Yes more grossness to come…

This is a very disturbing film which rather than being exactly a horror flick is more gross than anything else.

Certainly there are many elements of Gothic horror in it which leave you feeling even more unsettled, but in essence once you work out whats really going on its just a stomach churner!

Having said that We Are What We Are is beautifully filmed and well acted with very good performances from some of its younger stars. It has an overall atmosphere and creepiness that heralds something deep and dark throughout.

Normally I don’t do reviews on mini-series but Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter was so good and so filmic that I decided it qualifies.

The German series focuses on the war time experiences of five friends and how it changes them forever. Two are brothers and members of the Wehrmacht (Regular Germany Army). They are set to go on their first posting which is to the ill-fated Russian campaign. One is a nurse who is also going to Russia to work in hospitals behind the front lines. Another is an entertainer who wants to be bigger than Marlene Dietrich, the final is a Jewish man who works in his fathers tailoring business. All five have been friends since they were children.

The story is very complex over three episodes and to explain much of it here would be to spoil it for you. What I can say is that the production values are first rate with film values that stand up beside some of the best such as Band of Brothers.

I believe this series is about to be shown on SBS so I would not miss it when you see it airing.

A publicity photo for the film. It didn’t get quite this debauched.

A very interesting film from Chile about a young girl with evangelistic religious manic parents who do every thing they can to repress her sexuality.

This of course has precisely the opposite affect and the girls sets about various interludes with both her boyfriend and another girl, which she chronicles in her online blog “Young and Wild”.

My only criticism of a quite entertaining film was that it was unnecessarily graphic in part. Whilst I don’t see a major problem with pornography as such, having it spliced through this movie constantly for dramatic affect only degraded the film somewhat. The story could have been told just as effectively without having to get quite so vernacular.

Having said that a close argument could be made that it was directly related to the turmoil inside the young girl Daniella and the rebellion she showed to the puritanical life in which she is placed. I guess its just a matter of taste,

Yes I think she finally got the seduction bit right…

Otherwise known as Young and Beautiful, Jeune et Jolie is yet another French film about a young girl becoming a prostitute.

One has to wonder i guess why there are quite so many films of this ilk coming out at the moment in World Cinema, it seems to be a topic that is both titillating and fascinating to audiences the world over.

I don’t think its all men in their forties that are driving a market for this type of film either, as they are doing the job and winning awards at Cannes (Although you might find some link as they invariably contain lots of nude scenes of beautiful young actresses with decrepit old men!).

This films perhaps stands out as an exploration of a young girls journey to understanding seduction. Through her work she slowly realizes that their is more to sex than just the act itself.

A very interesting film which for some reason I missed last year and after seeing it recently realize I was very remiss in doing so….

A special mission heads off to Europa (which is a moon of Jupiter) in search of life below its surface which is supposedly filled with liquid water. They land and send probes out and then things start going horribly wrong. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but lets just say they find something (little point in the movie otherwise I suppose).

A lot of the film was presented in the “found footage” style with most of the action coming from on-board cameras, helmet cams and various other pokey little cameras which add a lot of realism and help to make it all that more terrifying.

I read recently that Gravity is up for an academy award (then again if the Hurt Locker can win it..), this film blows Gravity out of the sky with its tense film work, closed narrative and tension filled plot line.

Mischa Barton looking a bit scary around the edges

Apart from looking to have very high B-grade potential from the offset, Apartment 1303 was an interesting little horror film with some definitely spooky moments.

I wouldn’t say it was exactly terrifying and the amateurish film work and production values didn’t help much, but all in all it was a vaguely interesting late night screamer. This is probably because it is a hollywood remake of a very good japanese horror film of the same name.

A girl moves into an apartment and realizes she is not alone. People keep telling her to leave and its really very very unpleasant for her. In the end the ghosts attack her and..well the rest you can guess. Mischa Barton starred as the older sister and seems to have moved on from her earlier teen-soap career with some very convincing acting.

To be frank see the original it was far scarier.

Why oh Why didn’t they just stop at Airport ’77?

Back when the Concorde was big news the last in the Airport series of films The Concorde… Airport ’79 (1979) came out.

I think perhaps guessing that the franchise had run its course there was a surprise attachment to the cast in the form of Sylvia Kristel as a stewardess. Of course we all know the film (Emannuelle) that Sylvia was most famous for and what she did on a plane in that particular film…I can’t help but feel her inclusion was designed to attract another type of audience. Sadly she didn’t live up to expectations of course and she just mumbled her way through a few lines instead.

The film pretty much follows the story of the first film, with a nasty man (Robert Wagner) basically trying to destroy a whole plane just to snuff out his ex-girlfriend. Panned by critics and a mega-flop at the box office, the last in the Airport series of films pretty much destroyed the franchise for ever.

Yes I know it looks like a model, but remember CGI was many years off.

Of all the Airport movies, Airport ’77 gets the prize for the most incredible plot line.

As usual their are some shenanigans on a plane, but this time the plane ends up falling out of the sky (after being hijacked by robbers) and submerging in the ocean off the coast of Bermuda.

Crew and passengers then spend most of the film stuck under the ocean watching water drip, drip, dripping into the cabin which mysteriously is as air tight as your average submarine on the bottom. Isn’t it always the way: although the submarine was “never built to take this pressure” some how it always manages to, well this time a plane claims the same incredible feats of withstanding water pressure.

In some ways this film reminded me of the Poseidon Adventure, but that’s hardly a bad thing.

The second in the series of highly successful Airport movies.

This time a small plane collides with an airplane in flight and conveniently kills the two pilots. Then of course the passengers are faced with the dilemma that no none on broad can fly the plane. Into the mix is a sick girl (played by the exorcist‘s Linda Blair) and a guitar solo from Helen Reddy of course lampooned so brilliantly in the Flying High films.

Charlton Heston of course saves the day with a lot of mid air abseiling. A very entertaining film with lots of spills and thrills.

Burt Lancaster and the gang

I must admit to not having seen the airport series of movies before, although now that they all have been released on DVD I thought they’d be worth a look.

Right away its fairly obvious where they got most of the gag ideas for the Flying High series of movies and all those jokes that went over my head now seem to make a lot more sense.

I wasn’t expecting anything too spectacular from these films, with their cavalcade of fading actors (I was pretty much just looking forward to the Love Boat in the air); I was however delightfully surprised with a tension filled film that kept me interested right until the closing moments.

Airport is as much a melodrama about the day to day lives of the airport employees, as it is a serious drama about set in the air. The difference I think is that whilst melodramatic, it is done on such a large scale with so many actually very good actors (sorry for saying they were fading!) that the day to day becomes intensely interesting and lavish.