Month: September 2025

Stray Dog

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Murakam with gun

Subtle, understated Japanese film noir, 1949’s Stray Dog appears to be Akira Kurosawa’s embrace of the post-War reconstruction of Japan in the image of the American conqueror. It may be something else as well. But before all that, is the “stray dog” we see panting in the opening titles meant to be Japan itself? That dog does not otherwise feature in the film. No dog does. Instead of canines, Kurosawa beetles away at a Maguffin leading us from one end of his movie to the other. The story of a diligent young cop, Detective Murakami (Toshirō Mifune), who one sweltering day on a crowded bus has his police revolver lifted from his jacket … Read more

F1

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Sonny and team mate Joshua about to race

F1 is as entertaining as it is ridiculous. A Formula 1 driver getting away with the sort of track chicanery that Brad Pitt’s character pulls off here? Nonsense. Insane. He’d be yanked off the track so fast he wouldn’t have time to remove his fireproof balaclava. While we’re about it, Isn’t Pitt way too old for the role? Aged about 60 when this was made, Pitt is playing about 50? Maybe. He’s in good shape and takes his shirt off a couple of times to reveal what he got paid a reported $30 million to deliver – Brad Pitt gorgeousness, with a shrug and a slightly diffident, “Can I help it if I’m … Read more

Salvo

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Salvo with gun

What do solitary hitmen want? To get out. Or a normal family life. Or for the senseless killing to stop. Salvo gives us versions of all these possibilities, with masses of style and a cool, thrilling central performance by Saleh Bakri as the titular Salvo – it means “safe” in Italian, a name that can be read ironically, depending on which end of the gun you are at. Cannes liked it, and awarded it the grand prize in Critics Week in 2013, which is the one they hand out to new talent. Which situates Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza alongside Bernardo Bertolucci, Leos Carax, Wong Kar-wai, Julia Ducournau and Andrea Arnold. For its money … Read more

Superman

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Superman is jeered by a crowd

An all-you-can-eat buffet of Superman, or James Gunn’s Superman, as it’s invariably called, presumably to set it apart from the crowd. Not that Gunn seems interested in standing out from the crowd too much. His Superman’s tights are baggy, like the cheapo ones from the black and white era, though most of Gunn’s inspiration comes from the 1970s Christopher Reeve Superman, in the look of Superman/Clark Kent himself, the production design and most obviously in the use of the John Williams theme, which new composers David Fleming and John Murphy take off the peg now and then, usually when the big guns are needed. On the subject of guns, after playing him a … Read more

Il Futuro

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Bianca tests Maciste is really blind by holding a hand in front of his face

Rutger Hauer was 69 when he turned up in Il Futuro in 2013. He’d die six years later, in 2019, having clocked up another 35 or so screen credits in the interim. Always working, not always in quality product, Hauer was good even in the most disappointing films. But Il Futuro isn’t one of those. It’s a little nugget of quality, a noirish, almost giallo-ish May to December romance co-starring Manuela Martelli, who gives as good as she gets from Hauer. Chilean director Alicia Scherson starts us off with thriller titles in screaming fonts and a blaring score before dialling things back to the deadbeat. After introducing us to Bianca (Martelli) and Tomas … Read more

The Monkey

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The monkey beating its drum

A man killed by vape, a woman blown to bits on diving into a swimming pool. Fish hooks, a coffee steamer, on they go, the vectors of weird death, in Osgood Perkins’s The Monkey, a Stephen King story tricked out with Final Destination-style ingenuity and given a comedy-macabre polish. Groans followed by chortles is the idea, with the reactions stopping this side of disgust, as Perkins tells the story of twins who grow up to be adult versions of the milquetoast/asshole combo they are as kids and the malevolent mechanical monkey that follows them on their journey, wreaking bloody havoc all the way. A pre-credits sequence shows the monkey doing its thing – … Read more

Hollow Triumph

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Müller posing as Bartok with Evelyn looking on

Paul Henreid got sick of playing bland heroes like Casablanca‘s Victor Laszlo and in Hollow Triumph set out to prove he could be just as convincingly bad. Having optioned the novel this crime drama was based on, he produced the film himself and, according to legend, directed most of it too, once original director Steve Sekely had been fired by the studio. The result is either a triumph or a hollow triumph, depending on your approach to the movie and your attitude towards implausibility. If you’re taking things very seriously, then problems over likelihood and credibility entirely undermine everything. If not, they’re all part of the fun. But on to the plot, which … Read more

28 Years Later

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Spike and Jamie running from zombies

Danny Boyle has at least gone for it in 28 Years Later, a not always exciting but relentlessly interesting capstone on the 28 trilogy. After 28 Days and Weeks Later, logically it should have been Months, but 18 years have passed since 2007 and 18 Years Later would have broken the poetics. So Years it is. So many years, in fact, that none of the cast from the first or second film have made it this far, though Danny Boyle returns to the franchise (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directed number two) bringing a lot of behind-the-camera talent from the 2002 original with him. That includes writer Alex Garland, who reportedly borrowed the shape of … Read more

Repulsion

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Catherine Deneuve near naked on the floor

1965’s Repulsion is one of the greatest hits of the “apartment horror” genre. Expressionistic, claustrophobic and intense, it’s part try-out for Rosemary’s Baby, part grab for commercial success, so Roman Polanski could make enough money to finance Cul-de-Sac, his next film. He succeeded. Repulsion was a box office and critical hit, and is now considered one of Polanski’s finest. Polanski himself doesn’t seem quite so enamoured. On the commentary track he describes some of his more florid moments as “artsy fartsy”. A touch too overwrought, maybe. But then it was the mid 1960s. Psycho and Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath had teed audiences up for a certain kind of theatricality, which Polanski gives them … Read more

Gazer

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Frankie in front of a TV showing a woman aiming a gun

Straight out of the box – other viewing options are available – Gazer is a remarkable movie. How remarkable becomes clear once you know a bit of its backstory. But for starters let’s say what it’s about and who’s in it etc. It’s a neo-noir, more old-school noir than most, and stars Ariella Mastroianni as a young woman with a neurological condition called dyschronometria, which is an inability to measure time or relate to it. Frankie (Mastroianni) is adrift in the world without reference points. She struggles to keep her show on the road. As we meet her she’s being fired from (another) McJob, for being distracted by something going on in an upstairs … Read more