Bronson brings in the big guns!

Assassination is one of Charles Bronson’s later films co-starring (you guessed it) real-life wife Jill Ireland.

Bronson is a secret service agent assigned to protect the First Lady of the United Stated (Ireland with a fairly wild afro going on). Her character doesn’t much like Bronson, or he her thinking he should have been given a much more important duty.

Someone then tries to kill the First Lady which sends everybody scuttling about and Bronson trying to track down the source of the assassination plot.

I think by about 1987 Charles Bronson’s career was starting to wane and this is not one of his best films, but however it is still very accessible if you are a big fan of his films as I am.

The love triangle: Doctor, Mad King, Queen

An absolute masterpiece of drama and spectacle chronicling the marriage of Caroline Matilda of the UK to the mad King Christian VII of Denmark in the 18th Century.

The King is somewhat disinterested in his new bride who he often refers to as “mother” (then wonders why he is not potent with her!) preferring common street prostitutes. In order to deal with a King that is quite obviously bark, stark raving mad the court employs the services of a personal physician to treat him. His doctor (played by popular Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) befriends the king and becomes his closest confidant.

All travels well until Mads starts an affair with the Queen ala Rasputin and the inevitable downward spiral begins.

Its very hard to fault this period piece, it authenticity and Mise en scène make it a must watch on there own, that’s before we even look at its very interesting and enlightening narrative.

A very poignant film highlighting the major problem with gun crime in London. If you have just recently enjoyed the British Channel 4 TV series Top Boy you will see where it pretty much came from.

Ashley Walters plays an estate thug who has just been released from Gaol. He has a troubled relationship with his family and friends who start a tug of war between him relapsing back into his bad ways or finding a new life.

His younger brother finds his gun and terrible things start to happen. I won’t ruin the film for you by explaining too much more….

An interesting new breed of films coming out of England which ask very important social questions, ok so its all been done before (remember Stanley Baker in Violent playground in the sixties? David Mcallum letting rip with a machine gun?) but I guess each new generation has a unique take on its problems.

..look theirs nothing queer about it..just a group of guys who all dress alike, spend all their time together, are constantly grabbing each other and clearly hate women!

I have been waiting to watch this film for a while spotting that it starred veteran Austrian actor Helmet Berger who I could never forget in Tinto Brass’s highly underrated film Salon Kitty. However like a lot of foreign films being released these days it usually takes some time for English subtitles to become available.

Initiation is something of a black comedy posing questions about fiercely masculine neo-nazi skinheads on one hand and gay people on the other. Certainly there is a lot of confrontation in this film and it pulls no punches in showing the excessive violence of the skinheads, but it also for example uses slow motion and effects to try and pose a nasty skinhead gig as very balletesque, at times it even becomes a musical! This quickly suggests there is something more to this film than just showing the ridiculous life of skinheads.

Indeed throughout it seems most of the skinheads have issues with their own sexuality hinting that maybe their hatred of the gay locals masks something within themselves. The funniest scene was perhaps a member of the local Nazi party who delivers a long, fiery speech against everything including homosexuals and the price of fish; then instantly in the next scene is seen being led up stairs by two young male prostitutes in the local brothel!

The lead character Axel becomes torn between the local skinhead gang who offer him lots of blokey masculine mateship including a gang bang with the gangs moll and Berger, a gay dry cleaner, and his companions who befriend the troubled youth with compassion. You have to ask yourself the question, why do they bother, but this becomes clear as we are invited into Berger’s troubled past as a youngster in the Hitler Youth as so many of his generation were forced.

This film certainly delivers with the type of surreal spectacular we tend to expect from Helmet Berger and it is certainly confronting but not in the ways we initially might think.

A fairly normal type of American father goes hunting and comes upon a a strange wild girl who has obviously grown up in the forest Ala Tarzan.

He decides to take her home and civilize her by locking her in a Cellar and gets the whole family involved in looking after her like a Pet. Now this might seem somewhat strange to you already, but the fact that everything seems so normal with the family and their little house, almost fools you into believing its a very reasonable proposition…

Its only later (with one sharp slap to the wife) that we begin to realize that things are not quite right with this all American family.

I suspect the Director was going for a black-comedy with this piece, I found it very funny, if not quite bizarre and unsettling as it unfolds, I was reminded somewhat of American Psycho and that same off-beat humor.

I have seen very few of the Dogma films that came out in the nineties that I particularly enjoyed, indeed I found the whole “phenomenon” of Dogma the height of pretentiousness. Now of course I have to eat my words after laughing my way through The Idiots!

Despite being completely politically incorrect (but no more so than Borat or Bruno) this film is very, very funny. It follows a group of malcontents who enjoy freaking out local small town residents by going on field trips and “spassing” or imitating developmentally-impaired people. Much mayhem ensues with people going out of their way to pretend they are not perturbed by the antics and show how understanding and sympathetic they are!

NB: I warn anyone thinking of watching the film that there is some hardcore sex (its danish..I mean hardcore!) and full frontal nudity in the film, but this is quite relevant and very funny in context.

It has become fashionable to pick on Israel in this decade, so a film like The House on Garibaldi Street is maybe something a lot of people would not be very interested in anymore.

If like me you believe remembering the Holocaust is not just an “excuse” for Israeli foreign policy in this day and age the film will have a lot of meaning for you.

The film follows the capture (or kidnapping depending on how you lean politically) of Adolf Eichmann and his return to Israel to face trial for crimes against humanity. An all star cast headed by Martin Balsam and Topol bring a very credible account of this exciting real-life tale to the screen.

Yves Montand lost more than 15 kilos to play his role as Artur

A gem of a French film from the 1970’s based on the true story of the Czechoslovak communist Artur London, a defendant in the Slánský trial.

It is the Stalinist period of Czechoslovakia and purges of foreigners are taking place. It seems the current purge is targeting all the members of the communist brigades that fought in the Spanish Civil War. Part of the paranoia that Stalin suddenly started to feel towards all foreigners in general.

Artur is subjected to months of imprisonment and torture in order to compel him to confess to crimes against the state he did not commit for a show trial. A lot of the torture consists of forcing him to walk in circles in his cell for hours on end. Frankly I got sore feet just watching him.

A British film in the vein of Kidulthood and sort of a Science Fiction thriller like the French District 13 or Le Dernier Combat. The story revolves around an increase in poverty in mainland Britain to the point where drugs are no longer the “currency of the ghetto” but “munchies” or food.

The early death by “shank” (ie. stabbing) of one character sees a gang hell bent on revenge and getting up to various mischief on the way. Most of the time the police seem to be non-existent in this apocalyptic little world and its never really explained quite properly where they are.

Whilst I enjoyed Shank, I would caution that the accents get a bit hard to understand at times with dialogue sprinkled with all sorts of inner-London euphemisms. I have a feeling that this film was trying to make a point very vaguely about knife-crime in London which has become almost epidemic, you’ll see what I mean in the films final moments.