Neverland (2011)

Intellectually, I understand the appeal of the Peter Pan character; 'the boy who never grew up'.  The yearning to return to the carefree days of youth, and admiration for his fearlessness and adventuresome spirit.  But the thing about young people is that they're often self-centered, capricious, and even cruel ('innocent and heartless' as the author of the original novel put it).  To my mind, the important part of growing up - as opposed to merely growing old - is overcoming those traits.  Which means that by definition, this is something Peter Pan will never do.

Now admittedly, in that regard he's not much different than a lot of adults.  But those adults are not the protagonists of novels, plays, movies and this TV miniseries.

Neverland is the origin story of Peter Pan.  It begins on the streets of London in 1906, where Peter is part of a gang of street thieves under the tutelage of a Fagin-like character named Jimmy.  1906 is a couple of years after the original Peter and Wendy play came out, but we'll overlook that chronological oddity.

Peter, his gang, and their mentor are all drawn into Neverland by a strange glowing orb that Jimmy was hired to steal.  There they find ice-plains, giant eight-legged crocodiles, and a gang of pirates led by the beautiful but wicked Elizabeth Bonny (Anna Friel, who gives every impression of enjoying herself immensely in this bad girl role).

Many adventures ensue, as Peter must also encounter the Kaw (native Americans), their 'beautiful' princess Tiger Lily, and of course, Tinker Bell.  There's also the small matter of the man who hired Jimmy in the first place.  Though honestly, the explanation of that is some scientific mumbo-jumbo that neither feels appropriate to the overall tone of the show, nor terribly convincing in its own right.

Ultimately, this is a somewhat uneven and episodic affair; I think the best section is probably the opening half hour or so, with the remaining sequences varying in excitement and interest.  None of it is outright bad, really, but I can't help but feel that a lot of it comes across as padding the run time.

Harmless enough, and both Friel and Rhys Ifans are good in it.  Ifans plays Jimmy, whose full name ... well, I doubt I'm spoiling anything if I tell you that it's James Hook, am I?

Nabonga (1944)

The very first review I posted on this blog was White Pongo, an ultra-cheap 1945 gorilla movie filled with stock footage and horrendous racism.  This movie is like that film, with a bigger budget and less bigotry.  The one African character in this is actually a pretty sympathetic portrayal, for the time.

A thief absconds to Africa with his daughter and a box of jewels, but their plane crashes in the jungle.  Because this is a movie, the daughter immediately befriends a gorilla.

We cut to a decade or so later, when Buster 'Flash Gordon' Crabbe mounts an expedition in search of the missing jewels.  It seems his father was accused of complicity in the crime, and he intends to prove his father's innocence by returning the gems.  Because 'I just happen to have recovered the jewels my father didn't help steal.' is a convincing statement.

Surprise surprise, his interest in venturing into uncharted territory - and the fact that he's a bit of an idiot and tells people that he's looking for the mines of King Solomon - mean that his expedition draws the attention of Unscrupulous Persons.

Meanwhile, of course, the daughter has grown up into a 'beautiful' young women in a leopard skin dress.  Her father vanished sometime after arriving in the jungle, and she has only the gorilla and her gems for company.

This all leads to shenanigans aplenty, as you might imagine.  Though they aren't all that interesting.  And then the movie stops.  It doesn't really actually end per se.  Just stops.

Whether under this (never explained) title, or the alternative one of Jungle Woman, this film isn't worth your time.

River of Darkness (2011)

For the past decade or so, the world's largest pro-wrestling company have been trying to break into the film industry via their own production company 'WWE Studios'.  They've released 20-30 films, which - based on the trailers - appear to be pretty run of the mill, derivative examples of their various types, be it action, thriller, horror or comedy.

But at least those movies look like movies.  Which is more than be said for this production, which 'stars' wrestlers from the second-largest pro-wrestling company in the US, TNA.  The lighting is the worst I can remember seeing for a long time; flat and far too bright, it makes every scene look fake, even the stuff shot on location.  I mean, the lighting in Pathogen was better than this, and that was made by a 12 year old.

While the lighting is the stand-out offender against movie making here, it does face spirited competition from the script and the acting, both of which lie a long way south of 'competent'.  You might expect the pro-wrestlers to be pretty hammy actors, but they really aren't conspicuously worse than anyone else in the film.  'Bad' is something most of the cast aspires to.

Plot?  Oh yeah.  Thirty years ago three backwoods bayou boys were falsely accused of a crime and drowned by the vengeful townsfolk.  Now they're out of purgatory and murdering everyone they can get their hands on.  While the sheriff investigates the murders, and three college students play ghost-hunters, some locals decide to offer a sacrifice to get the undead killers to back off.  It's all pretty standard supernatural-slasher stuff: a dash of Freddy Krueger, a smidgen of Jason Voorhees, and a whole lot of stupid.

I'd have forgiven the film many of its sins if the wrestlers had starting hitting wrestlings moves on each other, a la Blade 3, but no such luck.  Given that 'funky fight scenes' would seem to be the principal reason to hire pro-wrestlers, I'm not sure what the people behind this drek were thinking.  Maybe they were just fans.

If you simply must watch a bunch of people get murdered, you'd be much better off watching one of the Friday the 13ths instead.  I recommend 4 & 7.

Trauma (1978)

One of the problems with cheaply-dubbed police procedurals is never being sure if a witness's unconvincingly delivered lines are intentional, or just a result of the voice actor's limited skills.  This is a problem that crops up a few times in this film, which is something of a shame because by the standards of the cheaply-dubbed market, this is a pretty decent movie.

We begin with a scene where Inspector Di Salvo spots a woman shoplifting and takes her back to his place for some hanky-panky.  Are they a couple playing a sex game?  Or does he routinely do this?  The movie never explains, though given that he leaves her in the apartment when he is called on a case, I'm guessing it was the former.

The case in question is the rape and murder of a 17-year old girl.  Di Salvo begins the investigation by visiting the private school where the girl was studying.  He arrives just as the girls are coming in from sports class, and if you think this sounds like a cheap excuse to have lots of hopefully-legal actresses strip off, you'd be right.

Once the movie has its most egregious peep show segment over, it gets down to the business of the investigation.  It's actually a pretty fun one.  There are all sorts of weird clues, strange events, and further murders, as well as a ten year old girl (the sister of the murder victim) who keeps popping up with odd bits of evidence.  It's convoluted enough to give even a good cop a hard time, and given that Di Salvo's idea of investigation appears to be to burst into people's bedrooms shouting accusations, I'm not sure he qualifies.

The final resolution of the girl's murder is a pretty good one: neatly put together on the whole, and refreshingly non-crazy for an Italian film.

If you don't mind the sleaziness and the bad dubbing, this film (which is also known as Virgin Killer and Red Rings of Fear in English) is a decent way to spend 80 minutes.

Casablanca (1942)

I doubt this movie needs much introduction: it's a multi-Oscar winner, and regularly appears on 'greatest films of all time' lists.  It wasn't necessarily expected to have quite such an impact when it was being made.  It was an A-list movie, with top stars, but there were hundreds of such movies being made every year.

No doubt the film profited by having its release right as the Allies were invading north Africa, but even without that advantage it seems likely that the combination of snappy dialogue, artful photography, and stellar performances would have lifted this film out of the pack.  Bogart is excellent as the wounded and angry Rick, but this is far from a one man show: everyone brings their A-game.

The film is set in Vichy-controlled Casablanca (logically enough, given the title).  This is a stopping off point for refugees fleeing with Third Reich.  It's also the home of Rick, a cynical, hard-bitten American who 'doesn't stick his neck out for anyone'.  Anyone except the woman about to walk through his bar's front door, that is.

Rick will soon find himself forced to choose between love and honor: both things he thought he'd given up for good.  Along the way, he and the other characters will exchange snappy rejoinders, clever patter, and heartfelt speeches.  The dialogue brings the real spark to this film, along with a truly joyous rendition of La Marseillaise.  Darn those French and their actually having an anthem worth listening to!

This is a very good film, and if you haven't seen it, you should.

One-Eyed Monster (2008)

So the plot of this movie is that a male porn star's (notoriously large) penis gets taken over by an alien force.  It then attempts to penetrate every orifice it can find, impregnating the target where possible and killing them where it is not.

You're probably thinking to yourself 'that sounds stupid', and trust me, it is.  But it's also surprisingly good fun.

Part of that is because the cast is a cut above the average for low-budget horror, but a bigger credit has to be given to the script.  It has a stupid premise, and it knows it has a stupid premise ... but it never lets that be an excuse to be lazy.  Characters' actions make sense in the context of the admittedly absurd situation in which they find themselves, and their efforts to stop the monster are logical, albeit contrived.

Stick a different monster in as the threat, and tweak a few bits and pieces around the edges, and you'd have a solid if unremarkable direct-to-dvd horror film.  So why the goofy premise?  Well probably to make it get noticed, to be honest.  'Killer Penis!' is good link-bait for today's online horror movie sites, and in today's post-Sharknado world, the marketing benefits of a truly gonzo premise seem pretty obvious.

So sure, this is a silly and immature film, but so was 300.  At least this one was entertaining.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

You should see this film.  It's good.

Okay, with the 'review in ten words or less' out of the way, let's offer a little more context.  Howl's Moving Castle is based - loosely - on the novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones.  The adaptation is from Studio Ghibli, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.  As such, it's filled with many of Miyazaki's trademark elements: flying machines, an elderly woman who initially appears more malevolent than she is, a pretty but not sexualised young woman in the lead role, anti-militarism, creepy blob creatures, and amusing animal sidekicks all make an appearance.

'Plain' Sophie lives a quiet life looking after her father's hat shop while her more glamorous sister enjoys a much more active life.  Sophie's life gets a whole lot more interesting when she refuses to serve a late visitor to her shop, however.  This is the Wicked Witch of the Waste, who surses Sophie to become an old woman.

Leaving her home, Sophie encounters a living scarecrow (shades of The Wizard of Oz, and it has been argued that the novel was Jones's version of that tale).  This scarecrow leads to her to the eponymous moving castle, which strides beetle-like across the land.  As a consequence, Sophie finds herself as the new cleaning lady for the wizard Howl and his strange household.  All this is set against the backdrop of two countries going to war over a missing prince, and Howl's efforts to undercut the military power of both sides and prevent attacks.

Sophie must learn a few lessons about herself - and incidentally and quite literally mend Howl's heart in the process - or things could get very, very bad indeed.

This film has a strong voice cast, lovely animation, nice design, and a script that's frequently funny, often touching, and occasionally a little scary.  Well worth a watch.