An epic film from Russia about the defining battle of WWII which focuses around two houses facing each other across Stalingrad’s iconic square.

In one the Russians prepare to hold off the German onslaught long enough for replacements to arrive from the rear of the city across the Volga. A woman stays with the soldiers and befriends them helping by cooking and treating their wounds.

The version of this film I was given to review had quite poor English subtitles and sometimes it was a bit of an effort to keep up with the narrative. There is of course also the Russian classical style of film-making which tells stories in a very different way to Hollywood: rather than posing a story from start to finish they often interweave other stories as they occur, while major events are occurring around them. Hollywood does this too, but in the Russian style these minor stories dominate a lot of screen time, making the overall narrative seem disjointed by the time we get back to it.

However if you are prepared to accept these few minor problems for Western viewers, Stalingrad is well worth the 3 or so hour watch. It stands up well as a companion piece to the 1993 German film of the same name.

Ok, call me a Disney-film watcher but I liked Enders Game! No its not made by Disney but I was warned beforehand it was something of a kids movie with disneyesque qualities; I could not disagree more.

This was a very interesting Science Fiction film and yes it did have a cast of mainly teenagers, but their performances were more than acceptable. It also starred Harrison Ford as a grey-haired-Major-Payne mentor and father-figure to the young trainees.

I suspect this film was made on the heels of After Earth with the casting designed to draw both an adult and teenage audience which sort of makes sense as we have been plagued with kids movies like Shrek designed for grommets and their parents for years.

Despite an illusion that it might be a kids movie, Enders Game asks very adult questions and has some very suspenseful twists and turns.

As a murder mystery film A Belfast Story delivered. Colm Meaney did tend to grumble his way through it a bit though giving his character very little life.

About as animate as Colm Meaney gets in this film..

The film was however very controversial in its treatment of the subject: essentially the film squarely places the blame for the violence and bombings in Ireland of old, with the Catholic IRA (IRA rather like the ANC that Nelson Mandela was a member of!). It essentially decides for us that the Protestant para-militas (who shot and bombed just as many), the British army and the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) were without blame in these troubles.

For this reason the film is somewhat of a disappointment in a country that is still trying to find peace, it plays the blame game when it should be at least recognizing that there was blame on all sides and the poor man in the street in the middle was the one that suffered most.

In some ways it does of course really say this at the films end, but there is a very skewered view of history being put forward throughout that leaves the viewer with no illusions where the directors sympathies lie.

This film was a brilliant and rather interesting period piece about a free negro from the North who is kidnapped and forced to work on cotton plantations in the south.

Throughout I could feel stirrings of the film Mandingo although the movie took a definitely (and probably deliberately) different path.

Despite trying to show the inhumanity of slavery in the South, the film’s “owners” were just really too nice and reasonable to get you very hot under the collar. Certainly there were some brutal scenes and confronting imagery, but mostly it failed in depicting the barbarity of human slavery.

Of course it could be argued that this film is far more authentic than shock-fests like Goodbye Uncle Tom. It perhaps more shows white owners carefully protecting Negroes as an investment they might look after say like an expensive horse they bought – certainly just as callous but not quite the sadistic world of Mandingo!

This was a remotely interesting film which sort of revolved around English gangsters.

In essence however it was more of an attempt at The Sixth Sense meets an Ingmar Bergman film, neither of which it pulled off very well. I won’t spoil it for you other than to say that its pretty much clear what is going on with this film in about the first half hour and the rest of the film time just builds to a “surprise” most viewers will have already worked out in detail already.

Ray Winstone is what drew me to this film, although he had very little screen time. In a lot of ways this is more so a romance film with interspersed nasty violence from Ray in flashbacks.

If I’m being fair the stand-out feature of this film was the brilliant matching of actors to Ray Winstone’s appearance; a young version and his son to an Italian wife – they almost look related.

Chloë Grace Moretz very cutely playing Carrie, then of course turning into a pig’s blood covered nightmare.

You may remember my review of the original Carrie film a few weeks ago, nothing much to report here!

Essentially just a remake of the original film with a slightly cuter actress playing Carrie White (although they tidied up the initial shower sequence, sorry no full frontal nudity this time guys).

The only thing I would say was essentially different was that the actors and actresses playing teenagers actually looked like teenagers this time: the original had people like John Travolta and William Katt pushing thirty playing youngsters! Julianne Moore caught the part of Carrie’s deranged mothers beautifully.

A very delightful and quirky British film that manages to combine a great sense of humor and some quite interesting time travel in one package.

A lot of the time travel episodes revolve around fixing awkward boy-girl mistakes and this is what gives the film its ultimate charm. In one sequence the central character Tim for example uses his powers to go back three times and repeat his sexual performance with the new girlfriend to get it “just right”.

In fact in the pursuit of love and happiness with his new found squeeze he often repeats every little encounter until he gets it just right.

After Bill Nighy’s arch evil performance as a vampire in the Underworld series of films, it took a little while to adjust to him as the caring father; but he delivers a brilliant performance that ultimately makes the film what it is,

Anyone that works it out first time watching gets a prize!

A sometimes rather confusing film focusing around the MK Ultra mind control experiments of the CIA.

Two journalists end up taking an experimental drug used in these mind control experiments to locate another friend who took it and disappeared. It appears that the drug opens the ingest-er up to another dimension Ala Pulse. Strange things start happening but nobody is quite sure whether they are hallucinations or not.

All in all a rather interesting film, which probably needs a few watches to fully glean what is going on. The ending of the film really asks more questions than it answers, but if like me you think that is cool (i.e. it leaves you wondering) you will like it.

Just as screamy as the original!

Essentially a continuation of the original Insidious film with a lot of back story and extra hints about where it all came from from the master horror director James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring).

The ending of the first film left us kind of guessing, but in the sequel all our questions are answered and the final battle between the family and an army of nasty demons is won.

I was rather intrigued at how well this movie matched the original and I suspect that a lot of the footage was shot with the original. Footage cut out to the reduce the length of the finished film was brought back into play. Either that or they had the best continuity people in Hollywood History.

All things considered I think this sequel was almost as good as the original!

Dpn’t watch this one too late at night..

This is a very scary film in the finest traditions of horror, despite being something of a photocopy of Poltergeist,

After some horrible disturbances and spooky faces in the dark a young boy lapses into a coma for no reason. His parents soon realize, with a help of a psychic, that a battle beyond life itself is going on for control of his body.

Some very good special effects and lots of screamy frights make this a great horror night in. The ending is a real kicker.