film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • The Rise Of Sir Longbottom: Review

    The Rise Of Sir Longbottom: Review

    The Rise Of Sir Longbottom: Review – Trevor Doyle (Daniel Main) and Kyle Johnson (Jeremy Behie), better known as Pocketman and Cargoboy are back after their first adventure where they travelled through time to stop an evil doctor from killing the human race.

    Now back at school, their skills are to be tested even further and their knowledge of what’s to come may be the only way to defeat the evil Sir Longbottom (John J. Berger). However, with the strong bonds between the students and the teachers, it may not be so easy for Sir Longbottom to take them down.

    The Rise of Sir Longbottom is the no-budget sequel to Pocketman and Cargoboy, the brainchild of writer/director Clay Moffatt. Presumably using as many resources as possible at his disposal (not many) Moffatt has inventively created a world where with a much bigger budget it could easily be a franchise.

    The problem is that it’s really no substitution for a big screen blockbuster because the budget is so low that it may not hold the attention of the youngest minds. Also, the movie doesn’t really give the chance for any newcomers to catch up. It assumes that the audience has already seen the first movie and carries on as if they’re all caught up.

    A line of dialogue here or there about who they are, why they’re there and what they’re doing may have helped, but it’s clearly not a priority. This is also particularly unfortunate as supposedly the first movie had already established so many characters and relationships.

    So, unless you’re very familiar with the first movie, there doesn’t seem to be anything new to add to the characters and the audience are yet again expected to remember characters, what their relationships are with each other and why the audience should care.

    Considering the low budget, there can be some things that could be overlooked, but for those who were expecting more then they may also be disappointed by the quality of acting. Overall it does have its charm and it may remind budding filmmakers of attempts they made while they were teenagers. However, for those looking for a fun film with good characters then they may want to skip this one.

  • Go/Don’t Go: Review

    Go/Don’t Go: Review

    Go/Don’t Go: Review – Adam (Alex Knapp) has a quiet life, he never really wants to get in anyone’s way and prefers to be in the background, just enjoying his own company and whoever wants to join him is just fine. He’s the definition up ‘failing upwards’, he lets the world go by and whatever happens happens.

    Then one day as Adam goes about his daily routine the audience finds him repeating that same routine over and over again until they may start to realise that Adam is alone. Not alone in the sense that he’s lonely, but in the sense that there’s literally nobody else in the world.

    Soon Adam starts to think about things he’s never really thought before; he thinks about past loves, about past relationships good and bad and although he’s usually used to his own company, he’s starting to feel that loneliness and along with that comes regret of missed opportunities.

    Adam also starts to imagine the people who he had in his life and he’d sit down and talk to them. Even though he’s really talking to himself. He does anything that would stave off the boredom and monotony, but at least he’s alive.

    Go/Don’t Go is a post-apocalyptic drama written, directed by and starring Alex Knapp. Taking inspiration from movies such as The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man and I Am Legend, Knapp’s story takes away all the sensational science fiction aspects, focussing on one man and how he would deal with being the only one left. However, the slow burn aspect of the drama on which the movie sells itself could feel a little grating and may test the patience of people expecting more of a story.

    There’s no world ending bomb and no virus that destroys humanity (thank goodness), but what’s left feels a little too slow for its own good and a little conflict no matter how small may have livened things up.

    Knapp does a great job and it’s no easy task to try and hold a movie entirely by yourself, but perhaps now is not the right time to watch it if you’ve spent a certain amount of time alone away from everybody else you love.

  • Pelícano: Review

    Pelícano: Review

    Lucia (Silvia Novak) is a mother to two adult children. Rebecca (Paula Edwards) brings her husband, Octavio (Benjamin Gorrono) to live with her as they are in financial trouble and Lucia’s son, Antonio (Mario Olivares) has a drinking problem and is constantly asking his mother for money.

    However, Lucia has decided that she wants to live on her own terms and while she’s having an affair with Octavio, she also enjoys dangling the promise of inheritance in front of Antonio, while she spends it on the most extravagant things.

    Lucia’s marriage to her children’s father, Silverio (Ricardo Herrera) has also left him in tatters. However, the question is how long Lucia can go on living the way that she does until her children take matters into their own hands.

    Pelícano is a Chilean arthouse film written and directed by Gustavo Letelier, adapted from August Strindberg’s classic tragic play, The Pelican. It tells the story of a family on the edge of ruin, told with all the heightened drama that an audience may come to expect from such a tale, but thankfully never going too far over the top.

    By using black and white scenes and colour, Letelier’s update on Strindberg’s play shows the audience a story told in reverse, with the colour scenes being told in the present and the black and white telling the story of how the audience finds the family at the start. There are even times when both scenes intermingle to show how close the past is catching up and how different characters are affected.

    All the cast play their parts very well, particularly Novak as the self-absorbed matriarch who revels in the drama and chaos around her as she lives her life without a care. There are some scenes that may be a little confusing to some people who may be new to the arthouse genre (such as Antonio’s drunken oboe playing).

    However, if the audience just goes along with it then they will be satisfied by the film’s melodramatic finale. Tragedy never looked so good and was never done quite as stylishly as Pelícano.

  • Battle In Space: The Armada Attacks – Review

    Battle In Space: The Armada Attacks – Review

    Battle in Space: The Armada Attacks is an anthology movie with five different stories that mostly take on a very similar tone. The first one sets up a con artist living in the 25th century where the Earth has been taken over by ‘Space Wizards’, the second is about a couple of men tasked with tracking down and important item on an alien planet in order to bring it back to its rightful owners.

    The third one is about a spacecraft whose captain has been taken over by an alien entity. The fourth is about a man and a woman alone on a spaceship where one of them may be lying to the other. Then the final one is about a girl trying to connect with her lost family by playing a sci-fi video game.

    It’s just a shame that the movie doesn’t give any indication whatsoever that it’s meant to be an anthology.

    The movie starts out with a rather stoic and stern voiceover informing the audience that it’s the 25th century and the world has been taken over by Space Wizards. This could have been the perfect opportunity for the movie to subvert the audience’s expectations, but unfortunately it keeps up this serious tone which completely lacks any sense of self awareness.

    For the most part each of the stories are mind numbingly generic and if they were given more time may even turn out to be something more interesting and maybe even funny. However, this is where the movie gets even more frustrating as just when the audience may think that the story will get somewhere – it cuts to the next story with little to no warning.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMbJ9Lta5bE

    The visuals in some of the short stories admittedly do look great when considering what a low budget the anthology must have, and the way that each story instantly evokes another movie that it’s clearly taking its influence from is effective.

    However, in the end apart from the last story, they are all excerpts from movies we have seen before. A confusing experiment in how to give your audience the bare minimum.

  • Bright Hill Road: Review

    Bright Hill Road: Review

    Marcy (Siobhan Williams) has gone through some trauma in her life. She deals with it by drinking and although she would never admit that she’s an alcoholic, all the signs are there. Then one day after it’s her job to fire an employee, he comes back with a gun and unleashes his anger on the staff, killing many of Marcy’s co-workers, but leaving her alive with a colleague dying in her arms.

    This unsurprisingly tips Marcy over the edge and she decides to go and stay with her sister in California so that she can get her head together. Along the way she decides to stay at a boarding house run by Mrs. Inman (Agam Darshi) and soon Marcy finds that as her guilt and trauma plays on her mind, it effects how she feels about the place she has chosen to stay.

    Bright Hill Road is a psychological horror directed by Robert Cuffley and written by Susie Moloney. Probably taking inspiration from many stories and experiences of addiction, Bright Hill Road could be said to be more of a character study on the affects of alcohol on a person rather than an all-out horror. Although there are certain aspects that unnerve Marcy as she finds she is trapped at the boarding house.

    All the cast play their parts well, especially Williams whose frequent torment from her troubled mind and the supernatural elements that surround her all help her to question where she is, why she can’t leave and what’s really going on.

    Unfortunately, it won’t take audiences long before they realise what’s really going on at Bright Hill Road and the revelation of Marcy’s true fate may surprise very few.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ggqOPVDxY

    There are also some supernatural elements that don’t really work as well as they should if the movie wants to keep the audience in suspense.

    The question of whether Marcy is being punished for her addiction or whether the hotel is teaching her how to deal with her addiction becomes a little confused. Although that may keep the audience guessing, it also feels that the film doesn’t have a clear path. Also The Eagles may have wrote a similar thing about 40 years ago.