Apollo 18 (2011)

Title: Apollo 18 (2011)

Director: Gonzalo Lopez Gallego

Cast: Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins

Review:

I’ve always been a fan of what is commonly referred to as “found footage” films; these are films that are shot documentary style. The idea being that the movie we are watching is part of film footage that was found, after the facts. I like these films because if done right, the resulting film will have an augmented level of realism to it, more so then your regular film. Things don’t feel so ‘Hollywood’ or fake in these types of films. Apollo 18 is one of the latest examples of the found footage genre, and I have to say that the filmmakers behind Apollo 18 were, in my book, quite successful with what they achieved with this film.  

In Apollo 18 we follow the crew of the last American mission to the moon. In real life, the Apollo 17 was the last manned flight to the moon, but for reasons of entertainment this film asks the question: what if there was one mission we never knew about? A mission hidden to us by the government? A mission called Apollo 18?! Ever wonder why  NASA has never gone back to the moon? This found footage film, which is supposed to be decades old, reveals to us the ‘true’ reasons why. Everything on this Apollo 18 mission  was documented because the whole ship was equipped with cameras everywhere. On top of that, the astronauts themselves have cameras with which they record everything. Through their footage we see that strange things begin to occur on the lunar surface. For example, the electronic equipment on their spaceship begins to malfunction for some reason. Upon further exploration of the moon, the astronauts find an abandoned Russian spaceship and some dead cosmonauts. What the hell has happened here?

I enjoyed Apollo 18 for many reasons, one of them being that it’s a well made found footage film. I felt so close to the film; like I was right there with these astronauts, landing on a strange, alien satellite, which is great because honestly, how many of you feel that the universe is one of the greatest mysteries in life? I mean, entire planets, just floating out there. Galaxies, stars, black holes, comets…I find it all fascinating and mysterious. To me, one of humanities biggest priorities should be exploring that great, ominous unknown out there. Just send a spaceship out there and explore the hell out all that vastness! Star Trek style! But the closest man has ever gotten to exploring space is the moon, we haven’t ventured further then that. Not personally anyway. We’ve had satellites go as far as Mars, but a manned mission to mars seems further and further away, especially when we take in consideration that NASA’s funds were cut short this year and that they damn nearly shut down all kinds of space exploration, or so they say. Last time I checked, we still have two space stations in orbit, one Chinese, one International. At least there’s that.

But going to the moon in 69? That was a big deal back in the day, still is in my book. That is if it really happened; there’s that conspiracy theory always hovering about that says that we never truly went to the moon, that it was an elaborate hoax to distract the common American from the horrors perpetrated in the collective consciousness by Nixon and the Vietnam War. Did we go to the moon or not? I lean towards the idea that we did, and that it’s all true. Number one because I love the freaking idea, and number two because there’s just so much footage of the whole thing. Don’t know if you guys have seen it, but there’s a documentary called For All Man Kind (1989); I reviewed it a while back and was blown away by it. On this documentary we can see astronauts bouncing on the lunar surface! We see them actually venturing out into space for the first time! We see footage of them inside of their shuttle moving about in zero gravity! Can you imagine what it must have felt like to have nothing but stars beneath your feet? Seeing the universe down there below you? Those astronauts had one hell of an experience! Strange how many of them have died in mysterious circumstances though…which can lead one to think it was a hoax and the government killed them all to hide the truth? But who knows….the worst is usually the true.

But as I watched it, Apollo 18 brought all these themes and questions to my mind and it added the element of horror into the mix! Quite effectively I might add. I loved that the film wasn’t in such a hurry to tell it’s tale, it goes at just the perfect pace if you ask me, revealing more and more at just the right time. Loved that about it! But trust me, when the film decides to turn up the juice, things get intense alright! Very intense! And since we’re so up close and personal, even more intense! The premise of these two guys alone in the surface of the moon, with not a human in sight makes everything kind of spookier. All that terrain up there in the lunar surface, and it’s so empty, so dark and alone, the perfect setting for a horror movie!

I also enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t an empty movie. It addresses some important themes. For example, one of the characters get’s all paranoid at one point because he feels he is being watched all the time. That “they know” and that “they are watching us” and that we are “guinea pigs” and that he doesn’t want to be watched anymore. I mean, how many of you out there ever get just a little paranoid at how many cameras are filming us on a day to day basis? On the train, on the supermarket, while you are driving in your car, when your walking down the mall, when a cop stops you, hell, for all you know, somebody is zooming in on you from a satellite in space. I like how the film addressed this issue, the constant surveillance issue. When I walk on the streets, I’m always conscious of how many cameras are filming me. Everyday. There it is. That camera. Looking at me. Sometimes I try and avoid the cameras, because I hate that idea that someone somewhere is watching me, studying my behavior, as if I’m some sort of social experiment?  

The performances and situations were all very convincing and I applaud the filmmakers for convincingly bringing the 60’s back to life. I mean, the footage truly does look old and decrepit, scratched, aged, yellowed. This effect was achieved because for some scenes they actually used old cameras from the 70’s! All the space gear looks real, as do the spaceships and the electrical equipment. Makes you think if they pulled this off so convincingly for this film, maybe they pulled off something similar back in the day and fooled an entire nation? This lunar hoax thing makes me think of a Barry Levinson’s  Wag the Dog (1997), a film in which the U.S. government pays a filmmaker to shoot a fake war to distract the people from a sexual scandal involving the president. I applaud this director, a Spanish guy by the name of Gonzalo Lopez Gallego for making this film look more expensive then it is. I’ve never seen any of his previous work, but I hear good things about a film he made called Nomadas (2001) which I’ll hopefully be checking out soon. But if you can believe it, they made this movie for 5 million dollars, which is pocket change for Hollywood. This film shows once again that you don’t need kajillions of dollars to make a good film. You just need a good crew, good actors, writers, directors. The artistic side is the one that needs to be of quality. Then, even with a little money, the resulting film should be something worth while. Like Apollo 18.  

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Film Connoisseur celebrates its 400th post! Plus: Memorable Moments in Zombie Zinema Part I

Hello gals and pals, today we celebrate The Film Connoisseur’s 400^th Blog Post! That’s right my friends, so far, I’ve written 400 reviews and articles for your reading pleasure. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride, I know I have. As some of you many know, whenever I celebrate anything on this here blog, I tend to do special articles…and since I don’t want to loose that tradition just yet, I’ve decided to do a blog post on Memorable Moments in Zombie Cinema.

I’d like to thank all those of you who’ve subscribed to the blog (all 238 of you as of this article) and stuck around. I know not all of you comment, but I do know that a lot of you out there are reading because The Film Connoisseur gets more than 1,300 clicks per day! Not too shabby! These figures let me know that somebody out there’s reading right? Also, thanks to all those who comment on a regular basis, your support is appreciated people, you know who you are!

So to the business at hand: Memorable Moments in Zombie Cinema! As some of you may know, I’m a real zombie nut! I mean I’ve watched quite a huge amount of these films…hell; I’ve even made two zombie movies myself! And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from a zombie movie it’s that they LOVE to impress with their gory moments and totally zany situations! Usually with zombie films, the crazier the scenario the better!

So, before I get all sentimental on you guys, I offer you some grizzly madness instead. Here’s my list of some of the most memorable zombie characters and scenarios I’ve come across, along with some of the grizzliest, goriest and the downright nastiest moments in a Zombie Cinema! Of course, not everything is on this list because….there’s so damn many zombie movies out there! Still, I think I’ve managed to work up an interesting list. This list of zombie moments has turned out long, so I’ve decided to split this article in half. To read the second part of this article, go here: part II. 

Memorable Zombie Moment:  BUB THE ZOMBIE LEARNS TO SHOOT A GUN

Title:  Day of the Dead (1979)

Zynopsis: Zombies have taken over the world! A group of humans is surviving in an abandoned military bunker, but the question always lingers in the air, how long before the zombies get into the base? And can the humans live amongst themselves in peace, or will their violent natures make them kill each other first?

Comments: So yeah, this is the first film as far as I’m concerned where a zombie is ‘domesticated’ though that sounds like a complete contradiction because zombies by nature eat flesh, and there’s nothing domesticated about that! But still, on this film, a mad scientist thinks that he is capable of getting a zombie to be more human, to remember the pleasures of listening to music, or to remember how to brush its teeth. Unfortunately, he has to learn the bad way that zombies only care about one thing: eating live flesh! This film offers us some of the goriest moments on any zombie movie ever! Like the scene in which a group of zombies tear apart a character called Col. Rhodes! Also, the film has some truly gory nightmare sequences. Day of the Dead is my favorite of Romero’s  quadrilogy for more than one reason. Gore, lot’s of zombies (the most on any Romero flick) and a decidedly serious tone. To me this is Romero at his darkest and most nihilistic. 

Quote: “We don’t have enough ammunition to shoot them all in the head.  The time to have done that would have been in the beginning. No. We let them overrun us. We are in the minority now, something like 400,000 to one by my calculations”

Memorable Zombie Moment: BIRTH OF A ZOMBIE BABY

Title:  Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Zynopsis: A group of humans decide to hide inside of a shopping mall as the zombie apocalypse rages on in the outside world. Will the world ever return to normal? Is this happening all over the world? As they ponder these questions, they also have to decide if they are going to stay or if they are going to make a run for it towards an island in the sea where they think they might be safe.  

Comments: So yeah, this is a remake of the George Romero classic, but it offers up so many new moments and situations that at times it feels like a completely different movie all together and not a remake, which is a good thing in my book. A couple of things caught my attention about this one, for example, we see so many more zombies than we ever did in Romero’s film! There’s literally thousands of zombies on screen at times! And another thing that blew me away: the birth of a zombie baby! Not that it’s something that we haven’t seen before. There was a zombie baby in Dead Alive (1992) and in a Spanish zombie film called The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974). But still, a zombie baby is always shocking and is not an easy gag to pull off convincingly. As evidenced in Dead Alive, it can come off as comedic as well. But on this film it was pulled off in an effectively creepy manner. Plus, there’s that amazing sequence in which the good guys use a chainsaw to chop a bunch of zombies in half that’s so freaking memorable!

Quote: “Hell is overflowing and Satan is sending his dead to us. Why? Because you have sex out of wedlock, you kill unborn children; you have man on man relations, same sex marriage. How do you think your god will judge you? Well friends, now we know. When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

Memorable Zombie Moment: JASON VOORHEES SHOWS US HIS UGLY FACE

Title: Friday the 13^th Part 7: The New Blood (1988)

Zynopsis: On this one a girl with psychic abilities named Tina is trying to cope with her fathers death; apparently she’s having a real hard time getting over it. Her psychologist decides it’s a good idea to take her out into the woods, to the place where her father died so she can confront her fears and move on. Unfortunately all this does is trigger her telekinetic abilities so much that she resurrects Jason Voorhees, who was liying dormant at the bottom of Crystal Lake, where he died on the last film. Will Tina be strong enough to confront Jason Voorhees mano a mano?

Comments:  So this one was special because it introduced the element of telekinesis into a Friday the 13^th film, and I’m a huge fan of telekinesis. But also because it’s the first film in which we actually get to see Jason’s face after he’d become a permanent member of the undead. Before Friday the 13^th part VII: The New Blood, we had never seen his face as a zombie. The show off between Tina and Jason is a highlight of the film, director John Carl Buechler makes sure that Jason looks really putrid and zombified on this one. On this one Jason really looks like a rotting walking corpse, more so then on any other Friday the 13^th film.

Quote: “There’s a legend around here…a killer buried, but NOT dead. A curse on Crystal Lake, a death curse. Jason Voorhees curse. They say he died as a boy, but he keeps coming back”

Memorable Zombie Moment: HOT CHICK GETS TURNED INTO A ZOMBIE

Title:  Return of the Living Dead Part 3 (1993)

Zynopsis: Question: Your girlfriend is curious about the secret military base your father works in and she wants you to break in and see what’s going on in there, what do you? Well, you break in so she can see it of course! Both teens soon discover that what goes on inside are military experiments in re-animating the dead! They seem to be using a gas to bring the dead back to life! So what to do you do when your girlfriend dies in a motorcycle accident? You bring her in and revive her of course!   

Comments: This film marks the beginning of a downward spiral for the Return of the Living Dead franchise as far as I’m concerned, but this third installment does offer up a couple of cool gory moments. Like for example, when Julie starts to turn into a zombie and rigor mortis begins to set it, she starts introducing pieces of glass into her flesh so that she doesn’t loose sensibility! This one was directed by Brian Yuzna the director behind Bride of Re-Animator, Society and Beyond Re-Animator.  

Quote: “Julie, are you eating him? You should stop it.”

Memorable Zombie Moment: BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR RIPS OUT HER HEART

Title: Bride of Re-Aniator (1990)

Zynopsis: Dr. Herbert West’s interest in conducting experiments involving the resurrection of the dead has no end! On this film he attempts to resurrect Dr. Cains girlfriend by placing her heart in a corpse that he plans to re-animate. Sounds crazy right? Oh, wait, did I mention that the corpse they will use in the experiment is made up of a bunch of different people sewn together!? Trust me, this isn’t the end of the craziness on this movie…on this one you’ll see things that would make the freaks in a freak show pale in comparison. Will they succeed in their experiments? Can Dr. Herbert West re-animate someone’s soul as well?

Comments: This one was directed by Brian Yuzna, a director/producer who often times collaborates with Stuart Gordon, the director behind the first Re-Animator film. Consequently, Yuzna also ended up directing Beyond Re-Animator (2003), the third installment in the franchise. This second one isn’t a bad sequel, in fact out of the three Re-Animator films, this is the one that incorporates the most ideas from H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Dr. Herbert West’ stories. Want some more craziness? How about a zombie head that flies! With bat wings?!

Quote: “I’ve created what no mans mind nor woman’s womb could ever hope to achieve!”

Memorable Zombie Moment: BRUCE WILLIS AND QUENTIN TARANTINO GET TURNED INTO ZOMBIES

Title: Planet Terror (2007)

Zynopsis: Thanks to a mistake by the Government (like always) zombies have now started to spread across the land! A motley crew of individuals try to stay alive during the whole ordeal. Apparently, there’s no way to stop this madness from happening! People are turning into bubbling, slimy, melting zombies left and right!

Comments: This is one of my favorite zombie movies period. I mean, it has everything and anything you could ever want in a zombie movie! Toxic Gas that turns people into zombies! The zombies in this movie melt and explode! They are gooey, slimy and disgusting! The cast is freaking amazing, so many good actors on this one makes it all the more fun. It’s the kind of movie that has many different characters in it, each going through their own ordeal. Planet Terror is a b-movie and it freaking knows it. It succeeds thanks in no small part to Robert Rodriguez’s complete grasp of what makes this kind of movie fun and entertaining. This film is a fast paced ride every step of the way. Highly recommend it!

Quote: “I’m going to eat your brain and gain your knowledge”

Memorable Zombie Moment: ZOMBIES GET CHOPPED TO SMITHEREENS BY THE BLADES OF A HELICOPTER

Title: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

Zynopsis: The U.S. military helps the people in Great Britain deal with the zombie plague. In the middle of the madness, a family tries to survive.

Comments: The sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002), had me a bit worried at first for one reason and one reason alone: Danny Boyle wasn’t directing and Alex Garland wasn’t writing. For me, it was the combination of those two great minds at work that made the first film so effective. On this second one we Juan Carlos Fresnadillo both writes and directs. To be quite honest I’d never heard of this Spanish director before, which is why I was skeptical about this sequel at first, but once I watched it I realized the film was in the hands of a competent director. The films most amazing moment is that sequence where they chop hundreds of zombies with the blades of a helicopter. This is an idea that was first used by Romero on a smaller scale in Dawn of the Dead (1979) where a zombie gets the top of his head chopped off by the blades of a chopper. Robert Rodriguez has a similar scene in Planet Terror (2007) which was released a couple of months after 28 Weeks Later, but it was 28 Weeks Later who did it first! This is an extremely effective sequence and one that I can honestly say completely surprised me and blew me away.

Quote: “They’re executing code red. Step one: kill the infected, Step two: Containment. If containment fails, then Step Three: Extermination”

Memorable Zombie Moment: ANACONDA EMERGES FROM ZOMBIE BRIDES MOUTH

Title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

Zynopsis: Dr. Dennis Allan travels to Haiti to investigate a drug that is made there that has medical capabilities. Supposedly the drug paralyzes you, you appear to be dead, yet you are completely conscious! When Dr. Allan arrives to Haiti and starts asking questions about the drug, he realizes he’s getting into something he doesn’t fully comprehend! He enters a world of dirty politics, voodoo and yes, zombies! 

Comments: So I love this movie and consider it to be one of Wes Cravens best films ever. Is there a better Wes Craven movie out there? A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) could be it, but The Serpent and the Rainbow is in a close second place that’s for sure! This film is filled with many nightmarish images and dream sequences, some of the best in Craven’s nightmare filled career and it’s a film filled with many eerie moments, like the scene where Dr. Allan encounters a zombie that’s aimlessly walking about inside of a cemetery. Want to feel what it’s like to be buried while still alive? Watch this movie! 

Quote: “Don’t let them bury me! I’m not dead!”

Memorable Zombie Moment: RESURRECTION OF THE ARMY OF DARKNESS

Title: Army of Darkness (1992)

Zynopsis: Ash, the demon slayer from Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987) travels through a vortex and ends up stuck in medieval times where he has to help the people there fight the terrors of the deadites and recover the ‘Necronomicon Ex Mortis’, loosely translated….The Book of the Dead! It is in Medieval Times where Ash must learn to stop thinking only about himself and start learning about helping others, and becoming a hero. Will he ever find a way to return to his own time? 

Comments: Though the deadites are really ‘demons’ who come to torture humans and “swallow their souls”, the titular Army of Darkness that is resurrected in this film are bonafide zombies. They are dead, and they walk! And they kill! This movie is pure cartoonish fun. These where the days when Raimi was still having fun with his films instead of churning out studio films like the despicable Spider Man 3 (2007). Hell, even Drag Me to Hell (2009) was lackluster when compared to Raimi’s Evil Dead days. Army of Darkness isn’t as gory as Evil Dead I and II and it’s even more inclined towards comedy then part II ever was. But still, Army of Darkness is one hell of a fun ride. In typical Raimi fashion this film moves pretty quickly, with visual gags and jokes every five minutes, one thing is guaranteed in early Raimi films: you wont get bored! Stand out zombie sequence is when the titular Army of Darkness emerges from their tombs and joins the land of the living.  

Quote: “Dig Damn You! Dig Faster! I shall command every worm infested son of a bitch that ever died in battle!”

Memorable Zombie Moment: FIRST ZOMBIE COP EVER

Title: Dead Heat (1988)

Zynopsis: A pair of cops (Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo) investigate a company that is performing experiments in re-animating the dead. Their ultimate goal? To achieve immortality! But first the bad guys need money, so they send out zombie burglars (you read that right!) to perform robberies across the city! The real problem comes when the bad guys decide to teach these nosy cops a lesson, so they send out a three faced zombie to fight them. Treat Williams ends up dead…only to be resurrected by the bad guys resurrection machine! Now, Treat Williams has to try and solve this caper before he rots away!

Comments: Okay, the premise I typed above sounds nuts right? But trust me; there is more craziness than that on this movie! One scene has the cops enter a Chinese restaurant to ask a few questions only to have the owner of the restaurant turn on a resurrection machine that makes all the dead animals in the kitchen come to life! As it turns out, the cops end up fighting zombie ducks, zombie cows, and zombie fish! Zany right?! Dead Heat is without a doubt one of the craziest zombie movies you will ever see. I mean, who ever thought of a zombie cop having to solve a crime before he rots away? Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams cheesy dialog will also keep you entertained. And Vincent Price plays the bad guy!

Quote: “Hi Doug, welcome to zombieland!”

Memorable Zombie Moment: FIRST ZOMBIE CAT AND DOG

Title: Night of the Creeps (1986)

Zynopsis: A midget alien scientist (I know!) gets rid of an illegal experiment and sends it hurling out into space, only to have it land on our planet! The experiment? Oh nothing, just alien slugs that reproduce inside of the human brain! When they get into your head, you get turned into a zombie! Then after they’ve reproduced, they make your head explode and all the little alien slugs scurry about looking for new brains to reproduce in! Can Chris and J.C. stop the aliens from taking over their college campus? 

Comments: So this one is special for me for various reasons: number one, it was directed by Fred Dekker, a director whom I respect very much because he made two of my favorite movies ever, this one and Monster Squad (1987)! Two movies that didn’t connect with audiences when they first came out, but have found their audience and become genuine cult classics. Second, I love everything about it! It has alien slugs! Zombies! Bad ass cops! Lonely science labs with frozen corpses! Hell, we even get insane killers who’ve just escaped from the insane asylum! This movie packs a wallop and its fun as hell. Tom Atkins plays detective Ray Cameron, his attitude and one liners alone should keep you giggling every five seconds. Night of the Creeps is an endearing ode to 50’s science fiction films.

Quote: “Thrill Me!”

Memorable Zombie Moment: ALICE FIGHTS ZOMBIES WITH TELEKINETIC ABILITIES! 

Title: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

Zynopsis: Alice and a group of survivors must travel across the Nevada Dessert in order to make it to Canada where supposedly a camp of human survivors resides. On their way their they encounter everything from cannibalistic motorcycle gangs (straight out of Mad Max!) and zombie birds! Will they make it?  

Comments: I was so disappointed with Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse (2004) that I wasn’t expecting much from this one. In my book, Apocalypse is atrociously bad! Still, I decided to give Extinction a chance anyways, just because it was entirely different creative team behind it. Glad to say I was pleasantly surprised. One of the best things that happened to this third film was that Russell Mulcahy directed it. He is the director behind Highlander (1986), one of my favorite fantasy films ever. And it’s no surprise that this film has various elements borrowed from the Highlander films. When Alice uses her telekinetic ability to blow everything up, you cant help but think of similar sequences from the Highlander films. But to me that was a good thing. The film also has some elements borrowed directly from other films, for example Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985). Actually, if I remember correctly, when I watched this film, it felt as if P.W. Anderson (who wrote and produced this one) read George Romero’s original script for Day and the Dead (which was more ambitious then the film Romero ended up making) and tried to do his own version of it, with way more money then Romero ever had, which is kind of cool, a nice homage to the maestro of zombie films. Most original part of the film? Alice kicking zombie ass with her telekinetic powers!  

Quote: “The Umbrella Corporation thought they’d contained the infection. Well, they were wrong. Raccoon City was just the beginning. ”

Memorable Zombie Moment: ZOMBIE VS SHARK (OF COURSE)

Title: Zombie (1979)

Zynopsis: A seemingly abandoned boat suddenly appears on the New York coast. Upon closer inspection, the police learn that the boat isn’t empty, it’s actually inhabited by zombies! Further investigation let’s them know that the boat belonged to a Dr. Bernard, a scientist who is supposed to be in the Antilles, conducting a series of experiments with which he hopes to find a cure for a deadly decease that is turning islanders into zombies and bringing the dead back to life!

Comments:

This film is a seminal zombie classic, which means if you truly want to see the best of the best within the zombie genre, then this is one of the first ones you need to watch. A couple of things make a Lucio Fulci movie a Lucio Fulci movie and all these elements are present in Zombie. Let’s see, maggots? Check! Close Up of Eyes? Check! Animals going crazy? Check! A nonsensical plot? Check! Even with it’s insane plot and its flaws this is still one of Fulci’s best films, it has some of the  best zombies on any zombie film and lots and lots of gore! Some images are truly creepy as well, like those scenes of zombies walking down a bridge in New York City. Or of course, the memorable Zombie vs. Shark scene which has to be seen to be believed, that scene alone is worth the price of admission for me. Another famous sequence is the resurrection of the Conquistador Zombie, one of the most memorable zombies ever in zombie cinema. 

Memorable Zombie Moment: EMPTY STREETS OF ENGLAND, ZOMBIE BURSTING IN FLAMES CHASES JIM DOWN THE STREETS

Title: 28 Days Later (2002)

Zynopsis: When Jim wakes up from a comma, he wakes up to a lonely world, with apparently no humans to be seen anywhere! Where did everybody go? Where are all the people? After walking around the city searching for a sign of human life, he suddenly realizes that the reason why no one is around is because they’ve all been devoured by zombies! And zombies are running rampant and hungry through the streets! Will Jim make it to a safe haven before the zombies get to them?

Comments: Along with Resident Evil (2002), 28 Days Later was responsible for reigniting interest in zombie films. As a result, a “new wave” of zombie movies came after their release. But out of the two, 28 Days Later is the superior picture because it is not as comic bookish as the Resident Evil films. 28 Days Later has that deadly serious tone that usually is only reserved for a George Romero film. But Danny Boyle harnessed that feeling of dread quite well. The film has an excellent score, great performances and a truly post-apocalyptic look and feel. Same as many other zombie films, it’s the humans who end up being the bigger threat in the film. The quality of this film (one of the best in the genre by the way!) is due to the creative team behind it: Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland.

Quote: “And then I wake up today in a hospital…I wake up and I’m hallucinating…or I’m…”

Memorable Zombie Moment: ZOMBIES FALL IN LOVE AND KISS

Title: Wild Zero (2000)

Zynopsis: In the japanese zombie movie Wild Zero the earth is being invaded by aliens! Huge ships hover on the horizon, the effect these ships are having on humanity? Oh nothing, they are just bringing the dead back to life that’s all! Rock and Roller and all around rebel without a clue ‘Ace’ must try and protect his girlfriend from the zombies! Will they find a way to stop the creatures before they take over all of Japan?

Comments: This is probably one of the most original times you’ll have watching a zombie film. What I love about this film is how it mixes punk music with the zombie film. You see, the film starts out in a club with real life Japanese Punk Band Guitar Wolf playing on stage. Now this isnt just any punk band were talking about here, these guys sing from microphones that spit fire out of them! These guys sound like the Japanese version of the Ramones and the Misfits fused together! Coolest part? Guitar Wolf are the  heroes of the film! So they kill zombies with electrified guitar picks and turn their guitars into swords that cut entire spaceships in half! Watch it experiences, if only to watch two zombies falling in love. It’s similar to Return of the Living Dead in the sense that they have that Rock and Roll attitude about them. Ace, the main character in Wild Zero lives and breathes rock and roll. If Rock and Roll where a physical entity, he’d make love to it! 

Quote: “Rock and Roll is not over baby! Rock and Roll never dies! ” 

Well, that's it boys and ghouls. If you haven't had your fill of zombie madness, then go here for part II of this article! It's filled with more grizzly gory fun, dont miss it! 

A zombie gets electro-cooked on Return of the Living Dead Part II 

Purple Rain (1984)

Title: Purple Rain (1984)

Director: Albert Magnoli

Cast: Prince, Apollonia Kotero, Morris Day, Clarence Williams III

Purple Rain is one of those movies that completely captures what it was like to live in the 80’s. I lived in the big apple during the time this film was made and watching it brought back so many memories about the over all experience of living during 1984, a day and age in which people break danced on the streets and break dancing battles erupted during lunch time amongst students. This was also the time when Madonna, Michael Jackson, Cindy Lauper and Prince’s careers were starting to really take of. Purple Rain came during those years in Prince’s career when fame was beginning to engulf him. The film was a brilliant career move  for Prince because it mixed the selling of box office tickets with the selling of the films soundtrack, which of course made Prince’s career and assured him as a main stay in popular culture. Plus, he’s just so damn eccentric! How could he be ignored? The dude was born to be on stage. I loved every second of this Rock and Roll film! When it was first released, I was just a kid; a pre-teen, what the hell did I know about Prince and how awesome this movie was? All I knew about Prince back in those days was how much I kept hearing “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry” over the radio, and that I liked these songs. Little did I know that this awesome movie was attached to them!

Purple Rain is all about a character called ‘The Kid’. He has a band called ‘The Revolution’ and they are currently pretty popular in this music club they play in called First Avenue and 7^th Street Entry, which by the way is a real life music club in Minneapolis. According to the manager the club is the hottest place in town to play if you want to start your career. The Kid is enjoying his trip to popularity, but he soon confronts a couple of problems on his way to stardom. Number one, there is a competing act called ‘The Time’ that is trying to muscle ‘The Kid’ and his band ‘The Revolution’ out of the stage. At the same time, there’s a new girl on the block called Apollonia who’s looking for fame and fortune and everything that goes with it. She wants to get her career started, and this club looks like it’s the place to do it. Apollonia is immediately attracted to ‘The Kid’ whom she sees performing up on stage, doing his thing. But Morris, the lead singer for ‘The Time’ thinks this new chick is hot too, so he offers her a position as lead dancer on his band. In the midst of this love triangle, ‘The Kid’ is trying to stay focused on his craft because you know, the dude wants to really make it. Will his ego get in the way? Will Apollonia end up with Morris Day or with Prince?

So first off, this is a rock and roll movie through and through. These are films that examine the Rock and Roll lifestyle from every angle, they glorify it, demonize it, explore it, make fun of it, the whole shebang. Good examples of films of this nature are Almost Famous (200), Still Crazy (1998), This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny (2005), The Doors (1991), Sid and Nancy (1986) and Light of Day (1987) with Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox. These are films about characters that live and breathe Rock and Roll, and die by it as well. They’d give anything for it. In Purple Rain ‘The Kid’ as portrayed by Prince himself is the epitome of a rock star. He is self centered, focused on his career and kind of a pompous prick. But when he gets up on stage, there’s no doubt he is the best at what he does.

An interesting element about Purple Rain is that the whole film is sprinkled with songs from the album. Actually, let me make this clear, this film IS the album. The songs tell the story. During various points in the film, it’s all about The Kid getting up on stage and performing a song. If I’m correct, every single song of the album was played in the film. I don’t know if I should consider this a unique film because of this or if it was just a slick marketing move. It’s probably a mix of both cause I actually enjoyed hearing this songs I’ve heard hundreds of times before through out the whole film. I thought it was cool how the songs actually help to tell the story. It is also a romantic film, Prince falls for Apollonia, but so does Morris Day, so there’s this battle over Apollonia’s affections, yet we all know who’s going to win it right? This reminds me, Purple Rain is sprinkled with lots of sensuality, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows a thing or two about Prince. How sexy is this film? Well, when Purple Rain was first submitted to the MPAA, they gave it an X rating for a sex scene between The Kid and Apollonia, which is quite understandable. I mean, as it is, that sex scene is steamy enough already! So they trimmed it down and got an R. There’s another sex scene that was considered way to over the top which never saw the light of day.  Another element that distinguishes the film is the comedy. Morris Day is one of the funniest things about the movie. Actually many of the characters in the film all have a great sense of humor to them. They had me laughing out loud, this is a very lively film. But the film isn’t all happiness, The Kid has an abusive father who beats him and his mother. At the same time, some of The Kid’s band members hate him because he doesn’t want to hear their ideas for new songs. He only cares about his own music. Will he ever learn to collaborate creatively with others?

This movie was a smashing success for everyone involved. In fact, it was a triple edged success for Prince because at the time he had the #1 film, #1 single and #1 album in the nation, a feat never achieved before by anyone! The film made 80 million at the box office, which I guess was a lot for a film like this one back in those days. Prince actually won an Oscar for the music to the film. And while we are on the subject of film and Prince, Prince has tried his hand in filmmaking more than once! He didn’t direct Purple Rain, but I think it was a stroke of genius to pare the film with the album. This was a formula that Prince tried again and again through out his career. For example he mixed mediums again in one of his world tours where he would sell the ticket to the concert with a copy of his new album included in the price of admission, in this way ensuring that both his tour and his new album were successes! He tried duplicating the album/movie formula with a film called Sign of the Times (1987), unfortunately it didn’t work as well, the concert film flopped only to find some popularity when it was released on VHS. He tried the album/movie formula yet again with a film called Graffiti Bridge (1990), sadly, another flop, which surprised many considering that it was a direct sequel to Purple Rain. Even with this to it’s advantage, the film flopped. I guess it was too little too late, the times had changed. The truth is that outside of Purple Rain, Prince’s films have always flopped or received Razzies. Even when he is paying homage to Federico Fellini he does badly. His homage to 81/2 called Under the Cherry Moon (1986) was panned by critics, because audiences where expecting a sequel to Purple Rain and what they got was a black and white movie about two guys trying to swindle a rich girl out of her 50 million trust account. But forget all about Prince’s other cinematic experiments, Purple Rain is solid entertainment and well worth the watch, this is a time capsule of a movie that will send you directly back to 1984 without the need of a DeLorean!

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Prophecy Films

So I finally got around to watching The Prophecy films. I bought them in this nifty dvd which collected all three films in one disk, so I ended up watching them back to back. I know that these films have gone past their third installment, I believe they are currently on their fourth sequel, but I don’t even count the ones after part 3 because they don’t have Christopher Walken in them, they feel more like a cash in, a last desperate attempt to milk the franchise for all it’s worth. I just don’t have any interest in them. But if anyone out there thinks that Prophecy: Forsaken (2005) and Prophecy: Uprising (2005) are worth a damn, let me know, I just might give them a shot at some point. But for now, they don’t even register on my radar. This review will cover only the first three films. So it’s a three for one deal, enjoy!

The thing about these movies is that they started out with a decent theatrical release, which was the first film, the sequels after that all went straight to dvd which always raises a red flag for me because they make me think that if they went straight to dvd, then they weren’t considered good enough by the producers, at least not good enough to bother with a theatrical release. So maybe this is the reason why I had never bothered seeing these straight to dvd sequels that followed the original. But curiosity always gets the best of me and I found this dvd with all three so cheap that I went for it. I’m glad I did, the first three films are fairly decent on their own right.

The interesting thing about these first three Prophecy films is that they all had a decent cast. I mean, take a look at the first one where we have the always entertaining Christopher Walken as the human hating angel, Gabriel. You see on these series of films, some angels hate humans because they are jealous of them. They feel that God loves humans more then angels, so some angels have decided to completely annihilate the human race, just so they could be number one again. They want to make it like before, when God loved them best. In order to achieve this, Gabriel wants to find the soul of the most evil human on the planet, who just so happens to be a military leader for the U.S. army. Just watching Walken playing an angel is great, he has such fun with the character; who by the way gets funnier as the series progresses. He spews lines like “I’m an angel, I kill firstborns while their mamas watch!” These movies are that much enjoyable simple because Walken is in them. So anyways we also get Elias Koteas, the guy who always plays secondary characters in every single movie he’s been in except this one, where he   plays detective Thomas Daggett, a priest wannabe who every now and then  gets horrific visions from god. The whole thing makes you wonder why God would send someone such horrible images! But whatever, Daggett is investigating the appearance of dead angels, which keep popping up across the city. Along for the ride is Virginia Madsen who plays a grade school teacher and the always underused Eric Stoltz who plays the good angel that’s trying to stop Gabriel. But the avalanche of talent isn’t over my friends! The amazing cast continues with Amanda Plummer as a zombie/ghoul who helps Gabriel move around and Viggo Mortensen playing Satan himself! So we got an amazing cast rounding up this horror film! Was the film worth it?

Well yeah. The story is all about humans, it preaches on about how we are capable of a lot of good, but unfortunately, a lot of evil as well. The idea that an angel needs the soul of an evil human to help him destroy humanity itself says a lot about how the filmmakers see humanity. We are creatures capable of such violence, that our violent capabilities rival even that of God’s own angels! We are the experts on the subject; so much so that they need US to destroy humanity; as Lucifer himself puts it: “Humans -and how I love talking monkeys for this- know more about war and treachery of the spirit than any angel” The film unfolds in a very dark and eerie manner, with angels running around the city killing each other as lightning strikes the skies. Somehow American Indian folklore works its way into the film! Same as in many horror films, Indians always have the best connection with anything supernatural, which really is something of a cliché in horror films. There’s always an Indian burial ground, or an Indian spirit, or an Indian shaman to help out. The thing about these Prophecy movies is that they are always on the verge of some big apocalyptic event happening, but nothing ever does. The big war between angels and humans, or good angels vs. rebel angels never really consummates. But whatever, the in between was also fun.

These films are all filled with angels crouching on top of furniture or on top of buildings like birds; problem is they never really fly! I never got his about these movies, these guys are angels but they don’t seem to ever use their wings for flying. We do get to see a five second sequence of angels flying in the clouds, but we see it from afar, and briefly. And they re-use that same stock footage on a couple of these films, which I hated. I guess it had something to do with budgetary limitations, but we never really get to take a good look at the angels spreading their wings and flying. If an angel opens its wings, we only see the shadow of that, or someone’s reaction to it, but we never see the freaking angels taking flight. They do skip around a lot and jump around a lot though. I found it funnyt that since angels don’t know how to handle human machinery, they have to resort to having humans doing things for them like driving them around town or showing them how to use a computer or a walkie talkie. Why don’t they just fly where they need to go instead of using a car?

So, in comes Prophecy II (1998) which was the most difficult to watch of these three films. I found it extremely boring, and disappointing for various reasons. Number one, I didn’t like the fact that the film resorted to using so much stock footage from the first film. To me this is a lame ass, lazy move from any filmmaker. You are showing us the same images from the first film! Don’t do this! We as an audience feel cheated as hell! Still, the director felt the need to show us the same sequence of angels flying far up in the sky, and these flashbacks of angels fighting that we already saw on the first film. Laaazy! On this second chapter of the Prophecy series Jennifer Beals has a one night stand with an angel. The angel is looking for the right girl to father his child. You see, the angels want to conceive a half breed, a half human, half angel child. This half breed is the one destined to stop the rebel angels from committing genocide. So Jennifer Beals character functions as a “Virgin Mary” of sorts on this film.

Even Satan doesnt want this guy in hell! 

Now here's where things dont stick to bible lore: in the bible the sons of angels are called ‘The Nephilim’. According to the bible angels actually looked down the from heavens at the eartlhy women and foudn them incredibly hot. Cant say I blame them, I'm merely a human and I find them irresistible. Yet, this idea of angels having sexual desires makes no sense because according to the bible, angels are supposed to be asexual! So anyhows, they found earth girls hot and materialized so they could get a taste of female flesh! So any way, they ended up having babies, and these sons of angels ended up being evil giants who terrorized the land. That’s right my friends, according to the bible giants once walked the earth! And they were evil! Yet on this movie the Nephilim is supposed to be some sort of savior! Humanities last hope for survival. See what I mean? No sense whatsoever. On top of this, the angel that screws Jessica Beals doesn’t even care for her, he just uses her! The bastard! Point is that this angel ends up committing what the bible refers to as fornication, which is just a big word for having sex before getting married. According to the bible, this is one of the biggest sins you could commit against god! But this angel doesnt care, he sins in order to defeat the bad angels? And these are supposed to be the good guys! So anyhow, this second chapter in the series has a cool cast, again Christopher Walken returns as Gabriel, we get Jennifer Beals as Rosario, we get Eric Roberts and Danzig as angels. And as an added bonus Brittany Murphy played the ghoul who does Gabriel’s beading!  But in spite of this film having a great cast, this second chapter in the series feels like an in-between chapter in a much larger story. It feels like they were setting everything up for something bigger. And that’s exactly what they were doing with this second film. The third film was far more entertaining and fulfilling. It wanted to end the series with a big bang! I think it achieved it.

Brittany Murphy in one of her earliest roles

The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000) surprised the hell out of me. Having seen the past two films and finding them only mildly entertaining, I went in to this third chapter with very low expectations, yet I’m happy to inform that I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, it’s the one that I enjoyed the most out of all three! One thing I like about these first three films is that they have continuity to them. Characters return and reappear; problem is that sometimes it’s difficult to realize this because they keep changing actors. In spite of this, you do get a sense of continuity, and Walken’s Gabriel is the one character that holds all three films together. One element I enjoyed about this one is that Gabriel is human on this one, and so he is kind of getting used to being human. He likes living on earth, he’s dropped the short black hair and trench coat for long white hair and living like a bum on the streets. On this film he is slowly learning to actually like humans. With this film they pulled a Terminator 2 (1992) on us and went and made the villain a good guy this time around. Walken is no longer hell bent on destroying humanity, he’s lightened up. One hilarious scene has him just enjoying a drive down the dessert on this beat up old car trying to play a trumpet as he drives, cause you know, according to the bible, angels play trumpets in heaven all the time, which kind of makes you think about who gives angels music classes, and who makes these holy musical instruments? 

But who cares seeing Christopher Walken playing a trumpet as he drives is hilarious right?! In Gabriel’s place we now have a villain called Pyriel who is still very much interested in destroying all humans and proclaiming himself the “next god”. The Nephilim Danyael (who was introduced in the second film) is now all grown up and has lost all faith in God. In fact he runs a church that preaches against god! I thought this was so interesting! But across the film he learns to accept his true destiny which is going up against the Pyriel, the leader of the rebel angels.

This third film distinguishes itself for various reasons, first, it was directed by one Patrick Lussier. Now this is a director whom you can either love or hate, depending on how much cheese you can take. Lussier is the guy behind Drive Angry (2011), a film I enjoyed hating. He also made My Bloody Valentine (2009) and is currently hard at work putting the finishing touches on Halloween III (2012). He’s also the guy behind all those Dracula 2000 movies. All of these films are high in octane and cheese, unapologetic about their b-movie nature. I guess this is the reason why this Prophecy film was so fun to watch. The previous two films feel dreary and boring when compared to this one which is filled with chase sequences and matrix-style fighting. Also, it has this awesome showdown during its last sequences between two angels that is the most exciting thing in the whole trilogy. The film even has a happy ending to it! 

Another thing that made this one cool: it has Brad Dourif playing a gun totting religious fanatic who walks around with the bible in one hand and a gun to shoot any infidels on the other! This is yet another crazy character to add to Brad Dourif long list of freaky characters he's portrayed on film.Well, I guess I’ve run out of things to say about these movies. Not a bad trilogy of films, the third film offers up a nice wrap up to the trilogy and has finality to it. At least this series isn’t as bad as the Children of the Corn movies which by the way I will comment on soon. But these Prophecy films prove one thing to me once again: God hates to appear in horror films,  while Satan loves them. For proof of that check out one of my most popular blog posts: God and Satan inFilms. And another thing, if you freeze frame the last image in Prophecy II, just before the ending credits you can see a face forming in the clouds, while thunder and lightning crackle…don’t know if that qualifies as an appearance by God or not, what do you guys think?

Rating: The Prophecy (1995)  3 out of 5

Rating: The Prophecy II (1998) 2 out of 5

Rating:  The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000) 3 1/2 out of 5 

  

The Artist (2011)

Title: The Artist (2011)

Director: Michael Hazanavicius

Cast: Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell

Review:

The Artist has gotten 10 Academy Award nominations this year, it is second only to Martin Scorcece’s Hugo (2011), which I placed on the number one spot on my Top Films of 2011 list a while back. But it’s easy to see why The Artist would be the second most nominated film of the year. It is a happy, lighthearted, ‘feel good’ movie and it does this while being an almost entirely silent film. Yes my friends, only one line of dialog is spoken through out the whole film! And it’s in black and white!

The story is all about an actor called George Valentin who when the movie begins is enjoying being at the top of his cinematic career. He has fame, money and everything that goes with it. If he tells the producers he wants that actress in the film, then that actress is in the film! He has one preoccupation though: the silent era of filmmaking is coming to an end and filmmakers and producers want to start using dialog and sound effects in film, something that Mr. Valentin doesn’t want to accept. You see he is of the mind that if a movie is to be good, it’s to be silent. He considers sound vulgar somehow. Because of his reluctance to accept this change, he’s career is starting to plummet. Will Mr. Valentin ever adapt? Or will his career come to a screeching halt? And who is the beautiful bomb shell dancer/actress who he’s just met?

I imagine that French director Michael Hazanavicius must have had a difficult time getting this movie green lit. I mean, telling producers you want your next film to be not only silent but also in black and white is like telling them you want your film to be a hard R! These aren’t exactly words producers love to hear. But the success of Hazanavicius’s French films gave him the leverage he needed to convince them he knew what he was doing and so The Artist got made. And it’s gotten 10 Oscar Nominations, so Hazanavicius knew what he was doing after all.

You ever see a silent film? Granted, watching a silent film can take some adjustment, you have to get in a certain mindset to watch them. You won’t hear sound effects or dialog, the dialog is transmitted through title cards and the constant classical score might get on your nerves after a while, but this Film Connoisseur says that watching a silent film can be just as rewarding as watching a ‘talkie’. Ever had the pleasure of watching F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926)? Now there’s an awesome silent film; every bit as spectacular and fantastic as any modern special effect film. How’s about Friz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)? That film left me speechless, so many themes, such rich visuals, so symbolic, such a work of art! The art direction on some of these silent films is still mind blowing in my book. I mention Faust and Metropolis because to me they are the finest examples of silent cinema; I still revisit both of these films on a regular basis because there is always something new to see in them. Silent films can still be enjoyed, if you bring your sugar rush levels down to normal levels. Sad to hear that some theaters have had to do refunds because people walked out of The Artist because they didn’t know it was a silent film. That’s just wrong. Silent films are a whole different experience, and a valid for of storytelling. They shouldn’t be shunned like that. Silent films are simply different, they rely more on images, on the visuals, on facial expressions and performances to tell your story. Plus it’s not like every single film is going to be a silent film now. The Artist is retro, it’s a look back at how things were, and it should be enjoyed for paying respects to the origins of cinema.   

The film benefits from having a fantastic supporting cast, including the great John Goodman!

  

The best thing about The Artist is that it will more than likely leave a smile on your face. It has that charm and happy go lucky feeling that movies from that era  had. Characters are smiling most of the time, the whole film has a good sense of humor to it. I couldn’t help having a huge smile on my face during the films final dance sequence. These characters won me over with their charm and charisma. Jean Dujardin, the actor who plays George Valentin is an accomplished French actor who’d work with Michael Hazanavicius in the past on Hazanavicius’s successful spy spoofs OSS 17: Cario, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 17: Lost in Rio (2009) two films that spoof James Bond films and spy films in general. I guess now Jean Dujardin’s career will really blast off, he’s just earned an Academy Award nomination for best actor! Berenice Bejo, the actress who plays  Peppy Miller is actually Michael Hazanavicius’s wife! In this way, Hazanavicius reminds me of Fellini, who also used his wife in a lot of his films. Bejo has also received a nomination for best supporting actress, which means we will also be seeing more of her in the movies. Both actors exceeded in their roles, they have a happiness to them that’s infectious. You almost feel like that happiness is fake sometimes, which is probably true. Back in the days of silent cinema, actors always exaggerated their emotions for the screen. They always gave that dashing spectacular smile whenever cameras where rolling. Hazanavicius cought that very well on his film as well. But also, there is that kind of innocence that older films always exude, loved how the director managed to capture that era of filmmaking so well. The Artist achieved what it was going for, capturing an era.

The film plays with themes of change. About how we need to adapt to changes, or die, the world is ever changing and so should we. The Artist plays with the idea that we can’t be stubborn and try and live in the past, the past dies and we must move on. A lot of actors back in those days were stubborn and didn’t want to accept the fact that films were now going to talk. The best example was Charles Chaplin himself! Chaplin really didn’t want to talk in his films at all! This is most obvious in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) a silent film (Chaplin’s last silent film by the way) that was made during the time when films already talked; yet Chaplin refused to talk on it. Other actors talked, but he didn’t. Sound effects were heard, but we never heard Chaplin talking English. In fact, the one scene in which we do hear Chaplin’s voice in Modern Times is in a scene in which he made up his own language that sounds like Italian, but isn’t! I guess that was his way of telling us that we didn’t need words to understand him, he could talk gibberish and we could still laugh and even understand what he was trying to convey. You watch that scene in Modern Times and you do get the feeling that you understand him! But Chaplin’s stubbornness to talk shows just what an issue this was at the time for actors who were used to transmitting their performance through performance and emotion alone.  This is what The Artist is about.

 Chaplin eventually adapted and talked in his movies, and when he talked he really talked! The Great Dictator (1940) is a powerful film not only because of Chaplin’s amazing performance, but also because of the amazing script, the dialog is really astonishing on that film! It’s as if Chaplin said “so you want to hear me talk? Fine! Here it is, let’s see if you can take what I have to say about the world!” The Great Dictator remains one of Chaplin's most controversial films. As for The Artist, I will say that it isn’t the deepest film in the world, which is kind of odd, because films chosen for “Best Picture of the Year” are usually deep, heavy stuff. But I guess The Artist has charm to spare, and sometimes charm can take you a long way. This is a rather simple film, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do, it looks beautiful and has charismatic characters. It entertains and charms the hell out of you, what’s not to like?

Rating: 4 out of 5