beilblog

In lesser hands, “the Facebook movie” could have been a disaster. Hollywood and the internet have a less than stellar common history, tending to fall back on technobabble and fancy graphics in place of what is often a less-than glamourous reality. The story of Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire creator of Facebook defies this convention; neither coming of age movie, nor a nerd-gets-the-girl schmaltz. While Facebook itself may thrive on the trivial and banal, its genesis is presented as anything but.

Mad Max is a cult road movie fatally crippled by budget and imagination. Set in the near-future, the viewer is told that society is on the verge of collapse, as oil shortages turn biker gangs into killers as legal and judicial systems crumble. For all its potential, Mad Max seldom achieves its targets. As an exploitation film it's not particularly exploitative, as an action movie it's dull as dirt. It sows the seeds of a fascinating story about the breakdown of society, and while it hits a beat now and then, long stretches are as dull and grey as the film's endless motorways. Made on a shoestring budget, it has little to recommend it from a visual standpoint. A couple of practical stunts impress, in particular a slow-motion bike crash which understandably created urban myths about the death of the stuntman. And Australia itself is a reliably huge and gorgeous stage to set the action. Mad Max hits its highest point in the last five minutes, as Max, finally mad, sadi...

In cinema the lowest form of scare is undoubtedly the jump scare. It takes an artist to frame a chilling image  and a clever writer to come up with a fearsome entity. Any fool with a big stick can make a loud noise. Paranormal Activity 2 is a film all about loud noises: American family, demonic possession. Bang. Bang. Bang. Some of these moments are mightily effective, but l ike a rollercoaster work only for that instant.  There's nothing behind them, no meat to chew over, nothing for the unnerved movie-goer to ponder over on the late night walk back home. Events in the film unfold, faux-documentary style through a combination of handheld video and clips from a closed-circuit security system. The methodical cycling through footage of different rooms fails to live up to the potential of the idea, with only a scattering of "did you see...?" manipulations. Acting as a wrap-around compa...

Suspiria is a pitch-perfect example of "pure" horror cinema; the near-total disregard of narrative and character in favour of painstakingly setting a specific mood and atmosphere. The results will frustrate those seeking logic, but offer in its place an unparalleled aesthetic experience; a whirling maelstrom of colour and composition accompanied by a cacophony of sound designed to unsettle and unnerve. It's proof if proof need be that in the right hands, books and films can be very different things indeed. The story could be written on the back of a beer mat, and involves witches at a German ballet school, but like all Argento films it is little more than a framework to support a series of increasingly outrageous murder scenes, the director's ruthlessly sadistic streak competing directly with his decorative sense of fine detail and beauty. With Italian prog-rockers Goblin providing the deafening soundtrack, one doesn't so much watch Suspiria as be buffeted a...

One of the most visually brilliant films ever made. The combined design endeavours of Swiss surrealist H.R Giger, French illustrator Jean Giraud, American designer and illustrator Ron Cobb and British comic and film artist Chris Foss make for a film that can be both breathtakingly beautiful and strikingly nightmarish.  The cast are strong and the music haunting, but it is the look of ALIEN; the langurous, masterful direction of Ridley Scott and the ideas that the aforementioned visionaries brought to what might otherwise be a fairly standard horror film that propels it into the realms of genius.

Legendary Vietnam-in-space action horror from director James Cameron, deftly proving that The Terminator was far from a fluke. Skillfully crafted for less than the catering budget on some of today's mega-budget blockbusters, ALIENS wisely eshews trying to beat Ridley Scott at his own game and instead opts for a slick combination of military fetishm, maternal instincts and classic war movie tropes, delivering one of the most tense, satisfying and rousing genre films ever made. Endlessly quotable and with first-rate sets, effects and direction, ALIENS (the theatrical cut, avoid the bloated Special Edition) never once puts a foot wrong and shows how to do a sequel that pays loving homage to the original, without recycling, insulting or misunderstanding.

Famously wracked with production troubles, Alien3 still manages to astound with a deliberate return to both the gothic trappings of the original film, and an alien creature that is clearly more than just an expendable bug. Unrepentantly bleak and downbeat from tragic beginning right the way through to the final shot, the film bravely attempts to undo the 'shoot-em-up' tag James Cameron's second film had left the series with, and was critically punished for doing so. Nonetheless it is still a beautiful, graceful film with a black cynical heart beating underneath - a combination that even the most meddling studio couldn't extinguish. The 2005 Assembly Cut reinstates a further half an hour of black blasted misery, hysteria and murder, returning the film to something vaguely akin to its original form, and is even more starkly compelling than the original.