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In the 21st century right now we have Twilight Saga to drive people crazy. Back in the last century, people had the Halloween Saga to go bonkers for.

The first part of the Halloween movies came out in 1978. It tells a story of Michael Meyers, a troubled kid who puts on a mask and starts killing all the teenagers in his hometown in Illinois, including his step sister. Of course there are a lot of police and a psychiatrist involved, everybody trying to get this killer with supernatural abilities. He keeps on murdering everybody who gets in his way in the next two parts of the saga, cause what else is there to do in a horror movie?

Halloween 4 is the only movie I have seen from the saga and I gotta admit, in 2012 it still had some suprising elements and cool twists to it for me. But I have also never noticed so many goofs on the first watch of the movie either.

So, the story starts off with ambulance driving to the hospital where Michael Meyers has been in coma for ten years. He wakes after hearing that he has a 7-year old cousin ( Danielle Harris) . His rage rises and in this stormy night, his killing starts again. He is going back to his hometown in Illinois, in order to find the 7-year old girl.

Psychiatrist Dr.Sam Loomis, played by Donald Pleasance( big name in the British TV in the 60s) is back in action, trying to stop Michael Meyers, who in every Halloween movie is being played by different stunt actors. It makes sense why the producers didin’t start hiring a great actor to portray Michael – he doesn’t have to say a word troughout the whole movie, his only acting is to walk around slowly and scary, stand straight once he’s seen his victim and then kill them. I wish I would have gotten the role.

The little girl is played by Danielle Harris, who mader her film debut in this movie. For a child, she is playing her character very well. As I read from the interviews later, she enjoyed every bit of making the film and Halloween 4 & 5 helped her understand that horror movies are the ones she wants to do her whole life.  For now, she has played in movies such as Nuclear Family, The Victim, Hatchet 2 etc, so you can see she really meant it.

The film also includes some crap teenager scenes. Jaime’s step sister Rachael’s( Ellie Cornell) date decides to have some adult fun with another blondie by the fireplace, as everybody can see in the movie. I think it’s no suprise if I say they all die in the end anyway so no need to worry about the love.

Although Halloween 4 is a nice movie to watch with some pretty intense scenes, it is also hilarious. But I guess you gotta blame in on the equipment at that time, not exactly on the moviemakers. For example, the face of a dead police officer made me giggle instead of screaming.  Also, there are some very obvious goofs  – in some scenes, you can clearly see how Meyers has dark brown hair, in some others he’s as blonde as a Californian surfer boy.  The scars on Dr. Loomis face also change quite clearly troughout the movie and Rachael’s sweater looks too good to be true while she is fighting the killer all on her own in a moving car. But wait till you see it, there’s more !

Halloween 4 must have been a real fun to watch back in the 1988 when it was first released. But today, although the film has some amazing ideas, I think the kids of the new generation have already seen pretty much everything and nothing suprises them that much. The tricks they used in the movie might have been new back then but they are used in every horror movie now.

Overall, considering the time of its release and the film in general, I think Halloween 4 was awesome. It offers some tension and fear, a lot of fun and you can almost see a naked girl, which is always nice. Thumbs up!

Material is a labour of love, both in its construction and its content. Taking over seven years of writing and refining to get it from the souls of a few individuals to the screens of many, Craig Freimond’s film is about love in all its forms.

Set in Johannesburg, Material follows the story of the disruption of an Indian Muslim family when it is discovered the son, Cassim Kaif (played by the talented Riaad Moosa), when not working in his father’s fabric shop, is pursuing his dream to be a stand up comedian. The family, already disrupted by the father’s, Ebrahim Kaif (Vincent Ebrahim), estrangement from his brother is thrown into a turmoil that is interposed with clips of Cassim’s stand up performances. On stage, Cassim’s comic delivery is outstanding, and each performance parallels neatly with the events in his life at the time. The subjects, ranging from wedding day rituals to how much laughter is too much, are relevant, poignant and, most importantly, hilarious.

Based loosely on Riaad Moosa’s life as a Muslim stand up comedian, the film seeks to put a comical spin on the pressures faced by young adults existing in a world that does not necessarily marry comfortably with their beliefs. As he desperately tries to please his father, impress the girl of his dreams and follow his calling, the interactions between the characters, in particular Cassim and his best friend Yusuf (Joey Rasdien), are funny, touching and complex. The superb script and patient, unobtrusive filming means that we are flies on the wall to the Kaif family, seeing all points of view and taking no sides. Rather than forcing unlikely conversations between stubborn Ebrahim and reserved Cassim, the intricate and shifting relationship between father and son is represented through simple repeated sequences, such as washing their feet before prayer and opening the shop. The differing levels of closeness and respect are shown according to whether they are praying together or alone and who walks through the shop door first. It is these clever moments that make Material both universal in its representation of the family unit, and educative in its representation of a specific religion, culture and country.

This union between the universal and the specific is essential to the film’s overall success. Arguments and interactions between family members, whilst largely specific to their culture, are effective in that it is like watching your own family. All the characters and narrative effects one might expect in a romantic comedy are present, from the hero’s funny sidekick, to the almost Disney-style music that plays when Cassim sees his dream girl Zulfa (Carishma Basday), and yet there is little that is stereotypical or expected about the film itself. Without feeling as though you are being schooled on the religion, in witnessing the insensitivities of non-Muslim individuals and the expectations, rituals and restrictions of each individual family member, we are treated to a glimpse into a world that is rarely represented so gently and humorously. By becoming so emotionally invested in the Kaif family, we are rewarded with scenes of indulgent, tear-jerking emotion and a life lesson that stays with you long after the credits have rolled. Denise Newman and Ebrahim Kaif give exceptional performances, whilst Riaad Moosa’s handsome comic hero is self-deprecated, compassionate and highly endearing. With a running time of 94 minutes, Freimond wastes no time at all in making you fall in love with the dusty Johannesburg streets, stand-up comedy performances, cars that don’t start, weddings, row-boats, the Oriental Plaza and the characters themselves to boot, leaving you with a dilemma of your own; whether to watch it again or recommend it to a friend.

The name Material is apt. Not only a dual-reference to Cassim’s comedy and the cloth sold in their family shop, Material is a compassionate dedication to the intricately woven fabric of family life, with all its tears and imperfections, the result of which is nothing less than inspiring.

For more information about the film, click here

From Robert Mann.

Nativity! is a much more cheerful piece of festive cinema. In theory this is a film that always sounded like it has the potential to be a delightful Christmas treat, as the cast is made up of a who’s who of big British comic talent and the idea at its heart certain has the promise for an enjoyable, if lightweight, family comedy. However, the presence of director Debbie Isitt, whose last filmConfetti was extremely mediocre and who takes a very improvisational approach to her films, has been less encouraging. Thus, going into the film my expectations were pretty low and consequently I was very pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

Ever since he was dumped at Christmas, primary school teacher Mr Maddens (Martin Freeman) has hated all things festive. In happier days he studied drama with Jennifer (Ashley Jensen) and Gordon (Jason Watkins). Now Jennifer has a new life in Hollywood while arrogant Gordon teaches at the posh school down the road. Maddens’ heart sinks when he’s assigned to direct the school nativity play. His previous effort was viciously slated by the local drama critic (Alan Carr), while Gordon’s productions always get five stars. However, Maddens’ new classroom assistant, Mr Poppy (Mark Wootton), is beside himself with excitement and has big ideas for a Christmas spectacular. And when Maddens idly boasts to Gordon that his play has – via Jennifer – attracted the attention of Hollywood, the whole town gets caught up in showbiz madness!

Nativity! is not one of the best Christmas movies or one of the best British comedies ever made. In fact, it doesn’t even come close to being either. What it is, however, is a very enjoyable film that will fill you with festive cheer, something that this year’s other Christmas didn’t do such a good job of. I will start by saying what is bad about the film. For the price of a cinema ticket you would expect to see something quite cinematic. However, by and large the quality of the film is much more akin to that of a television special, the kind of thing that you would expect to see for free in the comfort of your home, not have to pay to see at a cinema. This isn’t to say that the film isn’t good but it does lack the feel of a proper movie. This is something that is also evident in the quality of the performances with the ensemble of big British stars (which also includes Pam Ferris and Ricky Tomlinson) being distinctly unimpressive, simply being average, and far from their best.

While fairly amusing, they all fail to provide much that is really funny and this is a pretty big problem in a film that is supposed to be a comedy. However, while the adult stars fail to stand out in any way the kids are a completely different story. The children seen in the film are what really worth seeing, particularly when the film really kicks into gear with the actual performance of the play at the film’s climax, a performance that really is quite spectacular. The kids are cute and many of them show genuine talent and it is them who really steal the show. What they bring to the film is a sense of charm and warmth, something that is perhaps missing in the performances of the adult actors, and they provide a finale which really does make the film worth seeing, even through the parts where it does drag a little. So, while Nativity! is never going to be considered a Christmas classic, it is definitely a film that will leave you in a very festive mood.

“This is what I do”, grunts a slightly-built Indonesian man with wide, intense eyes and sweat-soaked ringlets. What he does is, to be blunt, kick the living crap out of people.

The Raid is not a film that requires much cerebral attention (besides reading the subtitles). It is not a film that has strong character development, thoughtful emotions, or witty dialogue. What it does have is amazingly brutal yet beautiful martial arts, braided together in such a way that the hour and a half running time races past in a blood-drenched, sweat-stained fury.

The plot is fairly simple: an Indonesian crime lord, Tama, sits on the 15^th floor of a tower block, ruling his nest of drug-addled criminals in between staring at a bank of CCTV monitors and beating people in the head with a hammer. A SWAT team are ordered to break into the tower and “clean it out”; the audience follow their journey up the floors, as they become less and less successful and more and more dead. The corrupt lieutenant had failed to gain proper authorisation for the attack, leaving the team on their own, with no back up and no way out.

It is easy to draw comparisons with this year’s Dredd 3D: in both films, a police force take on a tower block that has become a haven for criminals, ruled over by a cruel boss. Some scenes appear almost identical – hiding in the room of the one “good guy” in the building (completely inexplicable why he would live there), or Tama calling over the PA to let his army of vagrants know that the enemy is within. A quick internet search midway through the film led to the discovery that The Raid is essentially the original, and therefore any plagiarism falls on Dredd’s hefty shoulders (it also led to asking “which came first: the chicken or the Dredd?”).

If Dredd was a slow-moving leviathan, its tower block a fantastical futuristic monolith, The Raid is a piranha, darting through the scummy South-East Asian underworld in a haze of claustrophobic, fast-paced hyper violence. The martial arts are intense and vicious, the Indonesian pencak silat style looking less like the choreographed fight scenes of a Jackie Chan movie, and more like a back-street brawl. Stylish special effects, muted colours and a handful of beautifully framed shots give this film an almost graphic novel-esque feel, and Gareth Evans, the Welsh director, also makes great use of sound, building the tension and intimacy with lip-biting silences.

Admittedly, by the end the fight scenes did drag on and it was a struggle to focus on every punch, kick and gruesome stab with little plot to bond them together. Iko Uwais puts in a decent performance as Rama, the young, good-hearted cop, but his character is never more than an empty vessel to fill with – admittedly awe-inspiring – martial arts skills. This is not a film to change your life, nor even necessarily one to remember the next day; nevertheless it should be lauded for its ability to take a simple concept and execute it to (near) perfection.