Scarface - 1983

Universal Pictures digitally restored reissues continues apace with its release of Scarface on the big screen. And like Spartacus before it, the picture quality is phenomenal, so is the sound design. The chainsaw sequence is particularly special. As with my new found desire to see as many classics as possible in their original format (on the big screen), to be able to tick Scarface off is a particular treat.

The film is famous now, a cult classic, which despite aging slightly is still, if not more enjoyable now than it has ever been. There are perhaps too many scenes which now raise a chuckle, but the film remains a classic of the 1980's with its blistering rise and fall tale of Tony Montana (Al Pacino).

Watching the reissue I was struck not only by Pacino's performance which is less shouty than I had remembered (except the ending), but also by how good Steven Bauer is as Montana's most loyal and closest friend Manny. Scarface demonstrates that his career should have been more successful than it was. The film has great performances throughout, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is brilliant as Montana younger sister, her life suffering a fate similar to Montana's after he returns after five years, some of it spent in prison. Robert Loggia is also brilliant as the drug dealer who brings Tony under his wing, but later conflicts with him as Tony's ambition blinds him to the lessons Loggia tries to teach him. By Loggia end he brilliantly depicts a small time criminal who never seems to have the backbone or finance to make his organisation bigger than it is.

De Palma's direction stands out magnificently on the big screen, his camera is almost always meandering, tracking around the large sets or dollying to capture the events of different characters in different places at the same time - he commands large sets with his camera, shifting the focus of the plotlines with a simple zoom, dolly or pan. In this way the film is a joy to behold. De Palma is a filmmaker who has built his career by using techniques and shots from old greats such as Eisenstein and Hitchcock. With Scarface, he may employ the long tracking in and out shots which became a staple of Hitchcock's cinema, most famously used in Notorious, but in Scarface however it brings the film to life. Scarface is a story of excess and for that reason it is perhaps the defining film of the 1980's and De Palma's camera exposes and embraces the excessive lifestyle of the characters in the film with its camera work, for which cinematographer John A. Alonzo deserves a mention.

The script is written by Oliver Stone and he orchestras a number of key scenes, including an assassination attempt, an attempted car bombing and of course the famour chainsaw sequence. His script also includes a number of quotable lines and he gives all the principal actors some great opportunities to show their talent. Although not as subtle as Taxi Driver, Stone's script captures the themes of excess to perfection.

Scarface is also notable for the performance of Michelle Pfeiffer, who is glamourous and beautiful almost beyond comparison in modern cinema. She channels the stars of the Golden Age, and in her first scene, in which she hypnotises Montana with just her dress and bare back, she completely captures her allure and there is not a single moment of doubt over Montana's desire for her, even if we can see how destructive it will be.

After watching Scarface I began to wonder if this was De Palma masterpiece. The Untouchables, 4 years later is perhaps its equal, and even Carlito's Way is a brilliant work of cinema. I even considered Blow Out, De Palma's lose remaking of Blow Up which has probably De Palma's best ending. Yet Scarface is without doubt a classic gangster film which moves the genre about as far away from The Godfather and even the original Scarface as is possible. It's influence can be seem in the recent Mesrine with it brash, charismatic Vincent Cassel, and it stands as one of Pacino's great performances.

On a final note, the film is dedicated to Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, who directed and wrote the original respectively. This made me wonder whether Hawks would have enjoyed a film like Scarface. Obviously its impossible to tell, but with the remake being so far aware from the original I wonder what purpose dedicating it served beyond reminding the audience the film is remake and De Palma acknowledging a great filmmaker and no doubt hero.

Fata Morgana - 1971

I first came to Werner Herzog through Aguirre The Wrath of God and his remake of Nosferatu. Both are exceptionally brilliant pieces of cinema. Then a few years ago I saw Grizzly Man - one of the best documentaries of recent years, followed by Rescue Down, the Christian Bale starring story of s fighter pilots struggle to escape a prisoner of war camp in in Laos during Vietnam. So when I sat down to watch Fata Morgana I had expected something intense, visually brilliant and with an unrelenting style. Well, all of these things are present and correct in Fata Morgana, but it was still nowhere near what I had expected.

The film begins with a shot of a plane coming into land. The sounds reaches a high pitched screech before we see the event again, and again, and again and on and on it goes for a good few minutes. The film then consists of a series of mirage shots of deserts, accompanied by a voiceover quoting the Mayan creation myth. The film is broken down into three chapters; Creation, Paradise, The Golden Age. It takes on the form of an epic filmic poem, the images juxtaposed against the voiceover. As we reach the Paradise and Golden Age sections Herzog introduces man into the film, and we begin to see how, in this place, they interact with nature and the world around them. In this way Herzog's film sits comfortably alongside his other films which explore his big theme; man's interaction with nature, a theme explored in most of his documentaries.


The film's images stand as an ironic counterpoint to the descriptions from the Mayan creation myth around the idea of paradise, and especially the golden age. In the early mirage scenes we see the remnants of mankind; fragments of a plane etc. Later we begin to see civilistion in this desolute place, and finally we are shown a number of direct to camera interactions from people who discuss the nature of this desert.

What emerges as the film progresses is Herzog's unrelenting pursuit of the truth of man's place in the world. As with other documentaries, Herzog's obsession with experiencing these environments and exploring their effect the man forces its way to the fore. Fata Morgana is as much a film about the images and words as it about the man who wanted to make the film. This gives us a fascinating insight into the mind of the director.

Although not at all what I was expecting, I found the film strangely hypnotic, lulling me into a state where I was drawn to the images. The film resounds with a haunting quality and once again Herzog exposes our place in a desolute world ill suited the man.

AVATAR - Teaser Trailer

Ok, so it's not the best thing since sliced bread. It's not even the best teaser trailer of all time. So why then am I so excited about Avatar. Well the simple answer is James Cameron. The return of one of the most impressive, brilliant, ambitious and pure cinematic genius filmmakers of the past 50 years. James has been gone from our screens since Titanic. That's 12 years. He's not Kubrick. Although he's not far off. The trailer is visually sumptuous, a stunning mixture of alien world, alien characters, military might and fantastic visuals. Cameron has been gone too long, and right now I'd settle for his big screen adaptation of Tetris the movie. So with the look of Avatar and whats being said about how it will look, Cameron could once again changed cinema forever. It will not however make as much money as Titanic. Also, as pointed out to me, Cameron sans beard. Not sure about that. Hopefully not a Samson situation. Check out the trailer though. It's special.

Inglourious Basterds - 2009

So it's come to this.... another Tarantino homage. Writing a review of Inglourious Basterds is not an easy thing to accomplish; kind of like destroying the Third Reich including Hitler, Goebbels and all of his cohorts. But like Tarantino's Basterds I'll certainly give it go.

First and foremost I had already read Tarantino's leaked Basterds script before seeing the film. After reading it I felt a mixture of both dissapointment at a missed opportunity but impressed with his guts at attempting something so audacious. I was however reminded of Howard Hawks' quote about making a good film, "all you need is three great scenes and no bad ones" which at that time I felt was a perfectly apt way to describe my opinion of the Basterds script.

I'm torn here between the utter dissapointment at Tarantino's latest epic, and respect for a director who has maintained his auteur nature and indulged his personality and style perhaps more so than any other American filmmaker today. Plus I can't think of another filmmaker who could make a film so ambitious and deliriously unhistorical as Inglourious Basterds. Also, there are moments when Tarantino pushes his love of cinema to the fore and well, it so damn seductive that I completely fell for the movie. Unfortunately all that served to achieve was to remind me of how dull, overlong and (I never thought I would say this) wordy Tarantino's latest is. Aparently the film is all about language, and there are at least four different languages spoken, but there is also a complete lack of narrative drive.

The three great scenes to which I referred earlier include an excellent, awkward basement bar scene, an incredibly tense and uncomfortable restaurant scene where our heroine comes face to face with the executioner of her entire family who may even recognise her (ordering a glass of milk for someone has never seemed so sinister). Unfortunately with the exception of the ending these scenes fall, for the most part flat. The most redeeming qualities of Basterds are a fantastically sinister performance from Christian Waltz as Hans Landa and some good camera moves - although these are used to better effect in earlier QT films. The film is also raucously funny in places, especially Mike Myers cameo as a British Officer.

For many Tarantino has been on a downward curve since Jackie Brown. For me, he is not only a great writer, but has a truly cinematic eye. I enjoyed Death Proof predominantly because it was shot so fantastically, as well as having a strong script. Kill Bill is better watched as one film, the pacing of the first film offset by the relative calm of volume 2. But with Inglourious Basterds Tarantino's keen eye and wicked ear for dialogue both seem to have deserted him. Brad Pitt is watchable if not exhilarating, Melanie Laurent as Shosanna resembles a young Uma Thurman and is as desirable as she is captivating. Diane Kruger is fun, and competent. The real casting problems exist in Eli Roth's Bear Jew and Hitler, Goebbels and Churchill. Roth, better known for directing Cabin Fever and the Hostel films, also acted in Death Proof, and the problem with him isn't so much his performance but more that, havng read the script, the Bear Jew is described as a, well Bear of a man. And Eli Roth just isn't. I let out a deflated sigh when his character is introduced (another example of Tarantino procastination). As he emerges from a tunnel, you expect so much more than Eli Roth can ever offer. After which his performance just lacks the weight the role demanded.

The main problem though is that, as stated in other reviews, notably The Guardian and Sight & Sound, every scene feels too long. The opening scene seems to last an age, every scene with the Basterds, although on most occasions mixed with humour, are protracted and your attention wavers as neither the story, characters or dialogue are captivating in say a Pulp Fiction way, where scenes are equally long.

Having said all of this I am still torn. This is no masterpiece, and is by definition then the only film of Tarantino's I don't consider 5 stars. But at the same time Tarantino is a pure auteur, and all his trademarks are here. Almost every character dies (and this is no spoiler - its a Tarantino trait), there is at least one close up on feet, the cinema and its history are present and correct; the references are so obscure you'd have to be Tarantino to get them all. The violence is brilliant, unexpected, brutal and explosive.

The soundtrack, which consists of great music from other films does nothing to bring the film to life in the his older films did. This could be the root of the problem. Ultimately I feel the problem most people have with Tarantino, myself included, is that they expect a certain level of genius from him. When I heard he was making a WW2 film I had hoped for a serious film along the lines of Come and See or Apocalypse Now, but really that would have been more dissapointing. Those that have lost faith want Tarantino to be something he is not, and that is something which most other filmmakers are. Tarantino makes films with his own unique brand of brilliance and if I don't consider Inglourious Basterds to be a masterpiece then really that's my loss, because the more I think about it, the more I want Tarantino to keep making the type of films he makes, because no one else does, and his is a voice that cinema needs.

Never matching the brilliance of his early classics, Tarantino mishandles a number of key scenes and the film feels overlong and over wordy. Despite this, there is enough to enjoy, mainly in the performances and violence and QT must be commended for having such confidence to write such a film. Not a catastrophe but certainly not a classic either.

TwentyFourSeven - 1997

From TwentyFourSeven to Somers Town, Shane Meadows is an amazing British talent who has defined his own style and voice such authority he is one of the few working auteurs of British cinema to gain mainstream success. This Is England is widely regarded as his finest work, Somers Town started as a film funded by St Pancreas to promote the Euro tunnel, and Dead Man's Curve is perhaps his most daring and controversial film. Yet for me it's still his debut, TwentyFourSeven which is his most enjoyable and engaging film. Bob Hoskins plays Alan Darcy, a man motivated by seeing the youth of his community become embroiled in gangs. To help reduce crime and give them some focus in life, he sets up the 101 Boxing club, a place which helped him when he was young.

Meadows spends time depicting the teenagers of the community, and shot in black and white, the film contrasts their growing hopes and desires against their difficult home lives. The cast are admirable in the conviction and there isn't a single bad performance amongst them. As their friendship grows so to does your love of each of them and their enthusiasm and support of Darcy and the boxing ring becomes infectious.

Meadows cultivates believable characters is real situations facing, sometimes serious and dangerous life situations, but together, with each other for support they are able to pull themselves through. As the film draws to its conclusion; a boxing fight against another boxing club, the film delivers a knockout punch completely unexpected, but in hindsight somehow inevtiable.

With stark, but beautiful black and white photography shot by Ashley Rowe, and co written by Paul Fraser, a word should also be made about the sublime, evocative music by Boo Hewerdine and Neil MacColl, Twenty Four Seven for me is the most intimate, personal and heartwarming (as well as wrenching) film Shane Meadows has yet directed.

Mesrine - Killer Instinct - 2009

2 Part film releases are becoming extremely common. First there was Kill Bill in two volumes, the Che is two parts and now the French are getting in on the action. Mesrine Killer Instinct is the first part of Jean Francois Richet's film about the life on one of France's most infamous bank robbers.

My first thoughts on seeing Mesrine was does cinema need another gangster film, especially one which seems to follow so closely so many other gangster films. And for some of the film Richet treads a familiar path. But somehow despite all of this and perhaps because of Vincent Cassel's superb performance Mesrine feels fresh, original, audacious and brilliant. It is one of the best films of the year and one of the best gangster films of recent years.

Part 1 starts the story after Mesrine has left the army where he had been fighting in Algeria. He returns to France and looks to start a life under the control and order of no one but himself. Despite having parents he doesn't respect and feels trapped by the domesticity, he thankfully knows some old friends who are gangsters and so he is quicklt robbing rich homes and meeting up with bigger gangsters who provide the opportunity for such a opportunistic, and entrepenurial robber.

What I really enjoyed about Mesrine was that is didn't seem to conform to traditional narrative styles and structure subverting the history and fact to make an easier to follow film. Characters who seem important are suddenly assassinated, Mesrine goes through a number of lovers in the course of the 2 hours, all of whom seem like real relationships, and the film jumps from year to year, covering the key moments of Mesrine early life in France and exile in Spain and Canada.

Perhaps Mesrine most enjoyable feat is that is wets the appetite for part 2, and the hope that we will see the end of this story. Even if the inevitable is already made clear with films so enjoyable as this, it is the journey that matters and the character, brought magnificently to life by Vincent Cassel. He is mesmerising throughout and he is also not afraid to commit to the moments of weakness and insecurity, even if he seems to revel more in the glamorous violence and romance more often. Cassel is a natural performer and one who can hold his own against heavyweight French icon Gerard Depardieu.

A classic French gangster film, with a seond part in the story come. Che seems to have lost its hold on the monopoly of two part, unrelenting depictions of revolutionaries. Mesrine feels fresh, entertaining and unconventional in a genre which so often lacks all of these elements.

La Grande Illusion - 1937

Jean Renoir is considered one of the masters of French Cinema, if not the world. And La Grande Illusion is one of the reasons for this. The story of a group of French prisoners of war during the World War 1, a group who are constantly attempting to escape. The film is broken into two parts really. The first in a prison, which sees a large group of French POW's begin to tunnel their way out of the compound. It is fraught with danger, and Renoir's direction intensifies this. One scene has a dead french soldier being carried back into the compound after being gunned down attempting to escape in the same place the tunnel is digging toward. Before the escapees can reach their goal, they are transferred to a tigher security prison, overseen by Erich von Stroheim. This makes La Grande Illusion a valuable document of cinema. Renoir directing Stroheim saw two of the greats of early cinema involved in the same film. Stroheim later appeared in Sunset Boulevard which again was with a classic director.

The film is magnificent for its use of space, both in terms of movement and depth of field. Scenes are shot to give the entire set space, and the cast, especially the inmates pacing back and forth about the film space.

The film has an abundance of strong performances, not least from the aforementioned Strohiem as Captain von Rauffenstein who, the picture of decorum and ettiquette always wears white gloves and struggles with a neck brace, disabled in flight, but also the aviator who shot down aristocratic Captain de Boeldieu (played by Pierre Fresnay) and working-class Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin). Gabin plays the hero of the piece, and along with de Boldieu and Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), a wealthy French Jew are the three prisoners who seek to undermine von Rauffenstein by escaping the prison at Wintersborn.

The film also addresses the class sytem in Europe during the First World War. Both de Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein are upper class and during de Boeldieu incarceration under the command of von Rauffenstein they spend time together, de Boeldieu treated to a certain level of dignity and respect as a result of his position in pre war society.

A classic of pre war France, it was described at the time as the most important anti war film ever made, and with two years of it release war was once again declared in Europe. A must see for any film fan, and one of Renoir best work.

John Hughes - 1950 - 2009

There have been a number of obituaries eulogising the impact of John Hughes on modern cinema, and its true. He above all over directors influenced and effectively created the teen comedy but I'd like to take his passing to remember his affect on me as a child growing up in the 80's. On Friday night I honoured his work and output by watching The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles and Planes, Train and Automobiles. Take a second to let that soak in. Four films in one night. Essentially a Anthony Michael Hall trilogy and a Steve Martin/John Candy comedy classic. All made in the 80's. An era which I have repeatedly said means any film immediately needs to lose one star - unless it's not set in the 80's. Somehow my argument always holds up, films in the 80's are always 1 star worse than any other decade. All of the classics are set in an era outside of the 80's and are probably classics because in many ways the 80's was a genre of nostalgia. And then there is John Hughes. The 2nd most important American filmmaker on the 1980's. Sorry Robert Zemeckis, but it's true. After Steven Spielberg, the 80's belonged to John Hughes. In six years from 1984's Sixteen Candles to 89's Uncle Buck he directed 7 films. He wrote 17 films in the same decade from National Lampoon's Class Reunion via Vacation, European Vacation & Christmas Vacation, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and ending with Home Alone in 1990. That's some level of work, and some level of quality comedy. You may not be a fan of 80's comedies, but they guarantee to make you laugh and will probably melt you heart if you let them as well.

So to the 4 films I watched in dedication to Mr Hughes.

The Breakfast Club - what can be said which hasn't already been so. The quintessential teen comedy. Aimed at everyone from pre-teens right through to young adults who can still remember be teens. The film may not offer the complex depth of character which might expect today, but it pisses all over any number of Road Trip or American Pie is crytallizing the angst and depression of being a teenager, as 5 students - the brain, jock, criminal, weirdo and prom queen, have to spend their Saturday in detention. It a perfect film. The set up, the characters, the performances, the pace. That the character act out and express themselves exactly when you need them to is perfect pacing and writing from Hughes. And how many teen films have 5 fully realised, believable and above all loveable characters.

Weird Science - ok, this is the very 80's one. Frankenstein filtered through a teenage boys wet dream and what do you get - Kelly LeBrock aparently, and this is one of those films where, if you were the right age when you first watched (the right age being somewhere between 11 & 14) then Weird Science was not only a brilliant romp, but also the basis of your formation of the opposite sex, especially how perfect a woman could be. I don't think of LeBrock as the being the first cinematic woman to stir my loins, but she, and the film especially will always have a unique place in my development from boy in man - for that John Hughes I salute you.

Sixteen Candles - never seen this one before. But its the one from the point of view of woman. Molly Ringwald, that classic 80's teen star, her career made by John Hughes and possibly this film. It's charming, endearing and funny, thanks mainly to Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. It's also one of the few, if only film about middle child syndrome. Yes it may be corny, and yes it may be odd that the hunk falls for her without ever meeting her, and spends the whole film trying to speak to her - but come on John Hughes made boys believe they could create Kelly LeBrock, why shouldn't girls get a film where after having your 16th birthday forgotten by your family, a geek sophomore hitting you, and being ginger you can still get the guy without doing anything.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Steve Martin, John Candy. Lots of different transport. A comedy of errors really with a perfectly clear goal for Steve Martin's exec trying to get home for Thanksgiving to spend it with his family. En route he is thwarted unintentionally by the loveable John Candy. The ending may be predictable and the set simple but the pay off comes in two of the 80's best comedy actors, some hilarious scenes and some witty dialogue. Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a classic comedy, and will cheer up even the bluest of moods.

So John Hughes contributed the most prolific comedy films of the 80's defined the careers for good and bad, of many 80's star, helped create the Brat Pack, gave boys going through puberty Kelly LeBrock, makes Judd Apatow look lazy, and not very funny and defined the teen movie. The model for which is still used today in countless tripe which passes for teen comedy.

The Breakfast Club

Weird Science

Sixteen Candles

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Boyz in the Hood - 1993

With Boyz in the Hood John Singleton became the youngest director in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Director. He was 24, and he was also nominated for Best Writing. He lost out to Silence of the Lambs in the Director cateogry, but was also nominated alongside Ridley Scott and Oliver Stone, so he was in a tough year. The Best Writing gong went to Callie Khouri for Thelma and Louise so he shouldn't feel dissapointed. He has however never managed to equal the brilliance of Boyz in the Hood, which is perhaps the most dissapointing thing about a career which looked so promising. The reason is perhaps that Boyz in the Hood feels autobiographical, and for that reason feels geniune, heartfelt and above all honest. For a genre (or should that be subgenre) the black gangster film has never reached such heights, and Boyz in the Hood is probably one of the best examples of "black cinema" since Spike Lee broke onto the scene.

A superb cast, led by Cuba Gooding Jr who plays Tre, Laurence Fishburne as his sagacious father (the key to his survival), Ice Cube as Doughboy and Morris Chestnut as Ricky. The film begins with these characters as 10 year old and we see there first real introduction to the gang mentality which will come to define and destroy most of their lives. The film is a little light on emotional depth and is perhaps a bit too moralistic and simplistic. Tre for example is better off and has a chance of survival simply because he has a father who loves him and who will protect him and educate him. Yet because this film feels drawn from Singleton's own live, this never becomes a problem, as you begin to understand that life in the black communities of America are probably just like this for young men. Overbearing mothers, posturing young men who feel the need to prove their masculinity, with the only real outlet being gun crime and gangs. Plus a level of poverty and a system which doesn't seem to have a place for these kids, and certainly very little hope for escape.

The film is held together by the powerful central performances from the three central friends and their differing outlook on life. Tre wants to go to college and has the brains to do so. Ricky has dreams of a becoming a pro football player and Doughboy, who has never been looked upon too kindly by his mother, is, by the time he's 20 already done time and so is already a lost cause in many ways.

A superb film about growing up in South Central, with excellent direction which reveals the truth and honesty behind its depiction and thanks to the strong performances of Gooding Jr, Ice Cube and Laurence Fishburne the film never fails to feel alive and genuine.

Little Norse Prince (Taiyo no oji: Horusu no daiboken) - 1968

Isao Takahata is probably better known for his Studio Ghibli films such as Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies. The Little Norse Prince, which has been released by Ghibli is his directorial debut film, and it carries the imagination, charm and subtly which made some of his later films so magnificent.

The story combines Norse and Japanese mythology to create a story about a young boy, who after inheriting a Sword from a rock Giant, embarks on a journey back to the land of his ancestors, prompted by his dying father. En route he comes across a village besieged by the ice demon Grundewald.

In typical Japanses animation the film has elements of supernatural, a ancient (iron age) setting and some truly wonderful visuals. If it lacks the pure vibrancy and narrative zip of more recent Ghibli films it may be worth noting that the film was originally released in 1968, the same decade as The Jungle Book, and although it falls some way short of Disney's output in the decade, it is still a wonderfully charming tale which will appeal to both children and adults. Like a lot of Japanese animation it never shies away from the darker tones of the story and the film contains some menacing wolves, a hypnotic young girl who sings haunting tunes. The film also offers a range of intriguing and interesting adult characters which gives the film a more mature tone, as a power struggle for control over the village threatens to destroy from within.

Not the masterpiece later Takahata managed to create but a excellent debut and a beautifully hand drawn animation which is equally as enthralling as it is funny and charming.

El Orfanato - 2008

"Presented by Guillermo Del Toro" tells you something about what to expect when watching The Orphanage, a tense, old fashioned horror film similar in tone to The Devil's Backbone. When I watched the film originally at the cinema, I was frozen in my seat for almost the entire film, the final twist ending showing how great twists can be, when subtly dropped into the story, and ensuring that the ending is about only the twist. On DVD though the experience is less impressive and the film doesn't demand the multiple viewings say The Sixth Sense merits. That's not to say the film isn't still a excellent entry into the horror genre, and it is certainly better than most of the gory, plotless tripe which passes for horror these days.

The film tells the story of Laura (played with assured confidence by Belen Rueda) who returns to the abandoned orphanage in which she grew up. Now, with her family, husband and son, she plans to open the house up for disabled children. After a bizarre old woman arrives, impersonating a social worker, things take a turn for the eerie and supernatural as their lonely son claims to have made a new friend called Tomaz.

Before the slightly off tone and Bayona's sinister direction becomes more aparent as a series of events, including some fantastic scares, build toward a reveal which will knock your socks off, and maybe even bring a tear to the eye, before the film finally commits to its supernatural undertones in an imaginative and suspense field ending.

There are problems, Laura's husband, Carlos, has barely a cameo, and we never really get to know. It may be Laura's story but he is as much a ghost to her as the actual ghosts which may be haunting the orphanage.

Yet at it's heart, The Orphanage is a superbly crafted, brilliantly written horror film which sits comfortably alongside such recent classics as The Devil's Backbone and The Others. My advice is to seek out the original and not wait for the US remake, which will no doubt lack the subtle, sinister quality.

Dawn of the Dead - 2004

Zach Snyder's career to date has consisted of remakes and comic book adaptations. His directorial debut was a remake of a classic horror film. Not only a classic horror movie, but perhaps th grestest zombie film of all time made by the godfather of zombie movies George A. Romero. So you can expect a level of trepidation about it. Thankfully the reboot, reimaging, re-envisioning, whatever you want to call it changes enough from the original that Dawn of the Dead 2004 can be judged on its own merits. It may never be as good as the original, but then it never really attempts to be. It has replaced the bumbling, shuffling zombies of Romero's classics with the fast moving infected similar to 28 Days Later. This as always is a debatable subject, but should be saved for another blog, but does at least give the writers a new approach on the themes presented by confinement of the refuge in the Mall.

Dawn of the Dead is a satisfying, if somewhat underwhelming entry into the zombie genre, and feels perhaps a bit too much like a MTV music video than a atmospheric horror. The script is ok, but has some of those awful, on-the-nose expositionary scenes wedged in to try and give the characters depth and make the audience care. For the most part, like most zombie films, these scenes are enough to make the inevitable deaths meaningful. However, the film is also extremely predictable. Character stereotypes are included and ticked off, before going through the expected arc and changing, finally succombing to the zombie hordes usually to save some less deserving character. There are too many characters and so most are sketched lightly, giving you cliches. The number of characters are there mainly to act as a body count and here again the film falls short. Unlike say Romero's most recent Diary of the Dead, which despite being flawed is certainly creative in the manner of which it disposes of both zombie and human, the best Dawn of the Dead can muster is a game of spot the celebrity lookalike zombie, or accidental death by chainsaw. Which brings me onto another point. Snyder seems to have a fetish for weaponry. The film contains a number of unnecesary close up ons firing guns and the aforementioned chainsaw etc. This may just be a ploy to appeal to a new generation, but it succeeds only in removing the sort of tense atmosphere horror movies should be working to create.

Having said that, when the film moves up a few gears in the final act Snyder seems much more at home, and thanks to the likes of Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames, the film's becomes tense, engaging and discomforting, if never quite terrifying.

So not a bad entry in the zombie genre, if lesser than its predecessors and other recent zombie fare. Snyder has gone onto big and bolder stuff, but has never managed to throw off the MTV stylings which deflate this film. A middling script is salvaged by good casting and when the zombie hordes do attack it manages to get the pulse racing enough to make the whole things enjoyable.