Hawks And Sparrows (Uccellacci e uccellini) - Masters Of Cinema Review

★★★★☆

Hawks and Sparrows is another in Masters of Cinema’s continuing series of Pasolini re-issues with more to come later in the year. The film stars Toto who not know to most people outside of Italy know who he is but he was the huge star in Italy and was sort of the Italian Chaplin. The fim co-stars Pasolini’s collaborator and lover Ninetto Davoli.

The film’s story is a rather strange crossbred of a fairy tale and mid 60s leftist filmmaking. It’s about these 2 characters who meet a talking Marxist crow. The crow tells them the story of these 2 old Franciscan Monks (naturally played by Ninetto and Toto) and they preach to the Hawks and Sparrows and try to convert them to Christianity. They rest of the film consist of them wandering having episodic adventures includes meeting beautiful girls, they get chased away by angry farmers and dancing teenagers.

The film touches on Life, Religion, Birth, Sex, Aging and Death. It’s all done with humour and a touch of almost Monty Python silliness. The talking crow talks almost like thrift store Godard revolutionary speak but The Crow symbolize death eventually. The film features a wonderful Ennio Morricone score, which features Domenico Modugno singing the opening credits in an ironic fashion. The score itself is almost a Leone score which is unsurprising cause it was done around the same time as his scores for Leone.

The film is an extremely enjoyable if very strange piece of Bunuelian esq comedy even though the humour at time is very broad. The film seems to be considered a lesser work of Pasolini’s even though he considered it the only film of his that he wasn’t disappointed with. A knowledge of mid 60s Italian politics may help for some but for a person like me who has no knowledge it stills works as a very enjoyable film.

Ian Schultz

Rating: PG
UK Re-release Date: July 2012
Directed By: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Cast: Totò, Ninetto Davoli , Femi Benussi
Buy:Hawks and Sparrows [Masters of Cinema] On DVD [1966]

'The Paranormal Incident' DVD Review

★☆☆☆☆

The problem with the spate of handheld, found-footage ghost films that have arrived post Paranormal Activity is that they are hounded by the success and pitch-perfect horror of that film.  Still a bad film is a bad film, and unfortunately that’s what The Paranormal Incident is. Since Paranormal Activity has already nailed the format, films centred on hauntings and found footage have to do something different or they just fade into monotony, The Paranormal Incident doesn’t even try.

                The film follows a group of students, half who believe in the paranormal, half who don’t, as they spend a night at the apparently haunted Odenbrook Sanatorium.  Armed with motion sensors, high frequency sound equipment, and plenty of cameras, the team are out to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts. The story is relayed post-events with the one survivor being shown the footage by a police officer who suspects he murdered his friends.

                Initially the set-up intrigues, swapping from hospital room to four days prior builds a certain interest, but the flatness of the characters, who we don’t get any time to know, and the stunted nature of the dialogue slowly pulls the viewer past interested and straight into disappointed. Once inside the sanatorium events trundle along at a predictable pace, and the cuts back to the hospital actually fracture the mood, halting any sustained scare. Another major issue with the film that keeps it trapped under mediocre is its complete reliance on jump-scares and sudden noises, rather than making the effort to construct any sort of sustained menace or apprehension. What the audience needs is more reason to be scared of the Odenbrook rather than a brief intro, some kid’s drawings, and found footage of the cheesy variety. Eventually the film spirals into a murky mess of disappearances and manic camera shaking which leaves the viewer completely nonplussed as to the fate of the characters. The final ten minutes reaches for something more, alluding to a story beyond the film, but it seems like a childish copy of the X-Files and it’s this that leaves the viewer with a bad taste.

                The Paranormal Incident relies on recycled uninspired horror stock, features some truly woeful plot devices, and the acting of its entire cast is not overly convincing. If more time had been spent letting us get to know the characters then we would have cared for their strife, likewise if more subtle and original scare-tactics had been employed from the start of the film then we might have actually hid behind our hands.

Scott  Clark

Rating:15
UK Release Date:23 July 2012
Directed by: Matthew Bolton
Cast: Amanda Barton, Keith Compton , Thomas Downey
Buy:Paranormal Incident On DVD

               

                

New Trailer for A Night in the Woods

For those who enjoy a slice of paranoia horror, Vertigo films (that's the folks that brought us 2010’s epic handheld creature feature: Monsters) have just released a creepy new trailer for their upcoming flick ANight in the Woods. The film looks to set to be the British Blair Witch: a creepy legend in an isolated wilderness, a triad of people keeping secrets from each other, and a lot of screaming in the dark. Hopefully this minimalist piece will pack the same punch Monsters did, working with a smaller more intimate number of characters and revealing little of the threat.  But there’s always the risk that the hand-held sub-genre will overload itself with too many like-minded works, and burn out its appeal. Still, A Night in the Woods promises scares aplenty and hopefully a stand-out addition to the collection.


A Night In The Woods will be released in UK cinemas September 7th.

Watch the trailer here:

On what is intended to be a fun camping trip to investigate and to chill in the atmosphere of the legendary haunted past of Dartmoor’s Wistman’s Woods, Brody, his girlfriend Kerry and her cousin Leo very soon find themselves mysteriously ill at ease both with their surroundings and their companions. Bad moods and minor disagreements rapidly lead to feelings of severe paranoia, sexual tension, fear and, eventually, violence between the three friends, a situation that worsens as the evening draws in. At first, they suspect the conflicts are simply the result of being thrown together in the ancient, eerie surroundings, but as night closes upon them each begins to wonder if darker forces are at work.

The Land That Time Forgot DVD Review

★★★1/2☆

The Land That Time Forgot (TLTTF) is a movie I wish I had seen 14 years ago.

It is my belief that the dinosaur phase is an essential part of the lifecycle of the human male. All boys need a point in their life where dinosaurs are not just cool, but the be all and end all of existence. If you have not at one point run around a playground, pretending to jump on your prey and stab them with your giant sickle-clawed feet, well you have missed out. It’s awesome.

And the kid who did that would have gone mad for TLTTF.

TLTTF takes place in the year 1915 and begins (brilliantly enough) with the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-Boat. There are few survivors: amongst the passengers only Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure) and Lisa Clayton (Susan Penhaligon) escape death. They soon rendezvous with the remnants of the crew, led by Captain Bradley (Keith Barron). When the U-Boat surfaces to take on air, these few lead an assault on it, and manage to commandeer it. Unfortunately, the chaos caused by a battle of wits with the German Captain Von Schoenvorts (John McEnery), casts them adrift. But then they make a momentous discovery: Caprona, a mysterious continent dismissed by the world at large as a myth.

And that’s enough chatter. Back to the dinosaurs.

I have yet to decide whether the special effects of TLTTF are brilliantly awful, or just awful, but they are definitely the most distinctive thing about the film. Static model pterodactyls on strings let the side down and Tyler’s fight against a plesiosaur descends into insane self-parody, when the actor starts fighting what seems to be a sock puppet with teeth. However these are the low points: most of the actual models aren’t necessarily great, but they aren’t bad either.

Honestly, I would take iffy practical effects over bad CGI anyday. See, in theatre, props are often used to represent reality, rather than mimic it. We recognise what is being represented, and in response, our minds fill in the realism. I believe I had a similar response to TLTTF’s practical effects. The upshot is that, even though the effects of TLTTF are dodgy even at their best, I still found suspension of disbelief possible, and so remained engaged.

In fact, I found the whole film quite engaging. Edgar Rice Burroughs (on whose source material the film is based) knows how to write a ripping yarn, and the film expertly captures that pre-War/age of exploration sensibility. It’s all about honourable men being all chivalrous and whatnot, struggling manfully to survive in an alien land, while behaving in an (admittedly) uncomfortably imperialist manner. The whole scenario has this optimistic self-confidence to it, sweeping you up in its willingness to explore, understand and tackle this wilderness head on by Jove!

It helps of course that the main characters are likeable. Both Tyler and Von Schoenvorts are chivalrous men, principled without being fanatics. Tyler is also a caring fellow: he is violent when he has to be, but his dislike of violence is plain to see. McClure proves very capable in playing such a straightforwardly good man. McEnery too gives a good showing, crafting a surface of military discipline, which on occasion recedes, to reveal a companionable knight with an inquiring mind.

The action is also well done. Though the spectacle of the dinosaurs is, as mentioned, not without its flaws, the occasional man-on-man brawls are executed with energy, though not much style. Better are the sequences shot from within the submarine, where the unsure lighting and cramped conditions helps to manufacture some truly nailbiting tension.

The film is not flawless. None of the supporting cast gets anywhere near the development of Tyler and Von Schoenvorts, which is particularly problematic in the case of Clayton. She basically becomes the love interest, by virtue of being the only woman in the film. Though the scientific mystery of the island is solved, the idea is not particularly well explored, and the simplicity of the narrative prevents it from having true dramatic impact. But the film is nonetheless enjoyable. And frankly, young me probably wouldn’t have cared much about any of those things. TLTTF is a solid story, with dinosaurs. That’s all he would have needed to hear.

Adam Brodie

Rating:PG
UK DVD Release: 30th July 2012
Directed by: Kevin Connor
Cast: Doug McClure, John McEnery , Susan Penhaligon
Buy:The Land That Time Forgot On DVD [1975]

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Oedipus Rex To Get UK Masters Of Cinema September Release

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s OEDIPUS REX [EDIPO RE] is to be released in the UK in a Dual Format (DVD & Blu-ray) edition as part of Eureka Entertainment’s MASTERS OF CINEMA Series on 24 September 2012. DVD edition also available! The release on Blu-Ray will mark the film's debut on the format anywhere is the world and the long successful relationship Eureka Entertainment has with the director's popular filmography with the Golden Lion nominated film (1967 Venice Film Festival) joining Accatone, Hawks And Sparrows, Pigsty, Gospel According To Matthew, RoGoPag.

Three years after The Gospel According to Matthew, Pier Paolo Pasolini resumed his series of classical adaptations with a savage, highly personal take on Sophocles' ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex [Edipo Re]. As his first colour feature, Oedipus Rex makes brilliant use of wildly alternating Moroccan landscapes to transpose collective myth into a particular vision that is at once tender, sensual, and wholly unsparing.

The film is divided into three sections set in different eras. The opening takes place in 1920s Italy, and recounts a birth that echoes that of the director himself, the product of a beautiful bourgeoise's affair with a military officer. The mid section depicts a time "outside of history" – it is here that the myth of Oedipus (portrayed by Franco Citti of Accattone and Coppola's The Godfather), one of patricide and incest, plays out opposite the young man's mother/lover (Silvana Mangano). An epilogue shot on the streets of present-day Bologna finds Oedipus playing his flute for a bustling citizenry.

With its kinetic handheld camerawork and strikingly primeval costumes, Pasolini's film rattles its art-genre framework in the enduring quest to exorcise repressive emotional forces. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pier Paolo Pasolini's Oedipus Rex for the very first time on Blu-ray, in a Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition, released on 24 September 2012. DVD edition also available!

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• Gorgeous new HD restoration of the film in its original aspect ratio, in 1080p on the Blu-ray

• Newly translated optional English subtitles

• Original Italian theatrical trailer

• 28-page booklet featuring vintage writing by Pasolini, excerpts from an interview with the director by Oswald Stack about the film, and rare archival imagery

Available to pre-order from:

Amazon (Dual Format Edition) http://amzn.to/IOW9OL (DVD Edition) http://amzn.to/N6xZhA

HMV (Dual Format Edition) http://tidd.ly/488c9e4b

Play (Dual Format Edition) http://tidd.ly/ab22de13

The Hut (Dual Format Edition) http://tidd.ly/7975983a  


 

Warlords Of The Atlantis DVD Review

★★☆☆☆

“Warlords of Atlantis” is a pre-Star Wars Z sci-fi/fantasy film from the most famous director/actor collaborators of the genre Doug McClure and Kevin Connor and it’s there 3rd and last. It was also called “Warlords of the Deep” in some territories. You may recognize the name Doug McClure, Matt Groening was inspired by Doug for “The Simpsons” character Troy McClure.

“Warlords of Atlantis” is a bad 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea rip-off, which consists of a rag tag team of scientists/explorers who discover an ancient world under the sea. They meet these MARTIANS who live under the sea and also upsetting them they are taken capture and must find a way out of their predicament. They obviously escape somehow even though the diving bell they came down with has a hollow bottom. It magically doesn’t flood with water, explain that. Oh and the cat somehow lives…

The film is a truly awful but amusing piece of pre-Star Wars sci-fi/fantasy filmmaking with awful performances from everyone. However it does feature John Ratzenberger (known for his role on “Cheers”) who looks suspiciously like the actor who played the Replicant at the beginning of “Blade Runner” who says “I’ll Tell you about my mother” and until I checked IMDb I though it was that actor. It’s nice to see a film, which cheesy matte paintings that I wish more films now would use instead of CGI. The film’s lack of any sensible science really screws it up but it’s mildly entertainment for the film’s brisk running time.

Ian Schultz

Rating:PG
UK DVD Release: 30th July 2012
Directed By: Kevin Connor
Cast: Doug McClure, Peter Gilmore , Shane Rimmer
Buy:Warlords of Atlantis On DVD [1978]

The Night Porter Review

★★★1/2☆

The Night Porter is a very notorious cult classic that came out in 1974 directed by Liliana Cavani (Ripley’s Game). It’s a film that hasn’t age well in the proceeding years and tries to be a art film when it’s just a piece of exploitation cinema.

The story is about a Night Porter called Maxamilian (Dirk Bogarde) at a Vienna hotel, he has a dark secret he was a SS officer. He had a sadomasochistic relationship with a girl Lucia at a concentration camp, it’s suggested that she was Jewish but it’s never mentioned. Their history is all told in flashback though out the film. They rekindle their relationship many years later against a backdrop of a trial Max is about to face about his war crimes. However he has been meeting with old Nazi chums who are destroying evidence to get away clean. They eventually find out about the girl and want her dead so they hid away in a hotel room.

The film much of it’s time, it’s one of those 70s “art” films that on the edge of being a sex film or a serious art film for example I am Curious series. The film fails are both however it’s a rather interesting film about a woman despite what Max did to her still feels connected to him. Which is a rather daring story to tell. However it’s overly long would have worked a lot better a 90-minute thriller than it’s slightly less than 2 hour running time. Way many long shots of them stuck in this bedroom.

The acting by the 2 leads are quite good especially Dirk Bogarde pull off the complex role of a man who hates his past but also wants parts of it back. Charlotte Rampling’s performance as the girl Lucia is despite her great acting in flashback sequences is pretty bland, she just lying around a hotel room not doing a whole lot. The supporting cast of his Nazi chums are quite effective as well.

Overall it’s a fascinating if somewhat pretentious attempt to tell a fascinating serious story. However the Dirk Bogarde really saves it from being a bad film. It’s overly long and I rarely say that about a film. I could trim at least 20 minutes out and it would work better. It’s worth checking out but it’s not very shocking as some people may suggest.

Ian Schultz

Rating: 18
UK Re-release: 30th July 2012
Directed By:Liliana Cavani
Cast:Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling. Philippe Leroy
Buy: The Night PorterOn Blu-ray [1974]

Win The Night Porter On Blu-Ray

One of the most shocking and controversial movies ever made, The Night Porter (Anchor Bay) is a courageous and uncompromising piece of filmmaking that has come to be regarded as a classic of European cinema. This scintillatingly sexy story of forbidden love and the aphrodisiacal effects of decadence and cruelty comes to Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

Available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray on 30th July.  

Vienna, 1957. Max (Dirk Bogarde), a former Nazi concentration camp officer, is now employed as a respectable night porter at one of the city's most luxurious hotels. Still anguished by the guilt of his actions during the war, he attempts to relieve his conscience by devoting himself to his work while awaiting the upcoming trial of himself and his fellow Nazi officers. But one fateful evening Max's disturbing past catches up with him in the form of the beautiful and alluring Lucia (Charlotte Rampling). Now the wife of a respected American classical composer, almost 15 years earlier Lucia was a teenage concentration camp inmate and Max's lover in an aberrant sado-masochistic relationship. Bound by their memories and uncontrollably drawn to each other, Max and Lucia rekindle their bizarre love affair. But their future together becomes threatened by other ghosts from the past…

To celebrate today's release of The Night Porter on Blu-Ray courtesy of Anchor Bay we have 3 copies of the film to give away, to enter  we're not going to ask you a question just follow us at Twitter  and like us at Facebook (if you haven't done it already), Send us a quick email with your name, address with your twitter name and facebook name. E-mail them to cinehouseuk@gmail.com,deadline For The Competition is August 19th, 2012 (2359hrs).

 Terms and Conditions

• This prize is non-transferable.
• No cash alternatives apply.
• UK & Irish entries only  Cinehouse and Anchor Bay Entertainment have the right to alter, delay or cancel this competition without any notice
• The competition is not opened to employees, family, friends of  Cinehouse,Anchor Bay Entertainment employees
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• The Prize is to win The Night Porter on Blu-Ray
• To enter this competition you must send in your answer, name, address only, like us at facebook, follow us at twitter (include twitter/facebook in email) Deadline August 19th, 2012 (2359hrs)
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'The Victim' DVD Review

★★★☆☆

Although Thai director Monthon Arayangkoon’s The Victim isn’t exactly a pitch perfect horror-thriller, it’s still a bit criminal that the film was made back in 2006 and is only now getting a release in the UK.  The Victim’s strength pulls mostly from the basic and striking nature of its premise: a young actress is haunted by the souls of the victims she portrays in police reconstructions, and after taking on the role of Meen she is slowly pulled into a mess of supernatural terror. A good mix of thriller, horror, plot twists, and a dollop of black comedy make this feature a lot more accomplished as a whole than your average bog-standard ghost story.

                Arayangkoon’s understanding of the composition of horrifying images is obvious throughout The Victim and even when the second half starts to wobble on plot twists, the visual impact is in no way lessened. Images of terror here are eerie and startling: faces summoned out of shadow, long tracking shots through deserted space, the muddling of past and present, imagined and real. All of these help to push the viewer down a rabbit hole with the fantastic Pitchanart Sakakorn who’s wrought twisted lead performance stands out as key to the success of the story.  On the other hand, some of the supporting cast can be less striking; fading into wooden monotony, but the success of the director’s control over the involving nature of fear squashes any problems here.

                Over-reliance on CGI in some make-up effects tarnishes an otherwise accomplished understanding of the subtleties required in striking fear into an audience. The director’s keen eye is most arresting when he constructs scares comprised solely of glimpses and shadows and it’s this that is most infuriating when compared with the TV-movie feel of the more blasé CG scare-tactics.

                Problems kick-in from the big twist that strives for the Shyamalan-effect but squanders itself somewhere around his later, less striking, work. From the first unveiling the film slowly threatens to pop its own bubble, the excellent mix of moods and that wonderful control of visually perfect haunting sequences is somewhat tarnished by a complicated and rushed last half hour that strives to do too much with too little and leaves the film unfulfilled.  Still, a good strong lead, consistent visual smarts, and more than enough well-devised scares help leapfrog any lulls in the plot and mark the feature out as impressive.

Scott Clark

Rating: 15
UK Release Date: 6 August 2012
Directed By: Monthon Arayangkoon
Cast: Pitchanart Sakakorn, Apasiri Nitibhon, Penpak Sirikul
Pre-Order/Buy:The Victim On DVD

R.I.P Chris Marker

One of cinema's true originals Chris Marker has just died at the age of 91. Chris as most well known for "La jetée" in 1962, which served the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" in 1995. Chris Marker was also known for his documentary which pushed the boundaries of the medium "Sans Soleil" and for his writings on film. Watch La Jetee

Ian Schultz