Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein / Hard to be a God (1989)

Director: Peter Fleischmann.
Original book same title by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Starring. Alexander Philippenko, Edward Zentara, Werner Herzog. Russia/USSR/(West)Germany. 1h 59m.

While trying to get hold of the second remake of Hard to be a God (2013) I noticed a resurgence of the earlier remake from the 80’s and managed to watch them in chronological  order, not that it matters much as they are two extremely different movies which look at different fragments of a brilliant science fiction story, originally written by Arkand and Boris Strugatsky, this is a simplistic version of a deeper more complicated story but it’s easier to watch and at times stomach more than the 2013 version.

On another planet out in the vast universe a simple civilisation is going through their Medieval period and it’s quite similar to ours, this has sparked interest in the more advanced cultures, namely us! An employee of the institute of experimental history from Earth is sent to this planet disguised as a noble named Rumata of Estor and he’s tasked to observe the culture and find the previous person who was sent there to also observe, another spy who has perished while trying to raise an unlucky coup against the main palace and Rumata has to take his place as a resident. He soon discovers that many of the 30 others have also perished in this harsh society and is soon pulled into the next coup Soon he meets all the horrors of medieval society, war, palace coups, mass executions, peasantry and they prove to be too barbaric for scientist, and he’s disgusted to find out that people are slaughtered if they are considered to be too intellectual, and thus keeping the society in a permanent state of Medieval life.

Spectre (2015)

Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Batista,Ralph Fiennes,Christoph Waltz, some invincible chick .USA. 2h 28m

I never describe myself a as a fan of anything but after the new wave of bond movies I am certainly happy to describe myself as a fan of early bond movies. For me the 60/70s charm of bond came in the guise of Roger Moore and Sean Connery, the 90’s and early 00’s n bonds passed me by and I can’t say I bothered to watch any of them, and I was highly disappointed with the Craig movies but I have attempted to watch them, despite not really getting what makes them so amazing..  This particular installment was okay though.. yep just OK…

Gong fen you xia / Pink Force Commando (1982)

Director:Yen-ping Chu
Starring Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh. Taiwan.

An amazing twitter buddy reminded me of this movie, if you’ve got any interest in B-Movies then check out @cjzisi <-twitter and/or the blog for a treasure trove of amazing reviews of rare and obscure films. I had seen this many years ago but I have to admit that somehow it was somewhat mostly forgotten, so I dug out the old VHS and re watched it.. Damn how the hell did I manage to forget any of this!?

U-571 (2000)

Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, Jon Bon Jovi. UK. 1h 46m

Now that Dunkirk is breaking records, it’s time to look back at all the occasions where they got things terribly wrong with war movies.  There have been a few films that tried to eradicate the British efforts and triumphs during the second world war.

Spotlight – Lance Henriksen

Aliens (1986)

The sequel to the groundbreaking sci fi movie Alien (1979) introduced another face to the world of androids, instead of the killer bot in the original film, instead James Cameron created a more likable synthetic human names Bishop and sensitivly acted by Henriksen. Previously the android has been devious and acted purely on the greedy actions of the Company but in order to win over audiences and the main character Ripley, a whole new approach had to be taken. Henriksen applied his smaller frame and softer nature to the role and I think it worked really well, he walked on eggshells around those who feared and distrusted him and at no point did he really give an indication of selling out, he briefly appears in follow up films and I think is one of the solid characters from the Alien franchise, and one of a few films with co star Bill Paxton.

Odishon / The Audition (1999)

Director: Takashi Miike. Story by: Ryū Murakami
Starring. Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina. Japan. 1h 43m.

Famed as being one of the breakthrough modern Japanese video nasties, the Audition has a sacred place in the hearts of anyone who likes the gore and chills turned right up, from the granddaddy of Japanese bizarre cinema, Takashi Miike.

Based on the chilling horror novel The Audition By Ryū Murakami (thanks to @GiornataNera  for the info, if you ever need someone awesome to follow on twitter check out this wonderful guy) and it captures an mesmerizing  dreamlike feel when things start to get weird the “deeper” throws of the movie.

3 Short DON’T Horror films

Often in horror movies there is some kind of  instruction, like Don’t go into the house (1979) and in the case of Nightmare of Elm Street (1984) Don’t ever sleep again..

So here are 3 short horror films with some more rules on what you shouldn’t do.

DON’T LOOK AWAY

This is quite a compelling short movie which captured my imagination, a teenage girl is being teased by her brother, when she noticed a man standing outside her house, he’s in a disheveled suit with a bag and chains over his head, her father warns her not to look away and that he’s on his way to help her. Not really taking the advice she asks her brother to watch the creature while she locks the doors, as her brother is a massive douche but on returning she can no longer see the man but her brother still can, where has HER spectre gone? What’s going on?? Hopefully daddy is on his way to rescue these lovelies soon.

For a short movie it’s made well and the acting is fairly natural, the concept of this ghoul like character who reminded me of something that could have cropped up in Thirteen Ghosts (1960/2001). It has a great urban legend feel to it and with some working I reckon this could make a decent horror.. I think I just want to know how this creature came about really..

Prevenge (2016)

Director: Alice lowe
Starring: Alice Lowe,Gemma Whelan, Kate Dickie,Jo Hartley, Tom Davis, Kayvan Novak. UK. 1h 28m

Alice Lowe returns after the brilliant collaboration with cult director Ben Wheatley in their darkly entertaining Sightseers (2012). She returns as an equally unusual character but this one is on a course of revenge with her unborn baby. Lowe might just have backed herself into a typecasted corner and to be truthful it’s okay, as she does this disturbing comedy thing way to well and we honestly need a lot more of her thing in the unpredictable British market where we like to be on the edge of wrongness.

Robocop – the making of a martyr

When I was a youngster I had a copy of Robocop on Video, along with a lot of my friends and we all agreed that there were two scenes that we had watched frame for frame and probably wore our videos’ bald for those two scenes, not even the tracking could save them.

Rememory (2017)

Director: Mark Palansky
Starring. Peter Dinklage, Anton Yelchin, UK. 1h 31m.

This is stunning film with some haunting scenes, which linger in the memory but alas by the ending credits I felt as if something was missing from this well-crafted venture that took away the re-watch-ability.

Peter Dinklage brings an amazing character to life in this deep vibrant story. After having a few too many drinks he drives his brother home but the pair crash, leaving him as the sole survivor, his brother mumbles some words which he can’t make out and then he dies.  But Sam (Dinklage)  isn’t ready to accept that’s the end and writes to a brilliant scientist, Gordon Dunn (Donovan)  who has invented a machine, that re plays your memories, apparently we all have the ability to remember everything but not the ability to recall it. This Rememory machine is able to get into a person’s brain and recall everything from our first moment on the planet. It sounds wonderful and  Sam sees this as a chance to work out what his brother way trying to say, but one fateful night  after a disgruntled ex-patient visits, the scientist is found dead, supposedly of natural causes but there are bullet holes in the wall, was it murder or an aneurysm as the newspapers reported. The machine cannot be found or reversed engineered as Dunn kept everything secret. While his employers stress over losing the invention of a lifetime, ???? uses the stolen machine to find out what happened to Dunn and digs into his own forgotten memories.