Ever since my childhood, anime has assumed a dangerous, forbidden aura. I can recall in my early teens as these Japanese animated movies and television shows began to encroach upon video stores’ territory, scant shelves and then populated aisles of big eyes, big swords and big breasts. Give or take an Astroboy, I never watched…
Samurai Bride follows the format established by its first season (titled Samurai Girls because apparently they don’t like “season two” in Japan), relying on its animation’s stylistic diversity to excuse its otherwise entirely conventional blend of harem tropes, fan-service and oversized showdowns. Interestingly, I’d argue the two approaches work at cross-purposes; viewers looking for a…
Is it an inevitability that horror franchises trend towards soft-core porn the longer they run? Probably not – Nightmare on Elm Street found its way to bad puns while Friday the 13th travelled to New York, Hell and, eventually, outer space. It’s certainly the case with the Wrong Turn series, which began as gory-hillbilly-survival-horror, took…
Shadow of the Vampire is a film of many genres. These include… …a historical revisionist re-telling of the filming of F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, with John Malkovich playing “Herr Doktor” Murnau; Eddie Izzard playing Gustav von Wangenheim who plays Thomas Hutter; and Willem Dafoe playing a vampire who takes on the role of Max Schreck…
Halfway into Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Joseph Gordon-Levitt – battered and bloodied – ascends a fire escape, consumed by trepidation. We know this because he continues to grimly intone his fears on the narration track, and because there’s a woman waiting for him in the hotel room at the top of the…
Discussing IkkiTousen’s third season, I described the show as “sexist, and stupid, and slapdash”.” Nonetheless I obviously enjoyed it enough to return for Xtreme Xecutor, season four of the anime. What made me come back for more was the appeal of the show’s “insistence on the insubstantial” – it’s as substantial as a helium balloon,…
Daenerys of House Targaryen, Stormborn, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Dothraki, First of Her Name arises from her bath. She affixes the brazen mercenary Daario Naharis with an unblinking stare. He has brought her the heads of his former allies and an offer of his loyalty. Daenerys is naked but unashamed; she…
“The Mountain and the Viper” is a reminder that in George R.R. Martin’s unforgiving Game of Thrones universe, some things are inevitable… …bloodshed, for example. Or that whenever there’s a cursory shot of buff, shirtless men… …there’ll be a series of leering close-ups on naked women shortly afterwards. (Not that I’m especially complaining about getting…
Under the Skin is a challenging viewing experience. Those attending entirely off the back of “I heard Scarlett Johansson gets naked in this” will find themselves faced with a film more in tune with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey than Species. From its opening screen of black inexplicably infiltrated by white lights and rings that…
You know what you’re getting into when you watch a film with a title like Cheerleader Massacre. Bad acting is par for the course: the actors might look like the Days of Our Lives type, but their thespian ability falls short of even that mark. There’s no reason to be surprised by home-video quality cinematography…
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