Runaway Train Blu-Ray Review

Rating:
15
BD Release Date (UK):
22nd July 2013
Director:
Andrey Konchalovskiy
Cast:
Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay
Buy: [Blu-ray]

Arrow Video has given Runaway Train a loving blu-ray release stacked full of extras including interviews with most of the main cast like Jon Voight and Eric Roberts. The film is directed by Andrei Konchalovsky who is a Russian director who has worked both in Hollywood and Russia since the 60s. Runaway Train is probably his most well known film to date, he is also known for the more recent House of Fools and the recent notorious flop The Nutcracker in 3D.

Runaway Train is about Oscar "Manny" Manheim (Jon Voight) who is a notorious convict at a prison in Alaska. Manny has been in cell for 3 years (after the doors have been welded shut) after many escape attempts. A Court order makes his nemesis the associate warden to let him out back into the general population. He naturally starts to plan his next escape.

Buck (Eric Roberts) is another convict of the prison. He is naïve southern boy who has been convicted by statutory rape (sex with a underage person). He is played deliberately naïve by Eric Roberts because he wanted to make the character more sympathetic. He is recruited by Manny to help him escape because he works in the laundry room and has access to places most prisoners don’t.

They eventually escape though a sewer. They fall into a river and eventually get to a train yard and jump onto a train but don’t realise till it’s too late it’s a “runaway train”. The train is speeding along the tracks at a rapid speed and they may have company on the train and also can meet their maker any minute.

The film is not a masterpiece but any stretch of the imagination but it’s a very solid Sunday afternoon boy’s own adventure sort of film. It has a fun scenery chewing performance by Jon Voight, who was even nominated for a oscar for best actor, must have been a slow year. Eric Roberts (a normally very underrated actor) gives a very annoying performance somewhat reminiscent of portrayals of Lenny in adaptations of Of Mice and Men. He was mind boggling nominated for an oscar for his performance. It came out the same year as the greatest film ever made Brazil which boosts some great supporting performances but at last got no nominations for acting.

It’s got a slightly gritty edge, which is probably down to Edward Bunker’s involvement on the screenplay. He was a real-life convict who wrote Animal Factory and the book the great Dustin Hoffman film Straight Time was based on. He is also known as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs. It was the debut of another convict turned actor Danny Trejo.

Runaway Train has an interesting backstory. It was originally meant to be Akira Kurosawa’s first colour film but due to problems with American backers it was shelved. The interesting thing is you could easy see Toshiro Mifune in the Manny role. It would have been a better film if Kurosawa did but it’s certainly worth checking out sometime.

★★★½☆

Ian Schultz

EIFF 2013 - For Those in Peril Review

Rating: N/C
Review Date (EIFF):
28th June 2013
Director:
Paul Wright
Cast:
Kate Dickie, Michael Smiley, George MacKay

British cinema is great at taking quaint environments and turning them into Hell. We also have a penchant for misery and wasted lives, both of which you’ll find abundantly in Paul Wright’s impressive feature debut For Those in Peril, a keyhole into the social mechanics of a small fishing community in Scotland.

After a tragic accident takes the lives of five young fishermen, Aaron (George MacKay), the sole survivor of the tragedy which also claimed his older brother, is left in a steadily growing state of social detachment as the town around focuses their grief on him.  Mackay shines as a social outcast, a loner before the tragedy and even more so after with little to live for in a town that sees survivors as a constant burning reminder of tragedy. Wright’s choice to include sound snippets of news coverage/interviews with locals helps explore the small town mentality and collective hatred for Aaron, who’s only crime is retaining a childish mind in a place that demands manhood sooner as opposed to later. As the film goes on and Aaron’s actions become slightly more elusive in the face of hatred, the audience starts to see that in treating someone like a monster, especially someone with serious trauma, you can end up making them one. Kate Dickie lends her talents as Aaron’s troubled mother, single-handedly providing a sort of normality bar with which to compare the rest of the town to, she’s also where most of the film’s heart comes from, hers being possibly the most heart-breaking story of all. The relationship between Dickie and Mackay is frankly one of the most impressive pairings in ages.

Aaron’s obsession with a fairy tale around a monster in the sea becomes more vivid as the film progresses, just as the town’s contempt for him does. Wright punctuates an otherwise muted cinematography with moments of vivid colour and crushing darkness to better convey the collapse of Aaron’s reality: as his guilt flares so does his anger at the “monster” and his alienation from family and friends comes full circle so that he descends into a sort of childish dream.

There’s a very honest quality to Wright’s camera and the performances of his stars, nothing out-there, nothing melodramatic, just a well worked story of people and their relationship to the world around them.  At some points the film can maintain a palate too drab and spend too much time following Aaron’s isolated wanderings to the point of angst, but by the end Wright proves he has the vision to deliver an emotionally charged whopper of a finale that allows this quant wee Scottish sea-side affair to rest on more breath-taking grounds.

Not just a run of the mill sombre British piece about rural environments, For Those in Peril is a heart-wrenching narrative of guilt and redemption with a daring final direction and stand-out performances from two of Scotland’s finest.

★★★★☆

Scott Clark

EIFF 2013 - Frankenstein's Army Review

Rating:
15
Release Date(UK):
28 June 2013 (EIFF)
24 August 2013 (Frightfest)
30 September 2013 (DVD)
Director:
Richard Raaphorst
Cast:
Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse, Robert Gwilym
Buy: [DVD]
Over the past few years there’s been a real peak in the impact of fan-boy fantasy on cinema, especially horror. We’ve seen some truly nutty visions being realised on the big screen and, for better or worse, that trend shows no signs of stopping. The recent sub-genre of Nazi zombie films is creatively tackled in first time feature director Richard Raaphorst’s endearingly titled, handheld camera shot, B-movie extraordinaire Frankenstein’s Army.

How, may you ask, is a film set during WW2 shot on hand-held camera? By the genius of a specially selected film student chosen to tag along with a Russian platoon to film some propaganda. This surmises the bonkers logic to most of Frankenstein’s Army. A good section of the film is spent getting to understand the characters and what the Russian involvement in the war was and before we get anywhere near the fateful dwelling of Baron Frankenstein there’s a breadcrumb trail of bizarre carcases to herald that the good doctor has extended his research to animalistic steampunk zombie monstrosities.

There’s a charming sort of referential stupidity involved in how unperturbed most of the Russians seem about finding these creatures. But that’s a key part of the film; it doesn’t take itself too seriously and by doing that makes itself far more effective as a horror film. By slotting the ridiculous alongside the drab hopelessness of the incredible sets and creatures, there’s room for some genuinely horrible moments of tense action and fear. Like the end of Blair Witch meets Silent Hill via Stuart Gordon. Camera handling dwindles sometimes during panic driven moments of fight and flight to unfortunately leave some sections of film messy and nonsensical, which is a shame when such care has been taken to make the visuals so striking.

Even if the film is operating on a budget it appears not to be too hindered, sets have been carefully selected and then dressed up to fit the period and aesthetic, creatures have been formed with a mind to dodging the traditional concept of zombie. This time, Frankenstein’s monsters are exactly the kind of industrial horrors you’d expect from a post WW1 corpse tinker: hulking metal and robotics, grey flesh and black leather, ridiculous appendages for the decimation of allied forces. And Karel Roden’s (Hellboy, Rocknrolla) fantastic turn as a madcap even more oblivious Dr. Frankenstein is nothing short of a hoot to watch.

Everything about this film is pretty endearing.  Once you pull yourself past the student project feel and settle into its carnival of horrors feel, you start to enjoy it for what it is; a Nazi-zombie flick. There’s no pretence here, no whimsical story, just a good old-fashioned monster film with some well-deserved scares, a great effects and set-design department and above all a good eye for humour. Frankenstein’s Army is cult classic material.

★★★★☆

Scott Clark

The Seasoning House DVD Review

Rating: 18
DVD Release Date (UK):
12th August 2013
Director:
Paul Hyett
Cast:
Sean Pertwee, Rosie Day, Kevin Howarth
Buy:[DVD]/ [Blu-ray]
Set in the War-torn Balkans in the mid 90’s The Seasoning House follows deaf mute Angel played by Rosie Day as she is torn from her home and family to work in a brothel where she must prepare the girls for customers and then clean them up after. She spends the rest of her time moving between the walls and the crawlspaces of the house observing her kidnappers. After the brutal rape and murder of her only confident she tries to escape and must fight off the brothel owner and the soldiers who butchered her family.

The first thing I have to say about this film is this. Sean Pertwee cannot do a Balkan accent. This is a sad fact and it by no means makes him a bad actor in fact I consider him one of Britain’s great actors. But his lack of ability to move away from his own gravelly English accent is evident in The Seasoning House where he stands out a little from all the other characters whose Balkan accents are much better than his. Another thing is that it seems to take forever for anything to happen in the story. We spend almost 40 minutes covering the main character, Angel’s, early life and how she came into her predicament where it could have easily be done in almost half the time. The beginning does little to develop her character and is really only there to go into great detail about the way the brothel is run.

These are pretty much the only complaints I have about Paul Hyett’s The Seasoning House. It is a rape revenge thriller that manages to be original in genre that has been rather formulaic for many years.

Let’s look at the actors. First off Sean Pertwee who, as I have already said, cannot maintain an accent that is not his own but is a terrifying villain in the role of Goran. He seems to be on the cusp of insanity at all times and worse still has a troop of killers and psychopaths at his command. His single minded pursuit of Angel in the second half of the film makes him a terrifying antagonist. Viktor is played by Kevin Howarth who portrays the dual role of ruthless pimp and obsessive lover of Angel and how these parts of his life come into conflict when Angel becomes the target of Goran’s soldiers. We see him torn as he tries to protect Angel and his own business from Goran’s insanity. Finally Rosie Day as Angel. Playing a deaf mute cannot be easy especially in a physically demanding role such as this. Angel is chased through walls, woods and factories getting beaten, shot at, stabbed and at one point strangled with a belt. But Day manages to deliver a fantastic performance despite all of this.

And that leads me to the violence. It is brutal and does not shy away from it but nor does it glorify it. The fight scenes are natural and do not look choreographed which gives a sense of panic and terror when they take place. Angel does not become a gun totting karate expert and instead fights in a frenzied fashion flaying about with knives, bricks and in one case an ornamental pig (don’t ask just watch it). Hyett’s reliance upon practical effects over rather than excessive use of CGI makes the violence more gut wrenching especially in some of the more brutal scenes.

Overall the film is fantastic and is suitable for anyone who is a fan of the rape revenge genre or anyone who likes original action films.

★★★★☆

Adam Cook

The Great Rock'N' Roll Swindle Scottish Style, UK Trailer For The Great Hip Hop Hoax

Dubbed 'The Imposter of music docs,' the film tells the real life story about how - back in 2003/4, Californian hip-hop duo 'Silibil N'Brains' secured a record deal and were set to be massive – however, what no-one really knew was that they were actually a pair of students from Dundee, Scotland, with fake American accents and made up identities.

The Great Hip Hop Hoax was one of the surprise hit film's of last month's Edinburgh Film Festival, it also received some great feedback SxSw and now it's ready for it's cinema/VOD release this September.To promote the film's release Vertigo Films have sent us over the film's UK trailer....



When it comes to mockumentary films the pedastool has been set high with the classic This Is Spinal Tap there's been no one who came close to matching or bettering that film. The Great Hip Hop Hoax might be that film to at least match proving if you want that dream, you'll do anything to succeed and 6th September you'll get that chance to see if the 2 boys from Dundee, the rapping Proclaimers will become the cities most famous sons after Desperate Dan.

The Great Hip Hop Hoax stars Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd.

Everyone's Going to Die EIFF Review

Rating: 15
Release Date:
26th June 2013(EIFF)
Director:
Jones
Cast:
Nora Tschirner, Rob Knighton, Kellie Shirley
Melanie (Nora Tschirner) is a young woman living out a dull existence in an English seaside town, her life crawls along until she meets Ray (Rob Knighton in his second feature performance), a recently divorced gangster-type back in town for one last job. Without a doubt the most charming and impressive feature to debut at EIFF this year, one of those films that comes along once in a blue moon and manages to hold its own amongst the vast array of features fighting for the spotlight. It sounds like a screwball gangster flick with a hint of Lost in Translation, which it could be billed as, but you’d be missing the point. Even though it flaunts moments of comedy and does indeed slip in a gangster undertone, it’s so much more.

                Directed by the collective Jones, Everyone’s Going to Die takes a tried and tested formula for British sob-stories and goes back to basics, narratively speaking it’s a simple enough film; Ray and Melanie potter about exploring the tedium of their lives and getting up to mischief. There’s a somber mood clinging to most of the film that is time and time again shattered with Coen brother-style cock-ups or heart-warming scenes between the film’s spellbinding central performances.

                 The opening scenes hark at Less Than Zero, a ruined house the morning after a party shot with virtually no sound in a drab palette of greys, Melanie wandering the halls dressed as Chaplin cutting a, surely iconic, silhouette. Ray is forced into black suit and tie after his enraged wife vandalises the rest of his clothes and turfs him out, forcing the gangster into a dangerously stereotypical but hilariously referential costume.  Ray goes to meet his recently deceased estranged brother‘s family only to find his brother may have reincarnated into a cat. The humour here is right on the mark, the zaniness of the script is one of its strongest features ensuring it doesn’t fade into the background as another exercise in loneliness.  There’s nothing superficial about Everyone’s Going to Die, everything has substance to it.

                The key to the whole show is the relationship between Tschirner and Knighton. Genuine care and love for the characters is inspired through a damaged but reserved performance on both counts. Both are trapped at a still point, a dead end from which they really believe there’s no escaping. The boredom of dead-end lives never transfers to the viewer though, instead the narrative throws the odd couple into bizarre waters; job changes, a reincarnated brother, a wiccan family, the hotel TV stuck on Gay chat lines, the little ridiculous details keep the two ultimately grounded characters on their toes. No matter how ridiculous the situation, Jones put the scene across in such a deadpan manner, the slightest ticks on Ray’s face are all you need to pick up on some of the driest humour put to film recently.

                If one film deserves your attention this year it should be this one. It’s a heart-warming, often hilarious, sometimes heart-breaking tale of loneliness and the human need for companionship. It’s a love film sans love and a gangster film without gangsters. A powerhouse set of performances from the magnificent Nora Tschirner and Rob Knighton ensures the film is never dull or misfired and as for Jones, the stunning look of the film and the genius of the script ensures they are a talent to keep your eye out for.

A gem of a film; bittersweet, concise, thought-provoking, and above all entirely captivating, Everyone’s Going to Die is one of the most impressive British films going about just now.

★★★★★

Scott Clark

Eden Review

Rating:15
Release Date (UK):
19th July 2013
Director:
Megan Griffiths
Cast:
jamie chueng, Matt O'Leary, Scott Mechlowicz,Beau Bridges, Grace Arends
South Korean, Cheong Kim was 19 years old when she met a man claiming to be in the United States military. Believing she had struck up a romance with the dashing stranger, she agreed to elope with him to Florida. En route she was handcuffed, had her identification destroyed and was held in captivity. Kim escaped, but with no means of identification and with no assistance, she grudgingly became an escort. Shortly after, she was raped and sold into slavery in Las Vegas, spending an horrific 2 years being transported to and from various warehouses with 40 or 50 other girls, many of whom were under 16 years of age.

Kim's captors tortured her by burying her in bathfuls of ice; they beat and even shot other girls who fell ill or didn't live up to their standards. Eventually Kim managed to escape by gaining the trust of her captors by convincing them she wanted to learn how to become a trafficker. She gained their trust, escaped and, after a decade, shared her story, going on to become a legal advocate promoting civil rights.

Megan Griffiths brings the story to the screen with an American Indie sensibility that eschews sensationalism or on-screen horror in favour of a more sombre, responsive aesthetic.

Intially you fear lack of visual punch seems to be a misstep; the absence of carnage seems to give the misery short shrift. It's Jamie Chung's heartbreaking, downtrodden performance which wrestles the film away from obscurity and offsets the lack of visual clout, delivering something which lingers and disquiets.

★★★☆☆

Chris Banks

Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) on BFI Blu-ray & DVD

Director:
Lotte Reiniger
Dual DVD Release Date:
19th August 2013 (UK)
Buy:
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (DVD + Blu-ray)
On 19 August 2013, the BFI will release Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) on Blu-ray for the first time in a Dual Format Edition (includes a DVD disc) with a newly recorded narration and the original orchestral score, along with a selection of short films and an illustrated booklet with contributors including Marina Warner.

Three years in the making, this beautiful 1926 silhouette animation brings to life magical tales from the Arabian Nights. The earliest surviving animated feature film – preserved in the BFI National Archive – it has been hailed as one of the world’s most innovative and influential animations.

Handsome young Prince Achmed is brave and eager for adventure, so when the most powerful sorcerer in the world challenges him to fly a magic horse, Achmed plunges headlong into a series of exciting escapades which take him from Baghdad to China via the enchanted spirit lands of Wak-Wak.

Made in card, cut entirely by hand, and then manipulated using sheets of lead joined by wires, Reiniger’s exquisite shadow characters move intricately through colourful worlds of demons, witches, beautiful princesses and flying castles. The incredible talent and creativity shown here has influenced the animation in other films including Snow White, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Sword in the Stone.

Special Features

• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
• Original orchestral score by Wolfgang Zeller
• Newly recorded alternative narration based on Lotte Reiniger's own translation of her German text Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, spoken by actress Penelope McGhie
• The Adventures of Dr Dolittle (Lotte Reiniger, 1928, 30 mins): a series of three short films based on the classic stories by Hugh Lofting
• The Flying Coffer (Lotte Reiniger, 1921, 8 mins): a poor young fisherman tries to rescue the Emperor of China's daughter who is imprisoned in a sky high pagoda
• The Secret of the Marquise (Lotte Reiniger, 1922, 2 mins): an early advert for Nivea skin care products
• The Lost Son (Lotte Reiniger, 1974, 14 mins): the New Testament parable animated in Lotte Reiniger's inimitable style
• The Star of Bethlehem (Lotte Reiniger, 1956, 18 mins): the nativity story with music by Peter Gellhorn, performed by the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus
• Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essays by Jez Stewart and Philip Kemp and a contribution by Marina Warner

Magic Magic EIFF Review 2

Rating:
15
Release Date:
25th June 2013 (EIFF)
Director:
Sebastian Silva
Stars:
Juno Temple, Emily Browning , Michael Cera
Tonally speaking Magic Magic hits the nail on the head, achieving from start to finish the truly disconcerting vibe of an oncoming storm. From the word go, things seem to be piling up against Juno Temple’s Alicia, a girl so wrought with anxiety and despair it’s a wonder she was allowed to travel on her own in the first place. It doesn't help that Sarah (Emily Browning) the friend Alicia travels to Chile to visit, has to abandon her for mysterious reasons with her Chilean friends on a lonely island.

When considering psychosis and exotic locations, things never really pan out. The Beach, Lord of the Flies, automatically the situation seems doomed. Mortality and youth, compulsion and human nature seem at the heart of the film, but aren't explored in any particular depth to maximize the impact of the film. This is a film which attempts to show how misunderstandings and over-dramatic, anxious minds can turn even the most innocent actions into purposeful attacks on personal peace. However it’s still a basic attempt at putting across a basically dull story.

                Under all the crossed wires, misunderstood moments, and exaggerated pains, the most unnerving aspect of Magic Magic is how it puts across genuine insanity; Temple does a wonderful job of letting her stability slip away in a way that is understandable yet entirely infuriating. Her unadventurous and cowardly nature are so convincing you’ll pity her more than anything, until she gets a little too kooky.  Special mention goes to Michael Cera’s near-demonic Brink, a creation so utterly loathable you can barely keep yourself from shouting at the screen. He’s prankster, manipulator and quietly closeted to a degree that’s just over the “bromance” line. Together Temple and Cera forge a screen relationship built on unspoken hatred that charges through sinister mannerisms, bird violence, and a different kind of oral rape to what you may have in mind.

Apart from performance and a gloomy aesthetic, not much else can push this slow-burning pscho-thriller into any exceptional ground, even a slap dash race for the voodoo vote. It hits the notes you expect and maintains a level head throughout bar a few brave moments where it musters the courage to show how much an insomniac and a compulsive fool can mess with each other.

★★☆☆☆

Scott Clark

EIFF 2013 - Leviathan Review

Rating: PG
Release Date (UK):
27th June 2013 (EIFF)
Director:
Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
Cast:
Declan Conneely, Johnny Gatcombe, Adrian Guillette

One of the most intriguing films of this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival is the experimental documentary piece Leviathan; an abstract look at the relationship between man and nature. It won’t be for everyone, in fact it will probably appeal to a smaller part of the audience who have the patience to endure its 87 minutes of non-linear strangely intense imagery.

                This isn’t the sort of film that offers up its direction with any ease, it’s a slog, a hard slog conveyed by the labours of everyone involved. Filmed on numerous cameras spread over a North Atlantic commercial fishing boat, Leviathan never attempts the perspective that would perhaps make the film easy- and thus inevitably dull- it is no accident that there is a lack of interviews and even general dialogue between the boat workers to ease the audiences viewing. Leviathan is bold on this front, unapologetic for a technique too pretentious for the casual viewer, but it’s this bold use of image and sound, the raw and honest quality of the film, that holds attention at some of the more startling images. The camera angles are carefully selected to give those points of view that are never really considered: the ship’s deck amongst the fish and swill, the merciless process of decapitating fish, an extreme close-up of the net chains as they are pulled too and fro in a storm. Among the catalogue of sequences are some real treasures that seem to offer a true fly-on-the-wall look at one of man’s oldest industries  yet on the other hand there are some too out-there for enjoyment, ensuring long stretches of the film crawl along ensuring attention dithers.

                By the end Leviathan seems unperturbed with relaying any true meaning or opinion on the fishing industry, other than to explore the gargantuan operation that it is and expose the isolated nature of its process. At points the film shows truly wonderful camera work be it the night-time filming of man vs. waves or the flipping of sea and sky,  and at others it starts to unravel itself through sticking to its guns as a varied selection of image and sound recorded on an actual fishing boat. By the end you cant help but wonder what it would have been like with an orchestral accompaniment.

An interesting look at the epic harsh relationship between modern man and the sea, Leviathan uses innovative camera work and a lack of non-diegetic sound to relay an isolated and chaotic atmosphere; however by the end it proves just as arduous a journey for the viewer.

★★★☆☆

Scott Clark