wayne reaches his business associate, Jack, on the phone and tells him to get the Wayne employees out of the building. Cut to Jack in the office, surrounded by panicking staff, who are all looking out of the windows of the high rise building at the apocalypse around them, the city being leveled by two unseeing gods. Having received the word from his boss, Jack then tells everyone to start evacuating. Honestly, had I been working in that Wayne office I would have been moving my sorry ass down the emergency stairs the second after the first neighbouring building was destroyed, never mind waiting for my millionaire boss to jet in from the Bahamas to give me permission to leave as the world collapses around me! A simple piece of editing would have given this scene so much more power, instead of leaving you rolling your eyes.

In the middle of a stunningly shot and edited action sequence, this one, blindingly idiotic moment pulled me completely out of the story. With so much of the film being simultaneously breathtaking and moronic, it’s seeing just how close this was to being something far better that makes it such a frustrating exercise.

There are many problems with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and one of the biggest issues is hinted at in that title. As well as being the first live action screen pairing of the titular heroes, it also serves as an introduction for Wonder Woman (of who, more later) as well as The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman, who will all go on to form the Justice League in the 2017 movie. The decision to add these characters to the story line seems to have been decided very late in the creative process, as the glimpses we get of most of them do nothing but add bulge to an already top heavy plot. In fact, one particular appearance (I’ll avoid details for the sake of spoilers), is so completely nonsensical that I had to explain to the friends who joined me for the screening what the hell it was about and who they’d just seen. This overcrowded film would have benefited greatly by excising this fairly ineffectual subplot completely.

It’s also a particularly dour film, full of bombast. Don’t expect much lightness or shade across the bloated running time. Snyder has set the controls for S.E.R.I.O.U.S. and amps up the levels to way past eleven. Why so serious, Zack?

In terms of construction it’s a hot mess, with little in the way of ebb and flow, instead simply cutting from one gloomy, portentous scene to the next, seemingly blissfully unaware of the filmmaking skills so essential to transporting an audience through the journey that makes a story. This happens… BWAAAAM… that happens… BWOOOOOOM… and then something else happens… BDAAAAAAAAM. You’ll be sorely disappointed if you’re hoping for nuance or subtlety.

It’s actually difficult to discuss Superman here without getting into heavy spoilers, but let’s talk a little about the Last Son of Krypton.

I rewatched Man of Steel recently, both in readiness for this sequel and in the hope that time would allow me to view it with a little more kindness, and there is indeed much to love about the film (the cast – who work their hardest to add moments of grace to their characters – design, score) but all of this is crushingly undermined by the fact that Snyder and writer David Goyer just don’t understand Superman. They get him wrong on a very fundamental level in every way that counts.

We’ve since had years of Snyder promising this would all make sense when we saw what came next, that he was working his way towards making the Superman loved by generations. Of course, as we’ve gotten closer to this film we’ve also had to listen to Snyder’s nails down a blackboard comments about Superman killing being canon and other such gems of squealing aural feedback which really should have proved that everything else he’d said was simply lip service.

But I’m an essentially positive guy and I like to believe the best in folk and so I remained cautiously hopeful we might get a redemptive second act for Superman. Sadly, we don’t quite get that, instead Snyder and Goyer (joined on script duties by Chris Terrio) pour on the Superman as Messiah references, which are heavy handed and mostly serve to remove the character even further from what should be his essential humanity.

Snyder’s faults as a filmmaker (“Well gee, let’s just do *this* because, well, it looks *cool*!!”) would be more forgivable if he understood this simple fact about Superman; that he should be the hero above heroes, and the measure by which we hold ourselves. And if Snyder thinks that sounds corny, well that just highlights his utter lack of understanding for why Superman has endured for almost eighty years, but more worryingly, as the creative entrusted to shape the DC cinematic universe, it does not bode well for the shape and tone these films will take.

If you’re still with me, you may be wondering why I found BvS to be so frustrating, given that there’s so much weighted against it. The frustration comes because there is also much to enjoy.

Chief among the positive points is the latest iteration of Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Affleck gives us an absolutely top notch Dark Knight. As Batman he is lithe, swift and brutal, as Bruce Wayne he is cynical and devilish. Affleck is clearly having a blast and that feeling is infectious. His chemistry with Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman (…wait for it, I’m coming to her soon) is a genuine highlight and I’m eagerly awaiting Affleck’s forthcoming solo outing as the caped crusader.

Gadot’s Diana Prince/Wonder Woman is a joy. When the Amazonian warrior finally enters the fray she is the epitome of awesome. It’s just a shame that the Warner Bros marketing department have spoiled every moment she has in the trailers. Equally shameful is the fact that you could remove her entirely from the film and not make a jot of difference to the plot. But man, she is awesome in action. This will also leave you excited about her forthcoming solo adventure.

Seeing the holy trinity of DC characters side by side is undoubtedly a beautiful thing. It’s a shame this was also spoiled way in advance.

Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL provide a fabulous score, and Wonder Woman’s theme in particular is almost absurdly exciting.

The supporting cast (Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane and Jeremy Irons) do their best with the little they’re given and raise up the film a notch or two more than it deserves. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, however, is astonishingly atrocious, spouting unintelligible dialogue that aches for fractured profundity but instead reaches only Friday night coked up jabbering. It’s less a performance than a never ending series of tics and twitches designed to irritate like needles being poked into your genitals.

To sum up, like Man of Steel, there is much to admire but this is a film too obviously dictated by the still evolving goals of DC and Warner Bros for their cinematic universe. Their decision to avoid the patient and careful cross fertilization of the Marvel franchises which lead to The Avengers by simply shoehorning everything into this one film is ultimately self-sabotaging and this shattered, incoherent production reeks of the indecisiveness and lack of control anyone whose followed its journey to the screen feared it would be.

It really should have been Batman v Superman and left the Dawn of Justice to come later.

Image © Warner Bros.

I’m not a mutant, I wasn’t bitten by a radioactive typewriter and my parents weren’t murdered by a cowardly criminal blogger, so the origin of this page is far more prosaic.

It all started… cue dramatic but uplifting music… on Facebook. Years of writing posts reviewing films and TV series finally led to friends requesting that I put my writings in a place that could be more easily accessed than the endless scrolling necessary on that site (though I can’t even begin to guess why anyone wouldn’t want to spend hours searching through drunken status updates and photos of me in my underwear to get to a review of Gareth Edward’s Godzilla).

So if you’re looking for someone to blame, as you sigh at the sight of yet another morass of words added to the onrushing tidal wave of blog pages, just blame my friends. Or Facebook. Or my ego. They’re all culpable.

For anyone discovering these words by accident, my newfound writing superpowers here do have some relation to my background (and indeed my career). I worked in comic books for many years, both as an artist and a scriptwriter, working with the likes of Warner Bros., DC Comics, Marvel UK, Express Newspapers, Cartoon Network and many more. I’ve written for comic books, magazines, books, newspapers, radio and TV. I now work in both education and the animation industry and my writing has continued into both these areas.

For those of you who’ve followed me here from Facebook, well… you asked for this.

So there we are, this post is the equivalent of Superman The Movie, Batman Begins or poor Marc Webb’s ultimately unfinished Spider-Man films (which seemed determined to drag the webspinner’s origin out across at least three movies). Now the dull old origin tale is out of the way we can move on to more exciting adventures, I hope you’ll join me.

At the very least you won’t have to look at photos of me in my underwear.

Image is © Marvel Comics Group