Category: REVIEWS

Judas Collar – I don’t mind admitting that when I finished watching this, I had no idea what I could say about it. Could my words really do justice to what I had seen? Even now, all I can do thinking about it is exhale deeply. Needless to say, this was rough – and everyone out there should watch it. Either right now or in the near future, it should be high up on your watch list.

Judas Collar follows a camel, somewhere in the Australian outback. Early on, after some Natural History-like footage of the herd in its natural habitat and glory, the camel is tranquilized and tagged with the Judas Collar. An ugly looking piece of technology that allows us to track this camel. Not long after, men in a helicopter with rifles come and fire on all the herd. Bar one that is. Alone and wondering, this camel finds another herd and is quickly accepted. Then the helicopter returns like the shark from Jaws. Not long after is the purpose of the Judas Collar realized.

This is one of those rare films where any criticism I had is mute, as it is the point. It made me angry. It offended me. Days on it has still upset me. I never, ever want to watch it again! But that’s good! I should feel this way. I can’t rightly remember when a film emotionally affected me this much. Being an animal lover, I suppose this isn’t too surprising a reaction.

The works of David Attenborough and National Geographic are typically my bread and butter. It amused me that Judas Collar, very wisely, uses such a way of filmmaking to get its story and points across. Looking back, it feels almost parodical of the type of documentary. The camels are certainly acting like they are completely in their natural element – most likely because they are. Although there are some shots that I can’t see being happy little accidents. Some coasting must have gone on at points to get the appropriate response from the camels.

When the film gets nasty – meaning when the helicopter arrives – we don’t actually see anything. We don’t see camels fall or fake, bloody puncture wounds. We don’t even see a lifeless camel corpse – well, not fully anyway, just a foot or part of a belly. We didn’t need to. The point is made, and it is made excellently. Any more would have been gratuitous and taken away from the point of the film. It would have also betrayed the cruelty free message of the video, I think. 

I appreciate the film for not treating its audience like it was looking down on them. I had no idea what a Judas Collar even was – in fact when I first saw it, I thought it was a research tool – and the film knew and respected that. It’s like they knew that if I hadn’t heard of it then I would look it up later. The film also gives us the feeling that is a bad thing that should be stopped. Now, I hate animal cruelty and believe that we should respect all the animals out there. But I also like meat and can see, in some cases, why a cull can be necessary. I am on the fence about such things, but when something like Judas Collar shows what a waste of life and what a negative affect this has on the animals in question, I can’t help but be moved.

I can’t recommend it enough. I really can’t. It’s only 15 minutes long, so you don’t have the excuse of having no time to watch it. On the basis of how well it’s made, it is flawless – with beautiful cinematography and pitch perfect sound editing. I cannot commend writer/director Alison James enough for her film. I can only hope that I have done it justice here. For all the great films I’ve seen this year – be it the entertaining Shazam! or John Wick 3, the thought provoking Joker, the mindless fun of Crawl or the genuinely amazing Doctor Sleep – it might well be this short, simple, yet powerful film, that only askes you watch, listen and think, that could be film I remember most from this entire year.

24 Little Hours is the latest film from writer/director Paul Knight and after 10 years of making films he’s gone back to his roots with a plot involving thugs, mugs and violence, all within the backdrop of gritty London town. DI Summers (Fiona Skinner) is a discredited police officer with a past of corruption and mistakes who is nevertheless tasked with getting to the truth behind a series of killings involving an ex-con with a grudge.

Told through a combination of police interviews, flashbacks and up to the minute scenes detailing the action, DI Summers is close to cracking the case. However, with a string of unreliable witnesses and superiors who don’t trust her to get the job done, Summers may have to do more than her job allows to bring the right people to justice.

Having spent 10 years making films, Paul Knight must have gathered quite a lot of experience in the British film industry. It’s just a shame that it comes across that Knight seems to think that he knows exactly what people want; clichés, stereotyped characters and a cast that don’t know how to act without going completely overboard.

The plot for 24 Little Hours is a little muddled and would take a lot of concentration for those who are just expecting a typical British gangster flick. However, this is less to do with the intricacies of the story, but more to do with the film spending too much time with the wrong characters. A list of characters who are either miscast, rely far too much on their deep, gravelly voices to sound menacing or have to wade through the dialogue which often relies on a degree in Cockney Rhyming slang.

Also, a lot of characters feel completely out of place, where there could have been a good actor with an interesting part, instead it feels like they were put in the film just to kill time.

However, it’s not all that bad and the film’s finale is where it really is at its best (and not just because the film is nearly over). Knight manages to create an atmosphere throughout that maintains that feeling of a dark, violent underbelly of London and the final pursuit for the killer is very well played out.

It’s just a shame that it took so long for 24 Little Hours to understand its strong points, forcing the audience to put up with bad dialogue, plodding story and a slow pace.

Parasite: The BRWC Review. Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.

For the past few months now, all I have seen on my social media feeds, has been posts about how amazing Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is. Many have called it not only one of the greatest films of the year, but one of the greatest of the entire decade. The hype surrounding this picture, especially in the film community, has been intense to say the least.

You can probably see why I was so excited to finally be able to get my opportunity to check it out this past weekend. I expected Parasite to be a really good movie, but Parasite is a really good movie. It is one that will keep you enthralled throughout its running time, and will leave you feeling disturbed, haunted, and confused – but in a good way.

All of the acting present here is absolutely brilliant. Some of the true standouts however are Song Kang-ho and Choi Woo-shik as Kim Ki-taek and Kim Ki-woo respectively. They bring an astounding level of nuance and intensity to their performances and every single frame with them is filled with tension.

On the surface, Parasite may seem like a simple film with a simple concept, but I promise you that it is the furthest thing from that. It is extremely layered and is riddled with relevant themes and is genuinely one of the most thought-provoking features of the decade. A large portion of the movies released in this day and age do not leave a lasting impression on you. That does not mean that those are bad films, but it means that they will more than likely not resonate with you for a long time afterwards. Sure, they may be fun and enjoyable, but in the long run, they just will not be in your brain.

Parasite will be on my mind for an incredibly long time. Joon-ho is a filmmaker that has a miraculous story to tell and he tells it with breathtaking skill and expertise. The moment that this picture ended, I felt incredibly disturbed, thrilled, and emotional all at the same time. If Parasite does not end up getting nominated at the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony in 2020, it would be an utter travesty. Films this rich and complex only come so often, and for it to go unrecognized come awards season would be depressing to be honest.

It is also a gorgeously shot feature by director of photography Hong Kyung-pyo. Virtually every shot in Parasite has something interesting happening on screen. In fact, this is one of the most stunning movies of the year.

However, I do have one minor nitpick with the film, and while yes, it is extremely minor, it was something that bothered me a little bit, and so I feel that I should mention that here. In the third act of Parasite, it did strain quite a bit of credibility for me with the way the story went, more particularly the last few minutes. Certain things happen to characters that just came across as unrealistic, sadly. The rest of the film was utterly masterful, but the ending did not feel grounded like the rest of the picture.

Parasite is a wholly riveting experience with an astonishingly gripping story that is rich with complex themes, developed characters, and brilliant direction.

After The Wedding is an ambitious script that tried to tie lots of themes together but it didn’t know which theme or type of film it wanted to be. Strong acting throughout but didn’t really achieve the emotional fireworks it was so clearly after.

After The Wedding tells the story of Isabel (Michelle Williams) who runs an orphanage in India which is desperate need of funding to help the underprivileged children. She travels to New York to meet wealthy benefactor, Theresa (Julianne Moore) who tells her she will make a decision after her Grace’s, her daughter, wedding.

However, everything is not as it seems because Isabel, Theresa and Theresa’s husband Oscar Carlson know each other much better than it first appears.

The issue with any remake is that it needs to be fresh and saying something different than the original otherwise there is no point. After The Wedding is a remake of the original Danish film. Writer and Director Bart Freundlich decided to make the central male character a female character as played by Michelle Williams.

It could have been a really interesting film about women choosing the lives they want unapologetically and living for themselves. However, Freundlich lost his nerve and what we instead get is a film that doesn’t know which story it wants to tell and so fails to deliver the emotional gut punch it is so desperately after and lacks all the nuance of the original and in many respects far superior film by Susanne Bier of the same name.

The acting is strong but the film, if the device of the Indian orphanage is removed, might as well as been a nondescript love triangle film set in upper middle class New York society.

After The Wedding is released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 1 November.

Dark Fate – Caillou’s Take. In Mexico City, a newly modified liquid Terminator — the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) model — arrives from the future to kill a young factory worker named Daniella “Dani” Ramos (Natalia Reyes). Also sent back in time is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a hybrid cyborg human who must protect Ramos from the seemingly indestructible robotic assassin. But the two women soon find some much-needed help from a pair of unexpected allies — seasoned warrior Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and the T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

It would not be a stretch to say that James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator is one of the most influential science fiction action films ever put on screen. It changed so much in the field and inspired a generation of filmmakers and also spawned a number of sequels in the now iconic Terminator film franchise.

In my opinion, 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day is quite simply one of the greatest action movies ever made. That film took what made the first installment so great and improved upon it in all the right ways. It made the initial villain the strangely fitting hero, fleshed out series protagonist Sarah Connor, and managed to sprinkle in some emotional moments here and there as well, mainly with the dynamic of John Connor (Edward Furlong) and Schwarzenegger’s T-800.

Ever since those two initial films, we have gotten a couple of follow-up films, but none of them have ever been able to capture the spirit and incredible fun that those original movies brought. Salvation had some potential but ultimately fell flat and Genisys was a jarring and supremely messy picture that did not have a lot to offer unfortunately.

Tim Miller’s Terminator: Dark Fate aims to fix this by ignoring every single film in the franchise besides the first two. This is something that David Gordon Green did with his 2018 film Halloween, as he only made the original 1978 John Carpenter directed film canon to that film’s story.

Miller, who previously directed the excellent and gut-bustingly hilarious Deadpool, offers some great direction here. This is the most competently helmed Terminator picture since Judgment Day, by far. Dark Fate does seem like it has a vision and it feels like Miller knows what he is doing, and he is absolutely not the problem here. The problem here is the story and the script.

Dark Fate feels so similar to The Terminator and its sequel that at times it gets extremely stale rather fast. In the first film, Sarah Connor was an innocent girl being hunted by a deadly machine known as the T-800. This time around, Dani Ramos is an innocent girl being hunted by a deadly machine known as the Rev-9. In fact, the movie itself seems to acknowledge this when Grace asks Sarah why she wants to help protect Dani, she responds “Because I was her.” It seems like the movie was trying to be self-aware but instead, it just felt like it admitted that its the same plot we have seen numerous times in the past, and better.

When it comes to the action set pieces in Dark Fate, they are extremely impressively put together, and all of the action in this film is by far the strongest aspect. There are plenty of close-combat fights as well as the Terminator vs. Terminator fights that we have grown attached to over the years. Machine-killing chaos has never been so fun, and the action present is the best in the franchise since Judgment Day. In all honesty, that is one of the biggest praises I can give this film – it is, for the most part, really well-paced. We almost always have something fun unfolding on-screen, which ensures that the viewer is kept entertained most of the time. There are some moments in the second act that do drag, but it usually tries to keep moving.

All of the performances are also quite strong here as well, particularly Linda Hamilton in the shoes of her iconic character Sarah Connor, as well as Mackenzie Davis as new character Grace. There really is no weak actor in this movie, although there are most certainly some that stand out more than others. More than likely, a lot of Terminator fans are greatly excited to see Schwarzengger back on the big screen as the T-800, and he is quite fun to watch in this film. The only unfortunate thing is that he barely has any screen time, and it seems like the movie did not have that good of an excuse to bring him back, except for fan service.

Terminator: Dark Fate offers thrilling action and terrific performances. What prevents it from being good, sadly, is its recycled plot and messy script.