I keep coming back to this wholemeal, health-food store of an album because it’s such a hippy-dippy return to innocence. Wampum beads, brownies, cups of tea, steam on the windows, getting back to the garden, chiffon clad earth mothers, and no-good bad ass men, all get a look in as we spend an hour in the sun filled valleys of California with Joni and her guitar. Simply lovely.

Huge sweeping shots, beautiful bleakness, stunning composition, a heartbreaking story of Greek history, loss and love. Confusing as hell for the first 45 minutes, but the payoff is the final emotionally powerful hour. Alexandra Aidini (Eleni) turns in a moving performance that quite frankly makes you feel like you’re intruding on someone’s grief; eavesdropping on their inner world. This along with a number of deliberately ambiguous plot developments, means that this fantastic film stays with you long after it’s ended.

I’ve seen Clockwork Orange a few times over the years, and every time I watch it, it seems more and more relevant to the world we live in. A sly, subversive analysis of violence and its consequences, the underlying political critique often gets lost in the shock-horror tactics employed by Kubrick to keep the viewer engaged. More than that though, the film looks great, sounds brilliant and chivvies you along in a speedy rush of images and amorality. It still packs a punch after all these years.

Modulations claims to be about a history of electronic music. It isn’t. Instead it dwells too heavily on late 90s dance culture with little attention paid to history or chronology. There are many factual errors in the film. I can’t help feeling that a far more interesting documentary lies (metaphorically speaking) on the cutting room floor than the one that ultimately made it to DVD (given the huge number of high profile interviewees that the director had access to.)

Disappointing.

This delightful puzzle of a film continues to mystify audiences nearly fifty years after its release. A man, X, and a woman, A, meet in a hotel. He says he had an affair with her last year. She denies they’ve ever met. Who is telling the truth? Is there any truth? Whose memory is accurate? Do the characters even exist? Another man, M, hangs around playing games, and may or may not have a relationship with A. Meanwhile the camera prowls around the hotel weaving in and out of the zombie-like inhabitants staying there. Are they ghosts? Are they statues? Who the hell knows.

Beautifully shot in stylised black and white, with a revolutionary approach to timeline and narrative conventions, this must’ve really blown a few minds (and sent just as many people running screaming from the cinema) back in the day when it landed on cinema screens around the world.

Possibly the most enigmatic film ever made, it’s a conundrum which never resolves itself or offers any answers. However half the fun is in trying to work it all out and discovering how the director Alain Resnais and the writer Alain Robbe-Grillet foil you at every point of narrative coherence.

Worth seeing, if only to see where so many 80s video directors stole all their ideas from. And I mean YOU Ultravox…

This had all the makings of a fascinating documentary: electronic music, geeky-hippy inventors revolutionising pop culture and cosmic references to electricity and its ability to interact with the mind. All wrapped up in the story of how Bob Moog invented the synthesizer. Unfortunately, the sprawling structure of the film, its rather haphazard interviews with semi-relevant musicians and lack of sharp editing of Mr Moog himself, creates a film that is less than the sum of its parts.

So gorgeous to look at, “One From The Heart” is a technical marvel; all neon, shimmering light and grandstand set pieces overwhelming the actors inside. The story at the heart of the film doesn’t have one. A couple (who are they? what’s their story? why should we be interested?) split up and then get back together again. Why spend all that time and energy making such a beautiful light painting using a story that you’ve seen a million times before on any afternoon TV-movie?

This Korean film packs a lot in: it’s a political critique of American imperialism, global pandemic panics, environmental pollution, chemical weaponry to name but a few. All this and it manages to wrap it up in a good old fashioned monster movie a la Godzilla.

A mutant underwater monster terrorises the populace of downtown Seoul. It may or may not be carrying a lethal virus and anyone who comes into contact with the beast has to be quarantined and “treated” by the sinister American led agents of control. Agent Yellow, a biochemical ultimate weapon, may or may not be the answer. Meanwhile the population are up in arms and protesting at their governments capitulation to US demands.

This one’s a whole lotta fun and explores the politics of fear with some rollicking suspense scenes involving the drooling, flipping, bone munching monster as it causes carnage and chaos in the lives of decent citizens everywhere. Technically, it’s a well made film, with lots of strange camera angles, atmospheric claustrophobic settings, and scary things swooping out of the darkness to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Hurrah!

Is this a George Bush biopic?

;-)

This film would make a great double bill with Network. All the grotesque vulgarity passing for TV entertainment that Fellini foresaw, now seems rather tame in comparison to what you can now see on any mainstream channel these days! This is such a great hyper-real post-modern romance, that sardonically condemns the rise of TV and its trashing of time, narrative and value. Watch as the TV people chew up and spit out our heroes in a carnivalesque mashing up of anything that gets in its way. And relax, there are small people in it too.