Cinehouse

STUDIOCANAL'S VINTAGE WORLD CINEMA PRESENTS JACQUES RIVETTE'S BANNED FILM: THE NUN. (1966) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-08-11T16:00:00.000+01:00

THE NUN. (1966) DIRECTED BY JACQUES RIVETTE. BASED ON THE NOVEL 'LA RELIGIEUSE' BY DENIS DIDEROT. STARRING ANNA KARINA, MICHELINE PRESLE, FRANCINE BERGE, LISELOTTE PULVER AND CHRISTIANE LENIER.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

FOR THE FIRST TIME ON

DVD, BLU-RAY AND EST 17 SEPTEMBER

COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL:

VINTAGE WORLD CINEMA EDITION!

This French language film by French New Wave director Jacques Rivette has a lot of back-story. It's based on the novel by prolific French philosopher, art critic and writer Denis Diderot, who was a prominent figure in the Enlightenment. (Note to self: google 'the Enlightenment...!')

Rivette first directed the story as a three-hour-long play, with Anna Karina, the wife of his contemporary and friend Jean-Luc Godard, as his leading lady. It ran for a month in 1963, was a financial flop but received good reviews, if you can understand how that works, the good reviews being especially for the beautiful leading lady.

In 1966, Rivette finally got to make his movie, which got itself banned for a time because of its unflattering depiction of religious life. Not to mention his portrayal of nuns themselves, from the lowliest novice to the Mother Superior, as superstitious, judgemental sex-mad harpies who aren't fit to flagellate themselves raw in the name of The Man Upstairs, as my dear old granny used to call him. She'd only ever talk in terrified whispers of The Man Below, lol.

Recently in UK cinemas for the first time since its original release in 1966, the film is two-and-a-quarter hours long- not much shorter than the play, so!- and it still watches somewhat like a play, albeit a gorgeous, sumptuous-looking one.

You can almost imagine the locations as being beautifully-decorated sets and the actors as reciting their lines on a stage. It's a bit stilted, yes, and, doesn't seem terribly realistic or believable at times (just like a play, lol!), but I still enjoyed it well enough, despite my initial disappointment on discovering exactly why it was banned.

Yes readers, when I realised I was watching a once-banned French film called THE NUN, I was expecting sexy lesbian nuns cavorting naked with each other and the visiting priests as if there were no tomorrow. Sex and whipping and sado-masochism and blasphemy and self-pleasuring with crucifixes to beat the band, in other words. Alas, except for some mild implied lesbianism, it's not that kind of film.

Neither is it in any way affiliated, I believe, with the James Wan film of the same name which is due for its cinematic release on September 7th of this year. It'll be a spin-off of THE CONJURING 2 and will be the fifth instalment overall of THE CONJURING franchise. I don't even care if it's good, bad or indifferent, I just really need to see another new one of these films!

Anyway, the 1966 film is the story of a beautiful young woman called Suzanne Simonin living in France in about the mid-1700s, who essentially has four mothers and no daddy. FOUR MOTHERS AND NO DADDY; couldn't you just imagine there being a shit romantic comedy in there somewhere starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston?

Let me explain. When we first meet Suzanne, she is being forced to enter the local convent to become a nun against her will. She causes such a public scene that her outraged, coldly furious parents are obliged to take her home, where she is locked up for several months until she agrees to join the convent as arranged, and for real this time. No messing about.

I don't blame Suzanne at all for not wanting to join the convent. She's adamant that she has no vocation whatsoever, and even the religious folks themselves agree that it's a mistake to enter this life unless you have one of these.

Suzanne presumably wants to laugh and love and live her life as a wife and mother like other girls her age get to do. She doesn't want to be walled up alive in the convent, devoting the next maybe seventy years of her life- nuns live really long, probably because they don't have any kids to give 'em prematurely grey hairs!- to a God she believes in but doesn't want to spend every minute of every day thinking about.

That seems totally fair to me. I mean, being forced into marriage is bad enough but at least most women do want to marry at some point and have children. Being forced into a convent, where you live for all time without sex or the love of a man or the joy- and hard work!- of having kiddies would be almost like a death sentence for some women. That's what it's like for Suzanne Simonin.

So why is it so all-fired imperative that Suzanne take the hated vows? Well, her parents have already married off two daughters with dowries and now they can't afford to give Suzanne the same treatment. Well, that's pretty shit but there's even more to it than that.

Suzanne's mother has a really nasty, unfair reason for wanting Suzanne locked away behind the convent walls but I won't let that slip, I think. It can be a surprise for you guys but just let me say that I think that Suzanne's mother is a cold, selfish unfeeling bitch who has no right to take it out on Suzanne for something Suzanne's not even bloody well responsible for.

A small dowry is cobbled together to give to the convent (oh, they have enough dosh for THAT then, do they, the tight feckers!) and, Bob's your Uncle, Suzanne is a nun for life. She will never stop railing against the unfairness of her incarceration and this will cause her many problems in the convent. If you're not there willingly, how could you possibly be expected to settle into the life?

Over the course of her enforced religious life, she will have three Mother Superiors, three of the mothers referred to in my little earlier description of the film. One will be kind and loving but unfortunately short-lived. One will be cold, cruel and punitive just like Suzanne's birth-mother and one will be oddly frivolous, mercurial in temperament and relentlessly horny for Suzanne's nubile young form. Don't get excited, lol, the most bare female flesh you get to see in the film is one glimpse of shoulder and that's that.

Suzanne will also encounter a horny-under-his-stern-exterior Father Confessor and a brothel madam, neither of whom would probably bother with Suzanne if she weren't drop-dead gorgeous and wearing a full face of make-up in every scene, lol.

I find it interesting that all the men to whom Suzanne appeals for help to get her out from under her hateful enforced vows give her a more than fair hearing and the benefit of the doubt on every occasion, despite the film's being set in an era when women were pretty much less than dirt beneath men's feet.

Those were the awful days, after all, when men in different countries were burning witches and torturing those females believed to be possessed by the devil. (Suzanne is believed by her nasty Mother Superior to be in need of a good exorcist at one point.)

I can only put Suzanne's extraordinary success in winning over the minds and hearts of the men in power in the film down to her fabulous beauty. These guys mightn't have been so quick to save a hideous old crone from the pointy instruments of the Inquisitor or Exorcist, that's all I'm saying. There aren't any Inquisitors in the film, by the way, so don't get your hopes up. I'm just saying that it was the era for that type of thing.

This is a bad era for women, though. A young girl at the mercy of and in the care of her parents, older brother, Uncle and Aunt or even husband could be deemed mad at any time and put away in an asylum for life or, as in Suzanne's case, the local convent, where her guardians would never have to be bothered by her again. It's a chilling, saddening thought. Ah well. Not to be a Debbie Downer or anything but such was ever woman's lot.

The film is lovely to look at, a good picture of the religious life in France at the time, if a bit slow-moving and frustrating at times. I was constantly wondering when we were gonna get to the good stuff, the banned bits, lol. If I'd known not to expect anything spectacular in that direction, I might have enjoyed the film a bit more.

As it is, I've done you guys a big favour by telling ye not to expect any naked raging orgies or whatnot. Now ye can relax into the film like I wasn't really able to. Don't say I never do anything for ye...!

FOR THE FIRST TIME ON

DVD, BLU-RAY AND EST 17 SEPTEMBER

COURTESY OF STUDIOCANAL:

VINTAGE WORLD CINEMA EDITION!

Jacques Rivette (1928 – 2016) was a French film director and film critic, known for his contributions to the French New Wave and the influential magazine (dubbed the ‘instrument of combat’ of the New Wave) Cahiers du Cinéma, of which he was editor throughout the first half of the 1960s. Extremely prolific throughout his career, Rivette made twenty-nine films, best known among them L’amour fou (1969), Out 1 (1971) and La Belle Noiseuse (1991).

About STUDIOCANAL

STUDIOCANAL, a 100% affiliate of Vivendi’s CANAL+ Group, is Europe’s leader in production, rights acquisition, distribution and international sales of feature films and TV series, operating directly in all three major European markets, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

STUDIOCANAL owns one of the most important film libraries in the world, boasting 6,500 feature films, including the iconic Terminator 2, The Third Man, The Ealing Comedies, Mulholland Drive, Breathless and Belle de Jour.

VINTAGE WORLD CINEMA

Open your eyes to a new world of film with the Vintage World Cinema collection. Discover and enjoy classic, iconic films from around

the globe, all stunningly restored with brand new bonus content.

About Independent Cinema Office (ICO)

Independent Cinema Office (ICO) is the national organisation for development and support of independent film exhibition in the UK. We exist to bring a wider range of films to a wider range of audiences. Activities include training, film programming, distribution, advice and consultancy. Since 2003 ICO have booked 26,000 films, trained over 1000 professionals from 635 organisations, distributed 235 films and achieved audience figures of over 6 million.

www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger, poet and book-and-movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

SIMPLY MEDIA PRESENTS: LONGFORD. (2006) A SUPERB TV FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-08-03T19:37:00.000+01:00

LONGFORD. (2006) BASED ON TRUE EVENTS. WRITTEN BY PETER MORGAN. DIRECTED BY TOM HOOPER. STARRING JIM BROADBENT, SAMANTHA MORTON, LINDSAY DUNCAN AND ANDY SERKIS.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is a really gripping television film about the toff politician who interested himself in the legal case of Moors Murderer Myra Hindley. Hindley, with her lover and accomplice Ian Brady, murdered five young people in England in the 1960s and buried the remains of four of them on Saddleworth Moors, a bleak and beautiful but now godless place, thanks to its association with the murders.

When the body of their just-murdered final victim was found in their council house the day after the murder, the killing spree of Britain's most evil couple came to an abrupt end. But the pain of their victims' parents, friends and family was only just beginning.

Both Brady and Hindley were imprisoned until they died, Myra first of emphysema relating to her chain-smoking in 2002, and Brady in 2017. Type 'Ian Brady's Death' into Google and read the creepy little articles you'll find there about the disposal of his remains, remains that no-one wanted to touch or be associated with.

Anyway, in the 1960s, Myra requested a prison visit from high-up Labour politician Lord Longford which, apparently, she was perfectly at liberty to do. Eccentric do-gooder Lord Longford had long been into prison visiting and the whole area of penal reform and he agreed immediately, despite the fact that Hindley was generally considered to be the most evil- and hated- woman in Britain.

Frank Longford, the seventh Earl of Longford, was one of a very few aristocratic hereditary peers to have served in a senior capacity in a Labour government. He held several cabinet positions between 1947 and 1968, though he was deemed incompetent and childlike by his fellow politicians. He was excessively religious and had a big bee in his bonnet about the degrading effects of pornography on both the user and the used.

Jim Broadbent brilliantly portrays him here as a likeable enough, wild-haired fuddy-duddy with a posh accent and a pwonounced lithp, an overly-idealistic campaigner for social reform. He expects everyone to be as honest and moralistic as he is himself and it seems to never occur to him that someone might be pulling the wool over his eyes, in this case Myra.

When he first goes to visit Myra in prison, he's expecting to meet the hard-faced, bleached blonde trollop of the infamous security photo that everyone knows. Instead, he's enchanted with the shy, brown-haired, soft-voiced little wisp of a woman who sits nervously chain-smoking across from him in the Visitors' Hall. Unbelievably, the deluded lord even tells her what a pretty smile she has...!

He quickly forms the opinion that Ian Brady must have been the driving force in his and Myra's relationship, and Myra the badly abused pawn who only participates in the murders out of fear and love of Brady. The pair had an obsessive love, an all-or-nothing type of thing.

Lord Posho practically jizzes himself- excuse the crudeness- when Myra tells him that she's a Roman Catholic just like he is. He urges her to pray, after totally getting her hopes up about one day getting parole. This never happens, as we already know, but Lord Longford immediately starts campaigning fervently for her release.

The media have a field day, as they say. Longford alienates nearly everyone who hears about the identity of his latest 'cause,' everyone from the general public and the Moors victims' families to his own wife and his author daughter, whose book launch he ruins by talking about Myra to the press in front of everyone.

His wife deeply resents the time her husband spends visiting Myra and replying to her

endless letters, but Lord Snooty is never one to shy away from an unpopular cause. In fact, he seems to go out of his way to unfailingly do and say the wrong things in the eyes of the public.

Though I'm not an expert on the case, I imagine that his association with Britain's most reviled woman- and murder case- caused people to forget completely about the good work he'd done before he ever heard of the brown-haired little mouse of a woman who apparently 'held him in her thrall,' as was mentioned to him unflatteringly a time or two.

Andy Serkis (Gollum in THE LORD OF THE RINGS) is frighteningly good here as Ian Brady, the embittered, hate-filled Scot from the tenements in the Gorbals who once courted Myra Hindley and, if she's to be believed, brought her over with him to the dark side.

Brady summons Longford to a meeting with him in prison just to tell him that Hindley's making a fool out of him, Longford. It looks like he's heard about Longford's association with Hindley and he's just plain jealous.

He wants to ruin it, viciously tear it to shreds like a spoiled child who's angry that another child has gotten a present in its place. His vile words to Longford convince the shocked toff that he was right all along, that Brady is just pure evil and that he must have exercised a detrimental influence over Myra.

In the mid-'Eighties, just when it looks like Myra might, might, might be possibly getting paroled, Ian drops a bombshell to the press and the police that will ensure that neither he nor Myra will ever leave prison.

Clearly he can't stand the thought of Myra being free to do whatever she wants while he's still stuck behind bars. You can see his point. Why should she get out of prison, when she's just as culpable as he is for the murders that put them both behind bars?

I think some judge said once that there was some hope for Myra if she was removed from Brady's influence, but it all comes down to whether you believe she was just his abused pawn or an equal partner in the murders.

Anyway, Lord Longford is shaken to his core that Myra lied to his face about additional murders to the ones for which she'd been convicted. Can their relationship survive this terrible jolt...?

Longford comes across here as a bit of a well-meaning twat. He does mean well, but he lives in the privileged ivory tower of aristocracy, in other words in la-la land, or what we'd refer to here in Ireland as cloud-cuckoo land. We Irish positively love accusing people of living in cloud-cuckoo land. It means they're not living in the real world, that they've got their heads up their you-know-whats, lol.

Longford is seen at one point in the film interviewing homeless people living under a bridge with a clipboard in his hand. I wonder if the homeless people felt ever so slightly patronised because, unless Lord Longford's questions come with a side order of hot food and a bed for the night, they're just more pointless questions on a sheet of paper in yet another survey that gets filed away that no-one ever reads. As I suspect happened to a lot of these so-called government 'reports,' commissioned to give the do-er something to do and also to make the gummint look busy.

Okay, so Longford saw the good in everybody and thought that every sinner deserved to be forgiven if they repented honestly. Myra told him that she'd made her confession in prison to the prison chaplain. She told Longford that she'd confessed everything, causing Longford to think that she was a reformed character but then, years later, it all comes out about the two additional murders.

Longford obviously wanted to believe that no-one, even a child-murderer, was beyond redemption. Well, I'm not one to judge. I can't say whether or not he was right to put his faith in Myra Hindley. My gut instinct is certainly telling me something and it's that he made a mistake born of his naiveté and idealism. It's not my place to say but that's what I think. Make of it what you will yourselves.

LONGFORD, a superlative television film, is out now on DVD courtesy of SIMPLY MEDIA.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

The BFI To Release Paul Wright's Arcadia On DVD

2018-07-20T21:04:00.000+01:00

After opening theatrically in June to 4-star reviews and a Film of the Week accolade in The Guardian, Arcadia, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival last year, will be released by the BFI on DVD on 20 August 2018.

BAFTA Award-winning director Paul Wright (For Those in Peril) explores our complex connection to the land we live in with an archival remix drawn from more than 100 years of Britain on film, incorporating around 100 films/TV programmes, set to a new score by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp).

Special features include nine complementary short films from the BFI National Archive, a filmed Q&A with the director and musicians and more.

Arcadia embarks on a visceral sensory journey through the seasons, exploring the beauty, brutality, magic, and madness of our changing relationship with both the land and each other. This fresh new work crafted from the past is a folk horror wrapped in an archive film; get ready for a very strange trip indeed…

Using footage from the BFI National Archive (particularly BFI Player’s Britain on Film collection) and regional archives, Paul Wright creates a mosaic of contrasting images, sounds and moods, taking in folk carnivals and masked parades, hunting and harvesting, communes and raves, mechanisation, environmental issues, fires, floods, storms and much more. Arcadia reminds us what happens when our connection to nature, and indeed each other, frays and unravels.

Musicians Adrian Utley and Will Gregory, who collaborate outside of their respective bands, created the original score, influenced by a mixture of genres – electronic, classical, folk and punk. The score also features the voice of legendary folk singer Anne Briggs.

Watch the Trailer BFI created for the cinema release

Special features

Arcadia Q&A (2018, 27 mins): Paul Wright, Adrian Utley and Will Gregory discuss the film at BFI Southbank
A Day in the Hayfields (1904, 4 mins): Edwardian midsummer captured on film
Tame Animals at Work (1909, 6 mins): strange scenes from a private zoo
Championship Ploughing Match (1912, 1 min): newsreel item
Ancient Cornish Custom (1921, 1 min): the Furry Dance in St Ives
The ‘Kibbo Kift’ (1923, 1 min): a meeting of the folkloric social movement
‘’Oppin’ Makes You ’Earty!’ (1925, 1 min): hop-picking in Kent
Old Norse Vikings Festival (1927, 4 mins): Shetland’s Up Helly Aa
Once We Were Four (1942, 9 mins): young rabbits face the perils of rural Britain
Peter and Ruby (1973, 35 mins): poignant portrait of traditional Dartmoor farmers
Theatrical trailer (2018, 2 mins)
Illustrated booklet featuring writing by Simon McCallum, Stanley Donwood and Adrian Utley; director Paul Wright interviewed by Adam Scovell and full film credits

Product details
UK / 2017 / colour, black and white / 78 mins / English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles and audio description / original aspect ratio 1.78:1 / DVD9: PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio (48kbps)

THUNDERBIRD RELEASING PRESENTS: IT CAME FROM THE DESERT. (2017) A BRILLIANT CREATURE-FEATURE REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-07-07T14:32:00.000+01:00

IT CAME FROM THE DESERT. (2017) DIRECTED/STORY BY MARKO MAKILAAKSO.

MUSIC BY MIKA MAKILAAKSO.

STARRING VANESSA GRASSE, MARK ARNOLD, ALEX MILLS AND HARRY LISTER SMITH.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'An action-packed monster movie inspired by the cult classic 1980s video game.'

'Squirrel dudes, I come in peace! I have no nuts to give you. Wait a minute, you're not squirrels...!'

This is a bit of fun, a creature-feature set in modern times but undoubtedly influenced by the fantastic old B-movies of the '50s and '60s. I'm not familiar with the video game on which it's meant to be based, because frankly I'd rather eat my own head served with a side-salad and vinaigrette dressing than have anything at all to do with video games, but I definitely appreciate the homage to the B-movies and the reference to the other great films as well which obviously had an influence on the director.

The plot is simple enough. A group of annoying teens interested in the incomprehensible sport of motocross (boring, lol) all converge on the desert in New Mexico for a giant kegger and motocross awards ceremony.

Presenting the awards is the chap who plays The Eradicator, a sort of motorbike superhero who always gets the girl ('Gimme me some sugar, honey!') and who is the star of several of his own films. He's a cool kind of bearded dude that all the girls want to get with and all the guys want to be like. Well, good luck with that, lol.

The awards ceremony is really just an excuse for a giant piss-up in the middle of the hot, dusty desert. The booze flows like water, the girls are stripping down to their skimpy bikinis and there's even a designated sex-caravan known as the 'love wagon' for randy couples who don't feel like waiting to get home before they can make the beast with two backs. No-good horny teens gon' come to a bad end, you know it.

Our heroes are Brian and Lucas, two motorbike nuts and best mates who are determined to wring all the fun they can get from this rowdy weekend of sex, sand, suds (beer!) and sun. Lucas is the biking heart-throb with the IQ of a bottle of shampoo.

Brian looks like the love child of Ed Sheeran and One Direction's Niall Horan. He's the smart one, resigned to the fact that the gals will always flock to Lucas while leaving himself relatively out in the cold.

Films are full of pairings like this. The dopey guy with the good looks to whom girls naturally flock and the smart bloke who can only stand by and watch with a heavy heart. Well, not the sex, he shouldn't be watching the sex, I meant watching while his cerebrally-challenged but attractive mate pulls the birds without so much as lifting a finger while he himself- the Brainiac- gets sidelined time and again.

Lucas, however, aware that Brian is hopelessly in love with a pretty girl called Lisa, has invited this Lisa along to the kegger, telling Brian that now's the chance to plight his troth. In other words, speak now or forever hold your peace, dude. Brian is terrified but excited.

During the kegger, Brian and Lucas wander away from the group who are busy chugging-a-lug. Out in the heart of the desert, they discover what looks like a giant abandoned underground military laboratory.

They'd be nuts not to explore it, right? Even though when you see these places in movies, they're normally populated only by silent crash-test dummies, blindly 'watching' their 'Fifties TV set, who are about to be blown sky-high in a bomb-trial being kept secret from the public. As if that or any other safety concerns would stop two dopey teens from interfering in something that's not in any way, shape or form their business, lol.

The sprawling, empty laboratory is home to a bone-chilling secret. Namely, a colony of gigantic mutant killer ants not unconnected to the fall to Earth of a massive meteorite back in

the 1950s. The very period when the inhabitants of said Earth felt themselves to be very much in the shadow of the atomic bomb and a lot of strange scary stuff was going on behind the scenes at places like this, unbeknownst to the general public.

Naturally, the boys' clumsy, noisy entrance into the silent laboratory has awakened the killer ants and pissed them off big-time into the bargain. The special effects are terrific and the giant ants are genuinely frightening.

You would not want to encounter even one of them creeping around your bathroom, I can assure you. And I'm betting you don't possess a rolled-up newspaper big enough to squash one of these buggers...!

Can Brian and Lucas save the kegger- not to mention the Earth at large- from the invasion of the mutant killer ants, while impressing the Eradicator and getting Lisa to swoon adoringly into Brian's manly black-leather-clad arms? I think that can be arranged, lol.

I love the way that the film references films like JURASSIC PARK, THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THEM! The director obviously loves his creature-features, B-movies and big blockbuster monster films, which makes him ideally placed to create an homage like IT CAME FROM THE DESERT.

It's fun, the dialogue is witty and clever and there are tons of dangerous stunts to oooh-and-aaah over. It has giant mutant killer ants in it, and the ants are chronic flippin' alcoholics to boot. Now, I don't know about you guys but I'm happy...!

IT CAME FROM THE DESERT is available to buy on DVD now from THUNDERBIRD RELEASING.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

THUNDERBIRD RELEASING PRESENTS: THE LODGERS. (2017) A CLASSIC GHOST STORY REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-07-01T16:27:00.000+01:00

THE LODGERS. (2017) DIRECTED BY BRIAN O'MALLEY. WRITTEN BY DAVID TURPIN.

STARRING CHARLOTTE VEGA, EUGENE SIMON, BILL MILNER, DAVID BRADLEY, DEIRDRE O'KANE, MOE DUNFORD AND ROISIN MURPHY.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

I was really excited to be watching this, as the Irish horror film business doesn't seem to churn out as much product as its American or British contemporaries. We have such great scope for making horror films here in Ireland as well.

After all, it's a country steeped in superstition, folklore, mythology and stories about hauntings and apparitions and bogeymen and fairy-forts belonging to the fairy-folk or little people. If you can't find some decent material amongst all of that lot for your Oirish horror fillum, then you're not worth your salt as a horror director, lol.

Jaysis, sure we're the country that gave the world Bram Stoker and his horror masterpiece DRACULA (1897), probably the most-read work of horror fiction in the history of literature. Well, since the various esteemed Ripperologists published their guesses as to that rather unpleasant chap's identity, anyway...!

Bram Stoker, though he hailed from Clontarf, once lived in a house less than ten minutes walk away from my house, and I once put my butt in the exact same chair the great man occupied whenever he visited Marsh's Library, a magnificent local cultural attraction, to read or do a bit of scribbling. If that's not a claim to fame, I don't know what is.

THE LODGERS is kind of a damp squib, though, compared to some other stuff I've seen. It's been called 'the best gothic horror since THE OTHERS,' but THE OTHERS was a good scary film which I enjoyed hugely, despite the annoying mumbling of her lines by Nicole Kidman, an actress I must admit I've never cared for much. I'd be loads keener on her toothsome, couch-jumping billionaire ex-husband, though. Wouldn't mind at all being his ex. I bet it's right profitable, lol...

Anyway, THE LODGERS is set in 1920s Ireland against the backdrop of our War of Independence. You know, Michael Collins and all that. The conflict is only touched on briefly, however, probably just to give a context to the film. A sense of time and place and whatnot.

The action mostly takes place in and around a fabulous old mansion set in its own extensive wooded grounds in a rural village. The sole occupants- and owners- of the house are Anglo-Irish twins Rachel and Edward, a mopey, po-faced brother and sister who have lived in the house alone since their parents committed suicide jointly in the lake in their garden.

I understand that it can't have been much fun for them, having their parents top themselves in the lake that they have to see every time they set foot out of the door, but I still don't think that this excuses the level of po-faced mopey-ness we see in the pair of siblings.

They're the most miserable pair of sibs I've ever seen in a film. There's nothing dynamic or attractive in either of them, nothing to attract the viewer and make them think, yes, I really feel empathy for this character and want to support them and go with them on their journey.

In their effort to find suitably drab subjects for a haunting, I fear that the film-makers overstepped themselves by, like, a million miles. This pair are awful. I didn't feel anything for either of them except dislike. Therefore, I can't feel sorry for them when the bad shit starts to happen to them. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is, lol.

It's clear early on that the fantastic old gothic mansion is haunted by entities who are, presumably, the titular 'Lodgers.' They're not lodgers in the traditional sense, in that they don't have rent-books or get threatened with eviction when they play their old BLACK SABBATH records too loud or leave dirty towels on the floor of the communal bathroom.

Neither do they have to give the landlord a blowjob in lieu of rent on weeks when they just don't have the bloody money because they spent it on tickets to see The Stone Roses. By the way, that never happened to me or anyone I know, it's just an example of stuff that might happen to tenants, just to be quite clear on that...!

We can see that they, 'the Lodgers,' live under the trapdoor in the front hall, the trapdoor from which water rises when the clock strikes midnight, at which point the siblings are required to be in bed in their rooms or else 'the Lodgers' will get them.

That's only one of the rules which 'the Lodgers' have imposed on the brother and sister. They mustn't talk to strangers either, or invite strangers across the threshold of the dilapidated old house. If they do this, 'the Lodgers' will swim up through the water to get them. And if one of them is foolish enough to try to escape, whoever's left behind will bear the brunt of 'the Lodgers'' anger and vengeance.

The Lodgers' control over the siblings is clearly designed to keep them in this lonely, isolated old neglected mansion until such time as it's time for them to join those who live beneath the trapdoor. The house and its occupants are cursed. It's going to be very hard for Rachel and Edward to break away from the house and the entities which haunt it.

Edward doesn't seem to want to break away at all. He seems interested only in obeying 'the Lodgers' stupid rules to the letter and seeing to it that Rachel does too. He's also interested in having sex with Rachel, the thought of which revulses Rachel. She fights against it as long as she can, in fact. But that doesn't mean that she's opposed to sex per se.

Oh no. She'd quite like to have sex with a young local guy called Sean, who's utterly reviled in his own village for having gone off to fight in the British Army. He's even more reviled than the Anglo-Irish poshos up at the big house.

The Irish don't really like anyone, haha. We're a prickly people, prickly and pig-headed. We always think we're right about everything as well. And we're right suspicious of 'strangers.' You could live amongst us for thirty years and we'd still refer to you as 'just a blow-in' if you come from somewhere else.

Rachel's mad for this Sean fella. She's not even turned off at all by the fact that he has a false leg below one knee. If you like amputee porn, well, you might get a kick out of the way that she is quite obviously getting a kick out of fondling his half-a-leg.

Rachel turns to this blank-faced soldier for comfort and also she confides in him a little of her family's troubled history. He's a tad sceptical when it comes to the question of the dead coming back to haunt the living but, for reasons utterly beyond me, he digs the po-faced, stiff-necked Rachel who talks like she has a poker up her butt.

Maybe he digs her because he's had his own personality surgically removed as well, lol. He senses in her a kindred spirit. He agrees to help her to escape the house and its evil occupants. I'm guessing, however, that 'the Lodgers' may have something to say about that...

I quite like the storyline about the harassed family solicitor Mr. Bermingham, played by David Bradley (HARRY POTTER, GAME OF THRONES), whose job it is to tell the siblings that there's no more money left for them to live on.

They'll have to sell the house, he says, which by the way they've allowed to deteriorate into a disgraceful condition. Clearly they're not able for the management of such a huge old residence. They simply must sell up and use the money to pay their mounting debts.

But the siblings know that they can't do that. 'The Lodgers' won't put up with that, for one thing. And the family curse requires that Rachel and Edward and their descendants (they'll have to have sex with each other in order to have descendants, snigger!) live in the house for all eternity. It looks like it might just be time to say bye-bye to Mister Solicitor...

More likeable characters, characters whom the viewers could identify with, might have made a big difference to THE LODGERS. As it is, nearly all the characters in this are dreadful. Cold, stand-offish, blank-faced and one-dimensional, and that's not the ghosts we're talking about either, it's the bloody humans!

The crumbly old house and its gorgeous wooded surrounds are the stars of THE LODGERS for me. The lake and the woods and the gate to the garden are all gorgeous to look at. Gimme some likeable, more human characters and this could have been a vastly different film. It's still worth a look, though. One man's meat and all that...

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

101 FILMS PRESENTS: JACKALS. (2017) A HOME-INVASION HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-06-26T17:49:00.000+01:00

JACKALS. (2017) DIRECTED BY KEVIN GREUTERT. STARRING STEPHEN DORFF, DEBORAH KARA UNGER, JOHNATHON SCHAECH, CHELSEA RICKETTS, BEN SULLIVAN AND NICK ROUX.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Wow-ee. This is one of the best home invasion movies I think I've ever seen. It involves a scary cult who are looking to get one of their members back after he's been snatched by his family and a kick-ass cult de-programmer, played by Stephen Dorff.

Earlier this year, I saw a chubby-cheeked Stephen Dorff's first ever movie, THE GATE (1987), and also one of his most recent films, the long-awaited prequel to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, LEATHERFACE, which was pretty decent as I remember.

In JACKALS, his cult de-programmer character is called Jimmy Levine. He's cute, blonde-ish, fashionably stubbly and as tough as old boots. Clearly, he's been doing this job for a while now and he's seen- or he thinks he's seen- all the tricks a wily cult can get up to when they're trying to get back an erstwhile member.

He's been hired by the Powell family to get back their college-age son Justin, who has a baby daughter with a girl called Samantha. Sam is just as desperate as Mom and Pop Powell to get Justin back. He's her Baby-Daddy, after all, and no doubt he filled her girlish head with all kinds of romantic ideas when he was persuading her to lie down with him, lol.

Anyway, the start of the movie is brilliant as we see two guys we don't know (but they're really Pop Powell and Jimmy the cult de-programmer) hijack a car with two other guys in it we don't know and abduct one of them, taking him (he turns out to be the son, Justin) back with them to the Powells' gorgeous big cabin-on-the-edge-of-the-deep-dark-woods.

There, they sit tight. They're expecting the cult to register some sort of protest but never in a million years could they have foreseen how violently the cult will react to their audacious act of kidnapping. In the meantime, tensions are already running high amongst the little group gathered in the fancy cabin before the evil culties even show their faces. Although they never do, haha. Show their faces, I mean. That's quite funny.

Mom and Dad are divorced, and it was most likely an acrimonious one as they find it hard to communicate with each other without resorting to bitchiness and being judgemental. Ma Powell uses a nice outsized glass of wine, even during the day, to help her to cope with her problems. You go, girl. There ain't no problem so big that a few glasses of wine can't help to minimise it slightly, lol.

Campbell Powell, the second college-age son of the Powell clan, seems to really hate his brother Justin, who's tied up in a chair upstairs for safe-keeping, and the feeling seems to be mutual. Theirs was not a happy childhood obviously, and the old childhood grievances haven't been forgotten about at all, far from it. They're still simmering away under the surface like, well, like something that's even slightly famous for simmering away under the surface of something.

Ma and Pa Powell are still not happy that their precious Justin went and knocked up a girl and now he's a father to a daughter at barely age twenty. Sam is desperately trying to get Justin to behave as a father to their child but, whatever he was like before the cult got their hands on him, he's virtually unreachable now.

Jimmy the de-programmer is doing his best to get through to Justin also but even he isn't having much luck, and he's supposed to be the qualified one here. Justin just keeps ranting and raving about how the cult are gonna come for him and how they're going to wreak a terrible revenge on the family while they're at it. The usual stuff, lol. Standard threats against life and limb and whatnot.

It's a little unsettling to say the least, this entire situation, when suddenly the family notice that there's a lone figure sitting silently and perfectly still on the rock down by the front gate. Jimmy cautions the family to be careful as he goes down the garden alone, in the dark, in the dead of night, to investigate. Well, nothing could possibly go wrong here, right? Wrong. Dead wrong.

When he gets down there, the figure is gone. But the family's nightmare isn't gone. That's only just beginning, and it looks like Jimmy's foolishly volunteered himself to be the first

human sacrifice. Leaving the house was his first- and maybe his last- mistake...

This film is just so well done. Not a minute is wasted in pointless palaver. And the things you assume the cult wouldn't dare to do, they do. I like that. They go there, unlike some films. The violence is shocking and it really makes you wonder why cults go to such trouble to get back absconding members.

Are the cult's secrets really so terrible that they can't afford to have them 'noised abroad' by a member who's broken free? Or is it just a possessive thing, as in, they just can't bear to let go of one of their own once they've gotten their claws into them? I haven't a clue and I'd really rather not find out, ta very much.

Those cults can be creepy, especially those polygamous ones where some ugly fat 'spiritual leader' guy has a dozen 'wives' and can have sex with a different wife every night if he chooses. Or he could have sex with the one wife five nights in a row and then alternate. The combinations and permutations are pretty much endless. He can do whatever he likes, in whatever order he chooses. They're all about the multiple sex partners and the control and the power, these boyos.

I saw a documentary about this type of thing once and there were all these lovely women bawling their eyes out because some jerk- the husband- was telling them collectively that they were all coming up short in the wifey department. Then he made them pray for their own improvement. Bloody cheek. He was lucky that they were even bothering at all about a nobody like him. And all the sex he was getting...! 'Twas shocking altogether for such a pipsqueak of a nonentity.

If I were one of the wives of a polygamous male, I'd be terrible at having to wait my turn for the sex as I've no patience. Also I have an awful jealousy problem so I definitely wouldn't get on with the other wives, especially the good-looking ones. I'd feel threatened by them, see, even if they weren't any better-looking than myself. I do not like to be upstaged, overlooked or put on the long finger, as we say here in Ireland. That husband would surely be in for a world of trouble, lol.

Anyway, JACKALS reminds me of two things, both of which I love. Firstly, the episode of THE SIMPSONS where Homer Simpson and half of Springfield join the cult known as 'the Movementarians' and end up picking beans in the shape of their phoney 'leader' and trying to outrun THE PRISONER-style deadly orbs when attempting to leave the heavily-guarded cult compound.

Favourite lines from this episode? Cult members to Marge about Homer:'He's OUR husband now...!' I also like when the phoney 'leader' has been exposed as the charlatan he is and he's legging it out of Springfield with all his loot. He winds up crash-landing on Cletus Spuckler's farm:

The Leader: 'Do you have any use for a messiah?'

Cletus Spuckler, pointing his shotgun: 'Naw-aw, but I'll take them sacks-a money from yeh...!'

JACKALS also puts me in mind of John Carpenter's THE FOG, generally regarded as one of the best horror films ever made. The silent, sinister figures in black appearing out of the titular mist as if by magic, their faces obscured and all of them poised to strike and kill when they need to is something both films have in common. The way they do this in THE FOG is tremendously effective and I must say that JACKALS isn't lagging too far behind at all.

JACKALS is a terrific home-invasion film with a twist, the twist being that the barmy cult are the invaders instead of yet more boring burglars or desperado drug-dealers, and I'd highly recommend it to you fans of good horror out there. Ta-ra for now, and make sure you lock up properly when you go to bed. Better safe than sorry...

JACKALS is available now on DVD and DIGITAL DOWNLOAD from 101 FILMS.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

THE WOUND. (2017) A MAGNIFICENT SOUTH AFRICAN LGBT DRAMA REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-06-23T19:51:00.000+01:00

THE WOUND or INXEBA. (2017) DIRECTED BY JOHN TRENGOVE. STARRING NAKHANE TOURE, BONGILE MANTSAI AND NIZA JAY NCOYINI.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

AVAILABLE ON DVD 18 JUNE.

'The boyhood is leaving. You know how it goes.'

'The mountain is all there is for me, and it's not enough.'

'Men follow their dicks around like it's the most important thing.'

'I mean, do we have to sit around here for two more weeks watching our dicks heal?'

'Your parents asked for my help. They trust me to see you to manhood.'

'Excuse me brother, but does your wife know the shit you get up to on the mountain?'

'You want me to be a man and stand up for myself, but you won't do it yourself. Aren't you tired of pretending to be something you're not? Don't worry, your secret's safe with me.'

Wow. This film is bloody brilliant, and yet it's a topic I would never even have dreamed could make a good storyline for a movie. You know in Africa in the old days when the young males of the village would have to go through a ferociously difficult coming-of-age ceremony in order to be initiated into manhood, and you couldn't wimp out of it because it would be considered horrifically shameful?

Well, here we are in South Africa in modern times, in the times of Instagram and iPhones and all the rest of it, and we have a bunch of young teenaged males who have all been sent to this rural mountain by their fathers to be initiated into manhood by the older males of their village.

The young lads don't seem particularly gung-ho about it, giving us the idea that they're being forced into the whole deal by their Dads. The Dads obviously want their sons to go through the same initiation processes that they themselves had to experience when they were that age, and they think that their sons can't be considered real men until they've done this.

What happens is that the man referred to as 'the surgeon,' but only because he has a bag full of knives and scissors and not by virtue of any medical training he's had, will go around the circle of young lads and cut their willies while the village elders look on approvingly.

I presume that this is the process known to us as circumcision but I'm not sure. It could be something different altogether. Anyway, the 'initiates,' as they are known, then have to stay on the mountain for two whole weeks while their willies heal. They are dressed in sheets and their bodies and faces are caked in white paint, giving them a rather scary appearance, like the 'savages' we might have seen in old movies.

Each initiate is assigned a 'caregiver,' who won't do much for the initiate beyond checking their titular 'wound' every day and seeing that their willies haven't gone septic and dropped off. There's a lot of ribald joking amongst the elders regarding this process of genital mutilation:

'Me, I've got FIVE dicks to look at. The way I'm going, I'll need a warm vagina soon.' Or: 'Initiates, hang onto your dicks, I'll be back soon.'

Kwanda is a young man from the city- Jo'burg- whose father has forced him to come here. The father is a rich man, richer than the other boys' fathers, and the other boys envy Kwanda's lifestyle of cars, swimming pools, Blackberrys and iPhones.

They even steal his fancy trainers for a laugh because the initiates are not meant to wear shoes. It's meant to be all au naturel and back-to-basics out in the wilderness for them, lol. No snazzy Reeboks or Nikes for them.

Kwanda's caregiver is a young single factory worker called Xolani, who once went through the exact same process of initiation on the mountain himself. 'These herbs will sting like a motherfucker, but it helps the wound.'

Xolani doesn't say much and he carries around a loneliness and a pain with him that he's afraid to share with anyone else. Kwanda, a kindred spirit, is astonishingly quick at ferreting out this secret. Xolani is gay. All year round he lives a quiet, lonely existence, working away for the 'white man,' living for the once-a-year jaunt to the mountain when he can meet his lover, Vija.

Vija is a married man and manual labourer whose wife has just given birth to their third daughter. He's one of the older men who comes to the mountain every year for the initiation ceremony, dancing and singing and play-acting and drinking heavily with the other men, teasing the initiates and enjoying the break from the wife and kids and the daily grind.

Xolani and Vija are lovers. As gay sex is taboo and a cause of great shame amongst the men of the village, they have to keep their affair a secret. For Vija, we get the feeling that this is just sex to him, a pleasurable interlude with a younger man who even gives him money to supplement his meagre earnings. What a lousy user Vija is. He makes a pretence of not wanting to take the money but he still takes it.

Poor Xolani is head-over-heels in love with the selfish Vija, and he positively lives for their annual encounter. We, the viewers, know that Vija will never leave his wife and kids for Xolani and live openly with the younger guy as a gay man. Never in a million years. Poor, poor Xolani is on a big fat hiding to nothing and everyone knows it but him.

Kwanda, a young man wise beyond his years, is gay also and urges Xolani to leave the mountain and Vija behind forever. Live as a free man, he tells the tormented Xolani. Live your life as the person you are. Stop trying to be something- and someone- you're not.

But Xolani has spent a lifetime clearly squashing down his own natural instincts and, besides, he loves Vija and can't imagine a life without their yearly encounters. Meanwhile, the initiates' wounds are healing and they're nearly ready to go back to their village. They proudly compare war wounds: 'You see, he gave me a Mercedes-Benz cut. All the girls will want some of this...!' Well, you hope, boyo, lol.

As the story wends its way to its tragic ending, we witness the ceremonial burning of the initiation huts- they'll clearly just build some more next year!- and the warning of the young fellas by the older ones to stay away from white people:

'Young boys, you have crossed the first of many rivers to cross of manhood. (Only the first? How many more ARE there?) Beware the temptations of the white devil that attacks the womb of the black woman.' Well...!

The scenery is beautiful, although there are obvious signs of technological progress and industrialisation all around the area in the electricity pylons and water towers, etc. The film is a portrayal almost of the struggle between the old ways and the newer, more materialistic ones, and poor Xolani, who's desperately trying to keep a lid on his sexuality, is caught right in the crossfire.

Will he make the triumphant return to the village with the rest of the initiates and caregivers, Vija included, or will he flee the mountain forever and embrace his own sexuality far away from the censoring eyes of the village elders? Will what happens on the mountain stay on the mountain? It's all to play for, folks. It's all to play for...

AVAILABLE ON DVD 18 JUNE.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

ACORN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS: ROMPER STOMPER: THE COMPLETE 6-PART TV SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-06-22T17:33:00.000+01:00

ROMPER STOMPER: AN AUSTRALIAN COMPLETE 6-EPISODE TELEVISION SERIES BY ACORN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL. (2018)

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'We're in a war. We have to win.'

'First we've gotta purify ourselves.'

'We're going after the enemy, son, the enemy of the nation.'

'We took your Fascist flag, and we'll take your Fascist state!'

'Everyone knows that a moderate Muslim is only a Muslim who hasn't been radicalised yet.'

'Let's make sure these spineless cunt-fuck politicians do the right thing by Australia.'

'A quarter of a century ago, a film about skinhead racists running amok in Australia exploded around the world in an orgy of violence, shocking audiences with its realistic take on neo-Nazi culture and making a star of its young lead, Russell Crowe. Now, with nationalism and racism on the rise around the globe, Romper Stomper is set to return for its sequel, this time as a powerful and daring TV series, with a distinctly modern take.

Generating both critical acclaim and controversy across the globe, Romper Stomper arrives as a compelling six-part series airing on BBC Three. Following its run, it will make its DVD bow on 18 June 2018 courtesy of Acorn Media International.

Original writer and director Geoffrey Wright has created a new world in and around Melbourne, one inhabited by right-wing extremists, anti-fascist revolutionaries and radicals and a group of Muslims caught between them. He has also revived some of the characters from the 1992 feature, played by original cast Dan Wyllie (Love My Way), John Brumpton (The Loved Ones) and Jacqueline McKenzie (The Water Diviner). They are joined by Lachy Hulme (Beaconsfield), Sophie Lowe (The Slap), David Wenham (Top of the Lake), Nicole Chamoun (Last Dance), and rising star Toby Wallace (Boys In The Trees).'

I went into this one blind, as it were, without knowing the first thing about it, even that it was Australian or that it was connected to the Russell Crowe film of the same name, the one that launched his career into the stratosphere. Long before the close of the first episode, I was hooked. From the compulsive theme tune to the realistic way the actors play their parts, it's a highly slick and sophisticated piece of work.

The theme is racism, and the series reminded me of the film IMPERIUM, starring Daniel HARRY POTTER Radcliffe as an FBI agent going undercover amongst a gang of racist American thugs hell-bent on finishing the race war their forefathers started against the black people of America.

The level of racist hatred is much higher in ROMPER STOMPER, but it still has plenty in common with IMPERIUM. Even down to the bit where the racists take the new recruit they're not completely sure of into the deep dark backwoods to test his loyalty, to the point where, if he flunks the test they've set for him, they'll have no qualms about offing him.

ROMPER STOMPER is set in modern-day Melbourne, Australia. Big, burly blonde Blake Farren is the leader of a right-wing extremist group called Patriot Blue. These are determined to kick all the Muslim immigrants out of Australia. Australia is their country, the Patriots argue, and the Muslims with their 'corrupting' influence and their terrorism are not welcome there.

We first see Blake and the Patriots in action at a Muslim Halal Winter Festival in their

locality. Now, after what I've just told you about the Patriots, can't you just imagine how this one is gonna go? That's right, lol, it's a freakin' disaster.

Blake makes an inflammatory speech through a megaphone along the lines of keeping Australia for the Australians and sending the Muslims, who apparently are all terrorists, according to the Patriots, back where they came from. Then his followers produce a whole cooked pig on a spit as a kind of 'f**k you' to their 'enemies,' some 'good old Australian pork' for the sickened Muslims to 'sample.'

Then 'The Anti-Fasc,' the group of far lefties-slash-anarchist university students who despise everything the Patriots stand for, attack the Patriots and Blake is in serious danger of getting hurt in the ensuing skirmish. He's saved from real injury by a young cool skin-headed guy called Kane and his burly mate Stix who suddenly appear out of nowhere.

Blake is so grateful for the young drifters' assistance that he invites them home to drink his valuable old whiskey, get a job driving one of his trucks and join his 'white power' group. Kane and Stix jump at the chance. Before long, Kane has his feet under Blake's table and his no-doubt infinitely serviceable male member inside Zoe, Blake's wife, this latter without Blake's knowledge, of course.

Blake and Zoe are an unlikely couple. Blake is huge and pushing middle age. Zoe looks about twelve and is a tiny little thing by comparison. Apparently, Blake married her after saving her from a life of prostitution and drug addiction and now she's a committed Christian (a religious nut, more like) who genuinely believes that God only intended Australia for the white people.

She's completely committed to Blake's fight to 'clean up Australia.' I believe that ethnic cleansing is the kind of 'cleaning' to which they're referring. They fear, or say that they fear, that one day Australia will be under Sharia Law and the rule of the radical Islamic extremists who are, of course, also terrorists in their minds.

As the 'Muslims cut off peoples' heads for sport,' according to the great expert on Muslim culture, Blake Farren, Zoe backs her racist hubby one hundred percent in this matter.

However, Zoe's not getting the ride in bed any more as Blake's willy has been left as limp as a wet noodle due to the steroids he takes. Enter Kane with his pretty face and hot body, only God help Kane and Zoe both when Blake finds out what's been going on between his drippy blonde wifey and his newest, most dynamic young recruit...

Let's have a quick look at some of the other characters. Cindi is Kane's younger sister, a school-age teen who's incarcerated at a detention centre for juveniles that houses the toughest, most violent girls you can imagine.

The place has huge wire fences and big burly female guards with walkie-talkies. Cindi is desperate to break out of this kip and find brother Kane. But does brother particularly Kane want to be found...?

Gabrielle Jordan is a bit of an enigma. She's a businesswoman with short, disciplined blonde hair, a married lover with whom she's carried on an unsatisfactory affair for several years now and a father who's dying, slowly and painfully, in a nursing home while Gabe looks on coldly. She's also got a son, but I can't say any more about that just now. I'll let you guys find out about him for yourselves...

Laila Tahir is a beautiful young Muslim University student who objects vehemently to the Patriots' tarring of all Muslims with the same brush. She gets invited onto the biggest talk show in Australia, NO QUARTER with the utterly vile sleaze-bag Jago Zoric, to discuss this very subject.

Jago and his friend/other guest Blake Farren, make mincemeat of her on the air. It's not surprising that the two men are mates. Jago has apparently, in the past, called for 'mosques to be destroyed and Muslims to be tagged,' so obviously his loyalties are clearly all with the Patriots. Laila is insulted horribly on social media afterwards and even receives death threats, while the odious Blake refers to Jago's Asian secretary as 'the office gook.' It just boggles the mind, doesn't it?

The 'Anti-Fasc' group or collective, who seem to operate mostly on social media, want to use the bright, articulate and confident Laila as some kind of poster-girl for their movement, but Laila's not sure. I'm not sure about them either, to be honest.

Even though they're stronly opposed to the Patriots and we should be on their side, I don't really trust or like the 'Anti-Fasc' gang. Maybe I suspect their motives, as in, they're University students, right? They're bound to choose a cause to support. So could it just as easily be the whales as the Muslims, animal rights as the immigrants? I just have a 'hinky' feeling about them, that's all.

They annoy me, lol. As University students, they're expected to take up a cause. But will they still give a shit about the Muslim immigrants when they go home to Mummy and Daddy for the holidays or off around the world for a gap year of travel and horizon-broadening? Just how committed are they to their cause? That's what I want to know.

Under Blake's tutelage, Kane sets up 'night patrols' to 'clean up' the streets of Melbourne. This seems to mostly involve them savagely beating up any Muslim guys they can find, guys whom they call names like 'Aladdin' or 'fucking towel-heads, man!' Here's what Kane says about it all:

'We take Melbourne back. We clean the fucking streets up. We're the law. We're the order. There's no-one else. It's just us.' Well, any idiot can swing a sack-a doorknobs, as is proven by the half-assed vigilante group Springshield established by Homer Simpsons in THE SIMPSONS.

Sure, I guess it makes Kane and his mates feel like big men, walking in slow motion to cool music in a big group (there's safety in numbers) and yeah, sure, it looks pretty cool too, but that doesn't make it right, what they're doing.

Oh, and how can we forget the crazy old racist guy who lives in the woods amongst a shedload of swastikas and Nazi memorabilia and an arsenal of weapons? In this case, the nut is called Magoo and he's one of the 'founding fathers' of the Patriots. Big surprise, lol.

There's the Patriots' obligatory visit to Magoo's dilapidated old cabin-in-the-woods to pay their respects and show the young 'uns amongst their number what a real racist looks like. What he looks like, in fact, is the mad old reclusive Nazi being hidden by the priest/Nazi sympathiser in the 'racism' episode of clerical sitcom FATHER TED, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell him that, are you...?

The most upsetting thing about the Patriots is that their racial hatred even extends to the animal kingdom. They're 'going to war' on what they call 'introduced species,' that is to say, animals who have been introduced into the Australia wild from other countries.

I'll say no more about that but be warned. There are some very distressing scenes here connected to this storyline. Animal-lovers will have their stomachs properly turned. Cheer yourselves up by listening to the rousing ditty about 'the Fourth Reich fighting men' on repeat, it's good for a few laughs...

ROMPER STOMPER is a tough series to watch but it's brilliantly executed and, in this racist day and age, it's more highly relevant than it could probably ever be. I'd advise anyone who's got the stomach for its hard-hitting themes to watch it. It's more relevant probably than we even realise...

Cult film ‘Romper Stomper’ gets its sequel in the powerful new BBC THREE series on DVD 18 June from ACORN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

101 FILMS PRESENTS: BLACK BUTTERFLY. (2017) AN EXCELLENT THRILLER REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-06-20T14:14:00.000+01:00

BLACK BUTTERFLY. (2017) DIRECTED BY BRIAN GOODMAN. BASED ON THE FRENCH TELEVISION MOVIE 'PAPILLON NOIR' DIRECTED BY CHRISTIAN FAURE. STARRING ANTONIO BANDERAS, JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS AND PIPER PERABO.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'Don't make me hurt you.'

'I just wanted to show you some 'real.' Sorry for the scare.'

I AM STUCK I AM STUCK I AM STUCK I AM STUCK I AM STUCK...

I adore films about writers, especially if the writers are having a hard time of making sense of their creative processes. As a writer myself, I revel in their distress because it reflects my own anguish right back at me, lol. This film is described as 'MISERY' MEETS JOHNNY DEPP'S 'SECRET WINDOW.'

Stephen King's MISERY, starring James Caan and Kathy Bates, sees a novel being written under the most adverse of circumstances, almost at gunpoint, in fact. 'SECRET WINDOW,' based on the long short story or novella by Stephen King called 'SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN,' has a writer tangling with a madman who claims that the writer plagiarised one of his own early works.

BLACK BUTTERFLY also puts me in mind of BAG OF BONES, yet another book by Stephen King that was turned into a successful film, starring Pierce 007 Brosnan as the troubled, bereaved writer and the beautiful Melissa George, formerly of Antipodean soap HOME AND AWAY, as his love interest.

Stephen King, surely the ultimate writer, clearly enjoys writing about what he knows, lol, that is to say, male American writers no longer in the first flush of youth battling various demons such as drink and marital problems and struggling futilely with what my son used to refer to in his younger years as the dreaded 'writer's blob.'

In BLACK BUTTERFLY, the still-sexy-as-hell Antonio Banderas plays Paul Lopez, a once-successful writer now holed up in his isolated cabin-in-the-woods boozing heavily and suffering excruciatingly from 'writer's blob.' He's trying to write a screenplay but his agent doesn't like it and tells him to re-write the whole damn thing.

Paul is also having serious monetary difficulties. His attempts to sell his cabin-in-the-woods cause him to meet the pretty estate agent Laura whom he asks out on a date. He's flat-broke, his wife's left him and he's well on the way to becoming an alcoholic and a washed-up writer, but clearly his willy still works, lol. Typical guy. The willy's always the last thing to go...

A smorgasbord of circumstances (during which the film turns briefly into DUEL, that magnificent early Steven Spielberg film starring Dennis Weaver) leads to Paul inviting an intensely brooding young drifter called Jack to bunk down at his cabin for a few days.

Everything is okay for a bit. Jack, played by the not-remotely-ugly-at-all Jonathan Rhys Meyers (THE TUDORS, amongst other things) seems suitably grateful to be offered a place to doss down for a few days, a place with hot water on tap, comfy beds and plenty of grub.

He even does the cooking and appears to be something of a gourmet chef. Paul, who normally just chows down on a bottle of whiskey at mealtimes, is mildly impressed. Then Jack turns out to be a whizz at DIY as well and offers to help fix up the falling-apart-at-the-seams cabin to improve Paul's chances of selling the place.

Paul isn't quite so thrilled when Jack, not a writer himself, starts telling Paul what to do about his 'writer's blob.' He's gotta stop drinking, Jack preaches, 'cause the drinking's the main thing standing in his way. Also, Jack continues, why not write the story of the way that he, Jack, and Paul, met up if he's stuck for a really good story to write? You gotta start somewhere, after all.

Paul agrees that it could be an interesting story to write, but is less keen when Jack starts to throw in some rather sinister modifications to the plot that have obviously not occurred to Paul. When Jack pulls a knife on a sleeping Paul just to show him how a person would really react to a knife at the throat, Paul decides it's time to do a little snooping around on Mister Jack...

It's fun when films turn into one of those invite-a-stranger-into-your-life-and-home-and-see-the-shit-hit-the-fan films. FATAL ATTRACTION, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, SWIMFAN, PACIFIC HEIGHTS and THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE are some excellent examples of this exciting genre.

It's clear that there's something seriously amiss with Jack, this dark-haired, tattooed stranger who admits freely that he's just come out of prison. The viewer immediately decides that he must have something to do with the four murders of young women that have happened in this rural area of America in the last three years. Why else would he have what look like instruments of torture in his backpack...?

He fits the bill in other ways too, in that he's a drifter who doesn't like to put down roots and so has ample opportunity to spy on women travelling alone or women who are unwise enough to separate themselves from their friends or family for a few minutes. Could Jack be the Roadside Killer all the radio stations are going nuts about?

This film is a brilliant, tautly exciting watch. There's an absolutely killer twist in it (no pun intended) that nearly knocked me sideways, and I'm famous for not seeing twists coming. Yep, you read that right, lol.

It's well-acted too and for once the male eye candy, as opposed to the female, is plentiful. More shirts should have been removed, however, and would it kill them to show us some butts...? These are two of Hollywood's biggest and sexiest male stars, after all.

I'm definitely adding this to my list of favourite films about male American writers no longer in the first flush of youth battling various demons such as drink and marital problems and struggling futilely with the dreaded 'writer's blob.'

Antonio Banderas is ageing beautifully, like a fine wine or something, and I certainly wouldn't kick Jonathan Rhys Meyers out of bed for not knowing all his 'Murican state capitals. Watch this film at all costs and, if you're a writer, for God's sake stamp out that pesky 'writer's blob' before it stamps you out. It does that. It's a sneaky bugger...

BLACK BUTTERFLY is available to buy now on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital Download, courtesy of 101 FILMS.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

SIMPLY MEDIA PRESENTS: A FOREIGN FIELD. (1993) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-06-17T15:37:00.000+01:00

A FOREIGN FIELD. (1993) DIRECTED BY CHARLES STURRIDGE. WRITTEN BY ROY CLARKE. STARRING ALEC GUINNESS, LEO MCKERN, JOHN RANDOLPH, LAUREN BACALL, JEANNE MOREAU, GERALDINE CHAPLIN AND EDWARD HERRMANN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England.'

Rupert Brooke,

THE SOLDIER.

'They were comrades-in-arms and rivals in love. Fifty years later, history is repeating itself in Normandy.'

Oh wow. Get the hankies ready for this one, particularly for the super-emotional ending. I cried buckets at the ending myself. Even the poem from which the title derives, THE SOLDIER by Rupert Brooke, is one of the most beautiful, emotional and emotive poems ever written about war and would bring a tear to the eye of a brass monkey.

In other words, prepare to have your feels forcibly unpacked from the box in which you normally keep them and subjected to a right royal manhandling here, lol. It's infinitely worth it, though. This is a wonderful film and one I'm glad I saw.

Leo McKern (RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY) plays Cyril, an elderly Englishman (oh, sooooooo very English!) who is returning to Normandy in France nearly fifty years after he fought there as a young soldier in World War Two's D-Day Landings.

He is accompanied by a man his own age called Amos, magnificently played by Alec Guinness, a man who can only speak the odd word and who seems to need constant care and attention. Amos has a favourite jam-jar and GI Joe doll and Cyril's occasional impatience with and briskness towards Amos do nothing to hide the affection that exists between the two men.

Staying at the same hotel is Waldo, an elderly American man who also fought the Germans in France nearly half a century ago. He too is taking a trip down memory lane accompanied by his daughter Beverly (Geraldine Chaplin) and his son-in-law Ralph.

Ralph is utterly hen-pecked by the permanently uptight and joyless Beverly, who looks as though a smile would crack her thin, pinched face, the face that constantly exhibits a sourpuss expression. She's preoccupied by the wealth she'll come in to when her father kicks the bucket and Waldo is well aware of this fact, making the occasional sarcastic reference to it.

Lauren Bacall as the recently-widowed Lisa is here at the hotel too. She's a sad, lonely woman who drinks too much, but she's also a lovely decent person who's come to France to pay her respects at her brother's grave, her brother having fallen in World War Two as well. Lisa befriends first a wandering Amos and then Cyril, and soon becomes a firm friend and an important part of their French vacation.

On their first night in France, Cyril and Waldo discover, much to their amazement, that they've each returned not only to relive their memories of the war but to look up the same woman, a blonde beauty called Angelique whom they both slept with back in the day.

Angelique is an absolute character. She's gas craic altogether. When she was a young woman in wartime France, she was free and easy with her favours. She was an equal opportunities young hooker who slept with the French, the Germans, the English and the Americans alike. She didn't discrminate at all, lol.

Now Angelique, seventy-five-years old if she's a day, still has the long blonde hair, the red lipstick and accessories, the tight little outfits and the high heels she favoured in her youth. Picking her up at the retirement home where she's now a resident, the lads are horrified at first by her slightly garish appearance but they quickly get used to it.

They remind themselves that, for the pleasure she gave them both back in World War Two, the least they can bloody well do for her now is give her a damn good day out, away from the Home, and a slap-up feed in a top restaurant.

Lisa is enchanted by Angelique's mischievous joie-de-vivre and disarming frankness and even the joyless Beverly can learn a thing or two from such a free spirit who still believes in living life to the fullest. Angelique certainly has the right idea. Not entirely sure I approve of the kleptomania, though...! Here in Ireland we're a little more uptight about such matters, lol.

As the film progresses, we learn what Amos is to Cyril and why Cyril has elected to be his carer for the best part of fifty years. The back-story is very moving and I think that you can probably guess at part of it. We also learn who the famous 'Briggsy' is whom Amos keeps chattering about and why this will be Amos's last ever trip to France.

Oddest of all, we find out who Lisa's soldier brother was and why she thinks his identity might affect her friendship with Cyril, Amos, Waldo and the gang. Hankies at the ready, everyone! The tears will flow at this final cemetery scene like the designer coffee and Peruvian leaf tea at a hipster wedding. Amos's unshakeable dignity is the most heartbreaking thing of all to witness.

The film is peppered throughout with snatches of the old songs like THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER, LILI MARLENE and WE'LL MEET AGAIN. Amos has a great talent for the harmonica and he uses it to great effect at different times. At the dinner table in the restaurant, the irrepressible Angelique gives a marvellous impromptu performance of LA VIE EN ROSE that brings the house down.

This is a terrific feel-good film that you should move mountains to see. I leave you now with Major Edmund Blackadder's personal and rather pithy interpretation of those beautiful lines from THE SOLDIER as featured in the last BLACKADDER series, BLACKADDER GOES FORTH:

'If I should die, think only this of me:

I'll be back to get you...'

Two acclaimed BBC drama classics, A FOREIGN FIELD and THE GRASS ARENA, are out now on DVD courtesy of SIMPLY MEDIA.

www.simplymedia.tv

twitter.com/simplymediaTV

ABOUT SIMPLY MEDIA:

SIMPLY MEDIA is one of the UK's leading DVD publishers and licensors of classic entertainment from the BBC, CHANNEL 4, HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS, MGM, UNIVERSAL PICTURES, IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM and many other high-quality producers. Our aim is to bring lost or neglected film and TV classics to audiences searching for forgotten favourites, making them available on DVD and FIGITAL DOWNLOAD formats, often for the first time.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

LEFT FILMS PRESENTS: DOGGED. (2017) A FOLK HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-06-10T15:59:00.000+01:00

DOGGED. (2017) DIRECTED BY RICHARD ROWNTREE. STARRING SAM SAUNDERS, TOBY WYNNE-DAVIES, DEBRA LEIGH-TAYLOR, PHILIP RIDOUT, AIYSHA JEBALI, NICK STOPIEN, TONY PARKIN, NADIA LAMIN AND TONY MANDERS.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Acclaimed folk horror Dogged is lurking on DVD and Digital 9 July from Left Films!

'A living, breathing piece of cinematic frightfulness' - Dread Central

'Definitely one to watch' - UK Horror Scene

'Fucking hippies...!'

'We islanders handle our own problems.'

'My son didn't rape and kill an innocent child!'

'My own daughter, debased by an unbeliever...!'

'Women have no place on this part of the island.'

'I know what you did to my little girl, you filthy animal...!'

'Megan was so young. She never got to experience... anything.'

Definition of 'DOGGED'- having or showing tenacity and grim persistence.'

I adore folk horror, and this one has clearly drawn on such folk horror classics as THE WICKER MAN and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and even Hammer Horror's THE WOMAN IN BLACK (the whole thing with the tides) to create a pretty decent movie.

At just under two hours, it's a tad long for what it is and it's not without its flaws but I still enjoyed it. I have any amount of time to spare for folk horror or what passes for a good stab at it, if you'll excuse the pun.

DOGGED is set on an island, which is a good start. There's great scope for weirdness and depravity amongst island folks who, cut off from the mainland and its morals, think that they're a law unto themselves and everyone else who's not an islander born-and-bred can go and f**k themselves, lol.

The island is called Farthing Island (Summerisle was already taken) and a young hipster-ish University student called Sam is coming home to the island for a funeral. A young local girl called Megan Lancaster has fallen off a cliff while apparently going to the aid of an injured deer. Aw, that's sad. For the girl and the deer. 'We thank you for the life of young Megan Lancaster, who brought such joy to us all.'

Sam and his brusque father do not get on at all, though Sam's mother clearly adores her big handsome college student son. Sam prefers to spend his time back home with the local pastor's daughter, Rachel. They obviously have had a relationship previously and, now that Sam's back on the island for a bit, they lose no time in making the-beast-with-two-backs in, um, Sam's Dad's car. Eeuw, gross.

Sam's Pops clearly thinks so too. 'I'm not an idiot, Sam. I can smell the sex off you.' And then: 'No arguments, Sam. While you're back under my roof, you'll do as I say, understand?' No wonder Sam prefers the company of Rachel, whose weird older brother Daniel has a nasty habit of having sex with his sister with the full knowledge of their parents.

As their cold and horrible Pastor father says: 'Daniel is Daniel. I'm afraid we'll never

change him. Some children are just born inherently challenging.' That's all very well, and exactly what we'd expect from the pervy inhabitants of a depraved, incestuous island, but the hypocritical Pastor, Father David, then lambasts poor Sam for having deflowered his precious daughter and warns him in no uncertain terms to stay away from Rachel.

'You may have given up on this island as your home but she's still one of us. You'll never change that,' he threatens Sam ominously. (Is there any other way to threaten someone, lol?) Sam's own Dad has forbidden Sam the use of his car as a shag-wagon and told his embarrassed offspring that his bike's in the shed if he needs transport...! Good one, Pops.

Anyway, one day Little Red Riding Hood (Sam) is sent across the marvellously creepy fairytale-style woods to visit his Granny. But Granny's nowhere to be seen and the forest is full of shadowy male figures wearing animal heads like the villagers in THE WICKER MAN.

Doggy heads, foxy heads, badger heads. Added to Granny's extensive collection of stone woodland animals, there's a distinctly folksy feel to the growing horror. Has the Big Bad Wolf gotten his claws into Sam's sweet old Granny...? Oh dear.

Terrible things are happening to the little band of hippies on the island (there's two of 'em, just two hippies!) and a seemingly crazy old man, or a 'vagrant' as the nasty Pastor David puts it to Sam, is roaming around the island wrapped in a blanket and telling everyone who'll listen that there's 'bad magic' afoot on the island. I'd well believe it.

Meanwhile, the men on the island are all getting together and behaving oddly, except for the local doctor who's decided, for reasons obviously tied up with the island's terrible secrets, to shuffle off his mortal coil. What guilt is he carrying on his blackened soul? Poor little Rachel, Sam's f**k-buddy, has gone missing and Sam is scared out of his wits. Mind you, it doesn't take much to scare Sam.

And he's so ridiculously wimpy that even the hippy woman can boss him around and tell him what do, while scaring the shite out of him with crazy tales of a cult of evil villagers who do unspeakable things to people under cover of darkness. Or daylight, lol. After all, it's their island. They can keep to whatever schedule suits them...!

Anyway, does Sam have the balls- and the brains- to foil the islanders' evil plans for poor Rachel, whatever it is, and to ferret out the grisly secrets behind Megan Lancaster's death? I doubt it, somehow.

Sam may have college brains but I'm not sure he has the common sense and cop-on to cope with the sinister goings-on and shenanigans of an evil island and all that that entails. We'll see anyway, but don't hold your breath...

Dogged is on DVD and Digital on 9 July from Left Films

Pre-order on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ICSw0U

#Dogged @LeftFilms

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

101 FILMS PRESENTS: JASON MOMOA IN 'BRAVEN.' (2018) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-05-29T19:34:00.000+01:00

BRAVEN. (2018) DIRECTED BY LIN OEDING. STARRING JASON MOMOA, STEPHEN LANG, JILL WAGNER, SASHA ROSSOF, BRENDAN FLETCHER, ZAHN MCCLARNON AND GARRET DILLAHUNT.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'You are Linden Braven. I'm your son.'

I was watching this one when a family member comes into the room, takes one look at the screen and screeches: 'Is that Jason Momoa? Jason Momoa who's Khal Drogo from GAME OF THRONES? Jason Momoa who's Aquaman in JUSTICE LEAGUE and AQUAMAN? That Jason Momoa?' I shrugged. I dunno, I mumbled through a mouthful of crisps, blissfully happy in my ignorance.

Turns out that it is 'that' Jason Momoa, a big Native Hawaiian hunk of manhood with a handsome, good-humoured beardy face and a body that makes my beloved Thor look, well, a bit scrawny, if you must know. He's done a ton of film and television work and yes, he is planning to reprise his role as Aquaman, for those of you who dig superhero movies.

Me, I do not dig. I'd rather snog Donald Trump (with tongues and open mouths and everything) than sit through one of those. But each to their own and all that. Every genre has its own merit and, from what I've seen, Jason Momoa is very good at what he does.

He stars here as the titular Braven. He's Joe Braven, in fact, a good solid manly name for a good solid manly man. He's a giant hunk of masculinity who works hard at his logging company- he lives in one of those 'Murican states that have all the snow and that, or is that just Canada?- and then relishes going home to his annoyingly beautiful perfect wife Stephanie and his just plain annoying daughter Charlotte.

Joe Braven is a big tough man with a heart the size of all-outdoors. He loves his perfect little family- his 'girls'- with all of his being. He would kill to protect them from harm. At least, I assume he would. He mumbles so much that I could only guess what he was saying from his actions. Of course, all big tough guys mumble. That's how you know they're tough. Well, d'uh...!

The tougher the guy, the more difficult it is to understand a word he's saying. That's good ole Joe Braven to a T. About five minutes into the film, I began to wish that there were subtitles available. Or an interpreter, to, well, interpret his gruff bass-note mumbles. I honestly heard little or nothing of his dialogue, lol. Good job it's an action film.

Joe has a father too, a tough, grizzled old bird of a guy who made Joe Braven the sterling man he is today. Big, tough and incomprehensibly mumbly. But poor old Linden Braven is suffering from early-onset dementia and Stephanie Braven, Joe's Missus, is anxious for Joe to talk to the old man about the possibility of something the 'Muricans like to call 'assisted living.'

Well, Stephanie Braven would want that, wouldn't she, old Grandpa Braven conveniently in a home for the demented, leaving her and hubby to have the run of the house, having sex in every room without having to worry about bumping into the Ghost of Christmas Past when you're starkers and trying out the 'reverse cowgirl' on the dining-room table? The hussy.

I remember how Tony Soprano from HBO Mob drama THE SOPRANOS used to bawl: 'It's a retirement community!' every time his old Ma used to bitch about being stuck in an old folks' home. Just because she nearly burned the house down while cooking the dinner. That hardly merits being bundled off straightaway into an old folks' home. Sorry, Tone, I meant to say 'retirement community...!' No need for any concrete overcoats now.

Anyway, Stephanie Braven encourages Joe to talk to his father about the encroaching dementia. She suggests that they use the family cabin-in-the-woods as the venue for this nice quiet chat. Under the pretext of shutting down the cabin for the winter, Joe gets his old man to

accompany him into the woods.

Call it bad luck or bad timing, call it what you will, but a bunch of really nasty local drug-lords (is there any other kind?) have been using Joe's shed as a store-house for their massive stash of drugs. They've also chosen this exact time to come and retrieve their drugs from Joe's shed. They've had God-knows-how-long to come and get it, but no, they're coming now...

And here's Joe just pulling up to the cabin now, with his elderly father beside him and- unbeknownst to either of them- Joe's small daughter Charlotte stowing away in the back of the truck. Joe will have to defend his nearest and dearest from the drug-lords, one of whom he's shocked to discover is an employee of his at the logging company. Is Joe up to the mammoth task? You can bet your trusty little bow and arrow he is...

It's a good thing that the drug-lords prefer to use force rather than talking things through as a method of getting things done. Imagine them trying to get any sense out of the mumbly Joe Braven.

Drug-lord, amiably enough:'Hey, a**hole, give us back our mutha-f**king drugs and we'll let you and your old man and the kid go free.'

Joe Braven: 'Mumble, mumble, mumble. Mumble, mumble, mumble.'

Drug-lord, now enraged: 'Hey, mutha-f**ka, whatchu saying about my mother? Hey, Chico, cut this mutha-f**ka a new a**hole, wudja?'

And so on. Joe Braven is a man of many talents. Speaking clearly and precisely is not one of them. But they say that actions speak louder than words, don't they, and Joe's actions in this film will appeal greatly to fans of the action/superhero genre. All I'm saying is mumble, mumble, mumble, capiche...?

BRAVEN is available on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital now from 101 FILMS.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

DEMON. (2015) A POLISH HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-05-26T14:07:00.000+01:00

DEMON. (2015) DIRECTED BY MARLIN WRONA. STARRING ITAY TIRAN, AGNIESZKA ZULEWSKA, ANDRZEI GRABOWSKI, TOMASZ SCHUCHARDT AND MARIA DEBSKA.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

ON DVD 28 MAY 2018

'Let's not go all abracadabra here.'

'Is it possible that the spirit of a dead person can appear before us...?'

'THE CLINGING: the Jewish tradition of the soul of a dead person 'clinging' to that of a living person to finish what death interrupted. They think, I'm dead, but it's not true...'

Oh wow. This is an absolute cracker of a Polish horror film, and the sad thing about it is that I understand the director is deceased now. I'd dearly love to tell him how much I love his film! It's not so much that it's scary as that it's extremely well-done, well-acted and well-scripted, so not only is it Polish but it's also highly-polished, lol, if you see what I did there.

Okay, so two attractive young Jewish-Polish people, Piotr and Zaneta, are about to get married. They haven't known each other for very long- I think it's only a month- but they're head-over-heels in lust. Ooops, sorry, of course I meant love, snigger snigger.

They're going to live in Zaneta's grandfather's house that he built himself. Zaneta's family are a wealthy and prominent family in the little rural Polish village where they live. On the day before the wedding, Piotr arrives from England to see his beautiful blonde bride (why are Polish women always so gorgeous? They make us Irish chicks look like sacks of crap!) and look over the bridal house, which still needs a lot of work doing to it before it can be properly habitable.

Piotr finds something very strange in the ground near his new home on the day before the wedding. It's obviously been there for a long time and no-one but Piotr knows it's there. From the time that he sees this thing in the earth, Piotr undergoes a subtle change, a change that becomes highly evident to the wedding guests over the course of the next couple of days. Yeah, Polish weddings go on forever, lol...!

The wedding party is amazing. There's traditional Polish singing and dancing, in various stages of sobriety I might add, and any guests who fancy getting up and belting out a bit of an auld tune are free to do so. There's glass-breaking and vodka-swilling and horny couples getting off with each other, even to the point of having sex openly outside the reception hall. Up agin the wall and everything. Now that's what I call a proper wedding...

The handsome, dark-haired Piotr becomes more and more divorced from reality as the reception marches on. He keeps seeing a strange woman there who stares at him intently. Well, he's drop-dead gorgeous, so women are naturally gonna ogle him, but it's more than that. She's looking at him as if she knows him. Does she? And why does he seem to know that she's called Hana?

The beautiful Zaneta is not impressed by the groom's slip of the tongue during his wedding speech, in which he refers to his bride as 'Hana.' Oh shit. Remember FRIENDS? 'I, Ross, take thee Rachel...!' Ross's marriage to posh English Emily fell apart because of it. It doesn't look like Zaneta is prepared to be any more forgiving, haha. Saying the right name, either during the ceremony or in the after-speeches, is positively imperative if you want your nuts to remain, ahem, intact and uncracked...

Piotr's increasingly bizarre behaviour ruins the wedding. While a terrible (but visually stunning) rain-storm lashes the reception hall overnight, Piotr has seizures and begins to talk in foreign languages and it becomes increasingly obvious that he's being possessed. But by whom, and why?

Rod and Todd Flanders from THE SIMPSONS talked in 'tongues' too, but that was because their Dad Ned didn't believe in vaccinations and so they each got the 'flu and became delirious, lol. As much as their holy-roller father would have liked to believe that they were speaking in tongues like from the Bible, sadly they were merely hallucinating.

Zaneta's father-in-law is a brilliant character. When Piotr starts 'fitting' in front of the guests, he's all, like, 'It's just epilepsy, nothing serious!' He tries to keep a lid on Piotr's outlandish behaviour as best he can by desperately filling the guests full of booze so that they're less inclined to notice what's going on around them. Well, we know they're pissed, but they're not that pissed...!

He also lays into his son Jasny, Zaneta's brother, for allowing his sister to wed such an unsuitable husband. But Jasny says, hang on a minute, I don't know him any better than you guys do! Don't be blaming me if Piotr turns out to be a fruitcake, in other words.

Tempers are frayed between the two men and, in the meantime, why is a bedraggled and rain-soaked Zaneta, still in her by-now-ruined wedding dress, digging up the garden near her grandfather's house in the pitch-dark and the lashing rain? Whatever she's doing, it doesn't bode well for the future of Piotr and Zaneta. Could this marriage turn out to be the shortest nuptials on record? It might just be, if the ghost controlling Piotr's mind has anything to do with it...

Eerie Polish thriller DEMON gets a UK DVD release from Sharp Teeth Films on 28 May 2018.

After screening to enthusiastic festival audiences worldwide, we are delighted to bring this haunting and unusual ghost story to the UK. DEMON is a rare telling of a Jewish folk myth laced with horror and dark humour, based on the play Przylgnięcie (Clinging) by Piotr Rowicki and directed by the late Marcin Wrona.

Winner of ‘Best Horror Feature’ at Fantastic Fest and featuring a film score by renowned Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (THE EXORCIST, THE SHINING, INLAND EMPIRE) this is an intriguing story that will 'cling' to your memory long after viewing.

Cultural nightmares from the past again prove to make unforgettable and thought-provoking stories, in this clever take on the Jewish legend of the Dybbuk.

Directed by: Marcin Wrona
Screenplay by: Pawel Maslona, Marcin Wrona
Cast: Itay Tiran, Agnieszka Zulewska, Andrzej Grabowski, Tomasz Schuchardt
DVD special features: Photo Gallery, Trailers

About director Marcin Wrona:

Marcin Wrona was an accomplished director, scriptwriter, producer and a member of the Polish Film Academy. In 2002, his short film MAGNET MAN won Best Student Film Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. His first feature MY FLESH MY BLOOD premiered at Rome Film festival in 2009 and went on to win numerous awards. His second feature THE CHRISTENING (2010) screened at film festivals worldwide and was universally acclaimed. DEMON was his third film and a Polish-Israeli co-production.

Marcin also directed several well-received TV dramas (including Harold Pinter's COLLECTION and THE MORALITY OF MRS. DULSKA). During the European Film Awards ceremony in Barcelona 2004, he presented his short film TELEFONO which was later included in Pedro Almodovar's DVD collection. In the 2013 he directed the musical Chopin Must Die which premiered simultaneously in Warsaw and London. Marcin sadly passed away in 2015 at the age of 42 years.

About Sharp Teeth Films:

Sharp Teeth Films promises to bring a taste of the unusual to UK audiences via cinema, DVD and VOD releases. Our carefully selected line-up includes a mix of languages and genres, with a focus on standout stories that are both provocative and fascinating … films with ‘bite’. The first releases include New York sub-culture documentary RUBBLE KINGS, highlighting the true story behind cult classic The Warriors, ‘holiday from hell’ horror SHOPPING TOUR, a thought-provoking, cannibal satire and YOU ARE NOT ALONE, a first-person POV thriller seen from the perspective of the 'final girl'.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

SUNSET. (2018) AN AWARD-WINNING FILM ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-05-16T18:28:00.000+01:00

SUNSET. (2018) DIRECTED BY JAMISON M. LOCASCIO. WRITTEN BY JAMISON LOCASCIO AND ADAM AMBROSIO.

STARRING BARBARA BLEIER, LIAM MITCHELL, DAVID JOHNSON, AUSTIN PENDLETON, SUZETTE GUNN AND JURI HENLEY-COHN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'They did it to us first...'

'This is the beginning of the end.'

'We are slowly building towards something that could go nuclear and global.'

'Strength enough to bomb and kill innocent people is not strength at all. It's weakness.'

'You can't fight nuclear without nuclear. It kind of levels the playing field.'

'Tell her Happy Birthday but, between you and me, I'm not sure how happy it was.'

'Attack in progress. Attack in progress. Attack in progress...'

I love a nice nuclear war film, because like everyone else I like to be scared silly by the thought of things that couldn't possibly ever happen here. Right? Well, they couldn't, could they? Never in this world, I say, as Master-Butcher Fred Elliott from CORONATION STREET might say. Never in this world...

My favourite of all the nuclear war films I've seen thus far is actually an animated one, WHEN THE WIND BLOWS from 1986, based on the drawings and writings of Raymond Briggs. He's the bloke who's to blame for bringing perennial teenage warbler Aled Jones to the forefront of our minds every Christmas since the year dot, lol.

We might look at WHEN THE WIND BLOWS again a little later on, but for now let me tell you about SUNSET, a film that reminds me a lot of the Raymond Briggs classic because it has as its protagonists an elderly couple, Henry and Patricia, although they're American rather than British.

The film opens with some of Henry and Patricia's chums getting together at the couple's home to celebrate Patricia's birthday. Though she's probably pushing seventy, she's still a real looker with her silver-blonde hair, good bone structure and top-notch gleaming white gnashers.

The guest list is as follows. There's Julian, an old friend and possibly an old flame of Patricia's, who doesn't get on too well with Henry. That's understandable enough, given that he's most likely an old boyfriend, maybe one who got thrown over for Henry. You can tell that he's still devoted to Patricia though, and cares deeply for her opinions and welfare.

There's Ayden and Breyanna (that spelling is, like, waaay bogus, dudes...!), a power couple who have all the material trappings of a good life but can't have children together, which is sad. Ayden is a financial analyst and super-confident with it, but you can see that Breyanna is troubled somewhat in her mind.

That leaves Chris, an extraordinary character by anyone's standards. He's a middle-aged man who wears a baseball cap like a ten-year-old boy and has his own room in Henry and Patricia's house. He likes dance music and he has his own You-tube channel where he shoots the breeze with his subscribers. As he says himself, all two of 'em, lol.

The startlingly blue-eyed Chris works with Henry as a helper in Henry's carpentry business. Why is he so close to the elderly couple? Well, they took him in a few years back when he was down on his luck and now he's like the son they never (I think they never) had. As Henry puts

it: 'You're like this bizarre man-child I never signed up to have.'

Chris reminds me a bit of the one-off character Andy Hamilton in THE SIMPSONS, a sort of overgrown schoolboy type who wears his baseball cap backwards and still carries a live frog and a catapult in his pocket. Chris might seem at first like one of life's losers, but his love for Henry and Patricia is genuine and it's obviously reciprocated. He really got lucky when he met them.

Anyway, the talk of the party is the recent rogue nuclear attack on Los Angeles from somewhere in 'the Middle East,' though it's not specified which part. Henry is all for 'Murica's fighting back, retaliating with more power, more force, but Julian thinks that, once they start down the road of payback, there'll be no going back.

Not long after the party, the worst (nearly) happens. The words you never want to hear- 'This is an emergency broadcast-' are heard. A nuclear attack is threatened for the New York Metropolitan area. The government have called for the immediate evacuation of the entire East Coast.

The radio and television warn folks about the dangers of nuclear fallout: vomiting, convulsions, internal bleeding and hair loss, amongst others. Oh lovely. So, if the bomb doesn't kill you, there's a high chance you'll die from this other stuff. Sweeeeeeet...

The news of the impending attack affects our protagonists in different ways. Each one of them is faced with the same choice. Get in the car and drive far, far away, along with the millions of other people who are panicking on the over-crowded roads right now, or stay at home and possibly die there...

It's a really good talking point, is this. I'd be all for staying home for the Big Bang, if the soaps and THE X FACTOR were still on 't' telly and you could get still Pringles and wine and stuff from the shops. If it were a case of having to start a new life over again from scratch somewhere else, though, I'd be hopeless.

I'd probably do what Bart and Homer Simpson do when they're in a rocket-ship heading to a new planet which will be peopled mainly with the Z-list 'celebrities' of the world. I'd press the 'eject' button and steer myself sharpish towards the sun, lol.

The film examines the choices open to the protagonists and tackles some of peoples' worries and concerns, big and small. Such as, what if someone breaks into my home and squats there while I'm gone? After all, 'people are stealing and murdering and breaking into peoples' homes.' Well, 'desperate situations bring out the worst in people.'

What if you leave and get killed? What if you stay and get killed? Henry and Patricia, Ayden and Breyanna, Julian and Chris all have their choices to make in this excellent 'end of the world' movie. It's a moving imagining of what might happen if, God forbid, ordinary people like ourselves were ever put in this earth-shattering situation. Let's hope it never happens.

'As far as I'm concerned, the world can go any which way it wants, as long as we're together.'

The award-winning film SUNSET is set to release on Amazon, I-tunes, X-box, Google Play, DVD and more.

Sunset - starring Austin Pendleton (A Beautiful Mind, My Cousin Vinny)

Written and Directed By Jamison M. LoCascio (Award-winning writer/director of "the Depths")

Story: A diverse group of people grapple with the imminent probability of a nuclear strike on the east coast.

---Official Selection Manhattan Film Festival 2018

----Winner Best Ensemble: Los Angeles Film Awards 2018

----Nominated: Best Feature Film Miami Independent Film Festival 2018

----Official Selection Los Angeles Cinefest 2018

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6142146/?ref_=nm_knf_i2

TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/253491763

By the way, here's an extract from my review of WHEN THE WIND BLOWS that makes me think of SUNSET. Both films are poignant and tremendously moving and each involves older people being confronted with something they never even thought possible in their own lifetimes.

'Jim starts to ready the house for the possibility of a nuclear strike, 'just in case,' as per the instructions issued in the 'governmental directive,' the one piece of information available to them on what to do in the event of a nuclear strike.

The film makes its point very well here. The fact that this governmental pamphlet is 'the maximim protection afforded to the populace' is nothing short of terrifying. Nothing in it turns out to be of any real use to anyone.

The worst happens and the 'bomb' hits England. It's a million times worse than the hurricane in 'THE WIZARD OF OZ.' A terrific shock strikes Jim and Hilda's little house, while they tremble inside the makeshift shelter Jim has constructed, the 'inner core or refuge as per the governmental directive.' When they emerge two days later, it's to a much changed world. Life as they know it has been decimated utterly.

Their house is trashed, the countryside has been burned up and all their services, utilities and communication systems have been destroyed, along with all the people who provide them. There's no clean water to drink, fresh food to eat or even unpoisoned air to breathe.

Jim keeps telling Hilda that the emergency services will roll into action at any moment, just like they did in World War Two, and then they'll both be saved.

The saddest thing about this film is the way that both Jim and Hilda look back so fondly on World War Two and imagine that all they'll have to do to beat this new threat is to roll up their sleeves, tighten their belts, put their shoulders to the wheel and their noses to the grindstone.

Just like they did in the good old days of the Blitz, see? They fondly imagine that there'll be rationing, a few evacuations ('Kids from London seeing cows for the first time!'), Anderson and Morrison bomb shelters, of which they have fond memories, and maybe a curfew and a few black-outs. Jim might even have to be an air-raid warden wearing a hard hat and carrying a little flashlight.

They look back fondly on Stalin ('Uncle Joe...!'), Churchill, Field-Marshal Monty Montgomery and even mean ornery old Adolf Hitler, saying nostalgically and without a trace of irony that 'you knew where you were with those guys.' Jim admits openly to not having a clue who the big guys of today are. The big personalities of World War Two were quite possibly never to be repeated. Indeed, they were one-offs rather, weren't they?

The point of the film is that Jim and Hilda, who stand as metaphors for their entire country, have no idea whatsoever what a nuclear strike against them will actually entail. As they try to cope with the treacherously invisible nuclear fallout, unaware that they're dying slowly from radiation poisoning, they apply the now wholly defunct principles of World War Two to this new situation. The woeful inadequacy of these old principles, and their total inability to be adapted to suit this new and deadlier kind of warfare, is plain for the viewer to see.'

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

BRADFORD INTERNATIONAL FILM ASSOCIATES PRESENTS: LIES WE TELL. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-05-03T19:41:00.000+01:00

LIES WE TELL. (2017) DIRECTED BY MITU MISRA. STARRING GABRIEL BYRNE, HARVEY KEITEL, MARK ADDY, NICHOLAS FARRELL, GINA MCKEE, TOYAH WILLCOX, EMILY ATACK, SIBYLLA DEEN, DANICA JOHNSON, REECE RITCHIE AND JAN UDDIN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'The only men who get caught are those who don't love their wives enough.'

'Please ensure that there are no undesirable repercussions as a result of my indiscretions.'

I wasn't expecting this one to be as good and gripping as it is. The promotional material is misleading and doesn't do it justice, to be honest, calling it a 'thriller about loyalty and revenge' and showing mad pictures of Gabriel Byrne running around the place with a shotgun.

It's actually much better than it looks, and it's not just a boring old run-of-the-mill men-with-guns thriller after all, not that you can tell that from the posters. Let's take a squint at the plot and, amidst numerous spoilers, lol, I can give you a better idea of what I mean.

Okay, so Harvey Keitel (PULP FICTION, RESERVOIR DOGS, THE PIANO) is playing a billionaire called Demi Lempros here, but not for long. He dies within the first few minutes of the film and he tasks his faithful old retainer-slash-chauffeur Donald, played by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, with the job of removing all traces of his- Demi's- mistress from the flat he rents for her.

Even in death, the dirty old rascal doesn't want his missus to find out what a cheating, lying bastard he was. So, as I said, it falls to Donald to go round to this glossy apartment and get rid of any evidence of the affair. It's a nasty, grimy little job, but he's obviously still being paid by the crafty old billionaire so off he goes to do it.

He finds Amber, Demi's mistress and trainee lawyer (brains as well as looks), at the flat. Words can't describe how stunningly beautiful she is. Tall, dark-haired with a cascade of fabulous long tresses, huge dark eyes and a body to die for. Or kill for. She was clearly way too good for Old Man Lempros, but it's funny the way that women always seem to find the lure of all those greenbacks too strong to resist, lol.

It falls to Donald to break the news of Demi's death to a shocked Amber. He doesn't do a great job of it. The poor girl was actually expecting a visit from her lover- she's all decked out in a sexy black nightie, black stockings, black high heels, the works- and instead she gets the ham-fisted Donald, telling her Demi's croaked and she's got to vacate the premises, asap.

He gives her a lift to her real home in Bradford, where we see immediately that the beautiful Amber has a history, a past and an immensely complicated home life. Amber is a Muslim. She comes from a strict Muslim family who- wait for it- married her off at sixteen to one of her cousins, a devilishly handsome but cruel and perverted man called KD.

Amber and KD are no longer together, something which was Amber's choice and which KD, now a powerful underworld drug-dealer, is still harbouring deep grudges over. KD and his family are planning something, however, a revenge that will turn Amber's blood to ice in her veins when she finds out.

She asks Donald to help her to foil this awful plan. He can't help but agree. He's got eyes in his head after all, hasn't he? He's a man, isn't he, and Amber is the most beautiful woman most men will have ever seen. And there's another little job that he needs to do for her as well.

He needs to wipe a video of Amber in her sex-outfit giving the flabby old Demi a lap-dance from Demi's phone so that Demi's widow (played by Toyah Willcox) doesn't see it. Donald wipes it from the phone, but he reckons without the sneakiness of Demi's thoroughly detestable and amoral son Nathan, a proper little shit who sees the video and likes what he sees. That little video is going to come back to haunt poor Amber in more ways than one...

The arranged marriage storyline is electrifying and also terrifying. The film is set in modern times and it's hard to believe that such a young girl, a child, can be given in marriage to a much older man without her consent, just because it suits both families. Or, more particularly, because it suits the fathers of both families. Men rule this particular world. Women are mere chattels to be parcelled up and posted off when it suits their fathers.

You'll probably think of EAST IS EAST, the brilliant comedy from 1999 which tells the story of a Pakistani chip-shop owner in the 'Seventies who marries an English woman while he still has a wife living in Pakistan.

He tries to force his Pakistani-English children into arranged marriages with disastrous results. The kids want to embrace Western culture while Dad is very much in favour of sticking to his old traditions. Whatever happened to 'when in Rome,' eh...?

Much less funny is the thought-provoking film SHACKLE by my own Facebook friend Dedipya Joshii which deals with the topic of arranged marriage. I'm also put in mind of a film called I AM NOJOOM, AGED TEN AND DIVORCED (speaks for itself!) and another excellent movie called NH10 which deals with the horrible subject of honour killing.

I love the Emily Atack (THE IN-BETWEENERS) character Tracey in LIES WE TELL. She plays the pregnant girlfriend of the violent and promiscuous thug KD. The poor girl, as foul-mouthed and trashy as she is, is in for a world of pain when he marries someone else. He's already giving her a dog's life as it is. She'll never know a moment's peace while he's off with other women and engaging in his shady business dealings.

I'd love to know exactly what's going on in that nightclub scene. Who are all these terrifying men and these ultra-glamorous women, what the f**k are the men doing and are these women their prizes, their rewards for being the best at whatever it is they're doing?

All I know for sure is that I am not tough enough to move in those circles. Even the women scared the living daylights out of me, maybe more so than the men. I wouldn't last five minutes in such a high-pressure situation. It's a different world altogether from the one I'm used to. And that's even before you mention the whole arranged marriages thing.

I could have done without the whole thing of Miriam, Amber's younger sister, calling Donald 'Uncle Donald' and getting puppies from him and Billy. It was a bit unbelievable and sickly-sweet and came about too quickly. Also, 'Our Amy' felt a bit tacked-on too and unnecessary to the plot. Donald's broken marriage is enough to account for that craggy look he has...!

Also, I liked that the girls had a brother with learning difficulties but I would have liked the plot to delve into that a little deeper. Mind you, the plot's a bit crowded as it is. Full to bursting, in fact, so you probably couldn't squish too much more in there.

Mark Addy (THE FULL MONTY) and Gina McKee (NOTTING HILL) are in here too as Donald's cuddly brother-in-law Billy and sulky ex-wife Heather respectively. The broken marriage between Donald and Heather is most likely Donald's fault.

He's a bad communicator and merely being passive-aggressive with him, which seems to have been Heather's favoured modus operandi, will result in failure. If you want to tell him something, you're gonna need to clobber him over the head with it or you'll get nowhere. Same as with most men, so...

LIES WE TELL is out now on Digital Download and on DVD exclusively at ASDA courtesy of BRADFORD INTERNATIONAL FILM ASSOCIATES.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

STUDIOCANAL PRESENTS: THE AVENGERS: TUNNEL OF FEAR. LOST EPISODE REDISCOVERED AFTER 55 YEARS! REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-05-02T14:44:00.000+01:00

THE AVENGERS: TUNNEL OF FEAR. LOST EPISODE DISCOVERED AFTER 55 YEARS AND AVAILABLE ON DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!!!

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'TUNNEL OF FEAR' is the twentieth episode of the first series of the 1960s cult spy-fi television series THE AVENGERS, starring Ian Hendry, Patrick Macnee and Ingrid Hafner and which was broadcast by ABC TELEVISION on 5^th August 1961. It's one of only three known complete SEASON ONE episodes to have survived since the original broadcast. Lost for 55 years, the episode came to light in a private film collection in 2016 and was recovered by the British television preservation group KALEIDOSCOPE. Now for the first time ever, fans of THE AVENGERS will be able to own the episode in its entirety on DVD with a whole host of extra content.'

'Please don't put me to sleep, Doc! I 'do things' when they put me to sleep!'

Madame Xenobia to Dr. Keel: 'Cold hand, in your type that means that you're tensed up inside!'

Dr. Keel: 'What do you know about the law of probabilities?'

Ma Black: 'Can you be done for breaking it?'

Dr. Keel: 'No, but you can cut corners by studying it!'

Aw, the hour I spent watching this lost episode over breakfast one morning this week was absolutely the most enjoyable and entertaining part of that entire day. I'm not old enough to have been alive when these episodes were first broadcast on television, which was still kind of in its infancy itself, but that only adds to the charm and mystique of it all.

I loved that it was filmed in the stark black-and-white of my favourite year (yester, lol!) and that it was conceived, written and made in an era when the dust hadn't yet had time to settle over the end of the Second World War. It's so beautifully old...!

So let's have a look now at the plot, shall we? We first see a businessman, a perfect English specimen of a businessman, in a pinstriped suit with a bowler hat, a pinched expression and a tightly-furled black umbrella. His inside coat pocket should certainly contain a rolled-up copy of THE TIMES, that's if he wants to call himself a proper English businessman.

He's taking a seat on the Ghost Train at a fairground, just as the barker- the guy who's paid to shout things- exhorts the public to 'take your seats now for the Tunnel of Fear...!' At the end of the ride, we see that he's left his umbrella behind. Then the title music to THE AVENGERS starts up...

Now we're in the surgery of Dr. David Keel, one of the two main characters. He's good-looking in a sensible, don't-lose-your-head kind of way, thirty-ish, and when he gets married it'll be to a nice quiet girl who'll make a good doctor's wife and squeeze out a few chilluns. She might even help out at reception in the surgery sometimes if needed. Either way, his work will always take precedence over anything she might wish to do herself. That's just the way it was back then.

Anyway, he and his assistant Carol are in the process of closing up the surgery for the night when a desperate man bursts in, claiming to have been run over by a car. Certainly he has a terrible shoulder injury and passes out when the doctor attempts to remove the glass from it.

The doctor quickly works out that the man is an escaped jailbird. 'Prison clothes. By the look of it, he dived face-first through a window.' The man begs Dr. Keel not to call the cops. He's a man on a mission, you see, this particular convict. 'I can't rest easy till I find out who framed me.'

Well, all convicts say they were framed, don't they? But this Harry Black fella, charged with stealing the weekend takings from the funfair where he worked, genuinely seems to be telling the truth. Dr. Keel promises to do all he can to help the man.

Enter John Steed, Dr. Keel's partner-in-fighting-crime and the other of the show's two main characters. He wonders if Harry Black's story has anything to do with the seaside town

of Southend-On-Sea, a man called Wickram and a case currently being investigated by his department, that is to say, an espionage chain that's taking vital defence secrets out of the country illegally.

The immaculately-dressed Steed seems always to be cool, calm and collected and viewing everything he sees with a slight air of ironic amusement. He gets the best and funniest lines of dialogue and the writers do seem to be enjoying themselves with the character somewhat. I'd say he was great craic altogether to write dialogue for.

Anyway, off goes Harry Black to the funfair to try and clear his name. Steed and Dr. Keel are heading there too, but for different reasons. Dr. Keel is off to visit Harry's old Mum, Mrs. Mary Black who runs the shellfish concession at the fairground.

'Keep your thieving hands off my shrimps!' she bawls at a couple of chancers. 'I won't half paste you when I catch you! Geddit? Deliciously funny. Though suspicious of the good doctor at first, Ma Black wholeheartedly and unreservedly agrees to help Dr. Keel to help 'her Harry' in any way she can.

Played by a lady called Doris Rogers (Stick a hairnet on her and she could play Ena Sharples too!), Ma Black is my favourite character after the two leading males. She would have survived the Blitz and World War Two and Hitler's best efforts to destroy the English way of life, no mean feat in itself.

She would have brought up her family under adverse circumstances, abject poverty in a tiny terraced house maybe, possibly with a violent alcoholic for a husband. Given what she says later in the episode when she clouts a villain over the head, she's no slouch at having to defend herself from male violence: 'I haven't done a thing like that since me old man died...!'

Anyway, the funniest bit of the whole episode is probably seeing the cheeky, mischievous Steed working undercover and dressed up as a 'barker' for the belly-dancers. Dressed in a long jewelled caftan and turban, he's got the gift of the gab all right as he's urging the public to come and check out these 'beauties of the mystic East,' these busty slave-girls fit for a Sultan's harem with jiggling boobies, nice flat midriffs and long cascading hair.

Steed is quite the Lothario as he touches up the girls, gives them cheeky little nods and winks and slaps them on the rump as they disappear behind the magical curtain. I wonder what the 'Me Too' campaign would make of his touchy-feely behaviour? Ah well sure, it was a different time back then, a time when slave-girls apparently chewed gum while they twirled and gyrated...!

Harry's girlfriend Claire is a real 'Sixties dollybird, a blonde bombshell living on a houseboat pining away for Harry... but not too much, lol. She's got a little blanket-wrapped surprise for Harry when they come face-to-face, and it remains to be seen how the escaped convict takes the news...

The rest of the episode is taken up with Dr. Keel's and Harry's 'reconstruction' of the crime and the hilarious 'hypnotism' of Steed, who's no more being hypnotised than the chair on which he's seated is. We get an insight into the world of 'Sixties computing and we learn something I've known for a long time myself, purely from watching movies... Never allow a condemned man to smoke a cigarette. It only ever leads to trouble for the villain...!

This brilliant lost episode is available now to buy from STUDIOCANAL (ORGANIC). The extra features include two lovely interviews, both from the early 'Sixties. There's one with with Ian Hendry and one with Patrick Macnee. Patrick Macnee tells us movingly about the man on whom he based John Steed's slick sartorial style and Ian Hendry smokes a cigarette... on live television...! Oh, how things have changed, lol. You'd be burned at the stake for doing that today and no foolin.'

There's also an interview with John Dorney, the writer of the BIG FINISH episode, who talks about how much of an honour it is 'to be allowed to play in that sandpit.' This thoroughly engaging wee episode from the early 'Sixties is the most fun I've had watching television in ages. As John Dorney says, it's a real window into the past as well. Do yourself a favour and watch it too. You'll be so glad you did.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

SECOND RUN FILMS PRESENTS: NEON BULL. (2015) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-04-27T19:25:00.000+01:00

NEON BULL (BOI NEON). (2015) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY GABRIEL MASCARO. STARRING JULIANO CAZARRE, MAEVE JINKINGS, VINICIUS DE OLIVEIRA, ALYNE SANTANA, CARLOS PESSOA, ABIGAIL PEREIRA AND SAMYA DE LAVOR.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'It's me, Iremar, the cologne guy...'

Oh wow. This film is so hot that, by rights, it should have steam coming off of it. And I wasn't even expecting to like a film about Brazilian rodeo, a subject I'd never in a million years dreamed could be interesting, never mind electrifying. This one's hotter than the hot Brazilian sun. Talk about scorchio...!

It's the story of a bunch of bull wranglers or handlers who travel with their bulls from rodeo to rodeo in modern times. Iremar is the main character, a drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian male, tall, dark and handsome and with an overwhelming desire to design womens' knickers, amongst other things. And he's not gay either, giving the lie to the myth that every male involved, or trying to be, in the fashion business has to be a flaming homosexual, lol.

Iremar is a big, sweaty, hairy macho male who loves women, but he's not a sleazebag or anything, just a normal horny guy who, when he's attracted to a beautiful woman, knows what to do with her. I completely fell for his character. He'd be my ideal guy, or one of them, anyway. The actor who plays him, Juliano Cazarre, is criminally good-looking.

Galega drives the truck with the bulls and the wranglers in it. She's a single mother in her thirties with a riot of blonde curly hair and an absent Baby-Daddy for her daughter Caca. Driving the rodeo truck seems like a strange job for a woman, but Galega is tough, probably because she's had to be. It must be hard being on the road all the time.

Caca is about ten or twelve and the relationship between mother and daughter is strained. Galega seems to be looking forward to the time that she can off-load Caca onto the child's grandmother, maybe because she can't cope with a precocious pre-teen girl whose burgeoning sexuality is going to be a big headache for her Momma in the years to come.

Caca is already learning to rebel against her mother, as all pre-teen girls learn to rebel. If Galega feels now that she's at her wits' end with the girl, she ain't seen nothing yet. Caca spends all her time with the bulls and the men, who together act unwittingly as some sort of father-substitute for the child.

It's not always the healthiest or most appropriate atmosphere for Caca, especially when she overhears the dirty sex-talk the men make no attempt to hide or reads the porn magazines they leave lying around the site.

Although the magazines, it must be said, have been somewhat sanitised by the creative Iremar, who has drawn fashionable knickers over the shaved you-know-whats. It's so funny when Ze, the owner of the porn, discovers his defaced treasures and has a go at Iremar.

Anyway, when Caca asks Iremar to 'give me a hug,' I was half-surprised that it turned out to be as innocent as it did. She's desperate for affection from males in the absence of her father, an absence she feels keenly, and when she's older and able to express herself sexually, she's going to look for love in all the wrong places.

Caca's mother also performs sexually explicit dances for the men who attend the late-night rodeo shows. While gyrating to the beat, her head is covered by a freaky-looking horse-mask and her body much less so by some of Iremar's designs. I love the character of Iremar, but the clothes he designs are well slutty and trashy. They're for strippers and hookers, lol, not classy lassies like myself.

Life on the road is hot and hard for the rodeo peeps. Their home is the site of any rodeo event they rock up at. They eat, drink, argue, shower and even make love out in the open. There's hardly any privacy and no fancy showering facilities. We see Iremar bathing with the other men out of a bucket and his magnificent, fully-frontally naked body is one of the star attractions of this already superb film.

There's this hilarious scene where Galega is actually waxing her fanny in the cab of the big bull truck, for the lack of a private bathroom to do it in. (For the benefit of my American readers, we here in Ireland don't mean 'butt' when we say 'fanny,' we mean p*ssy. That probably seems strange to you guys but it's true!)

Her bare legs are brazenly either side of the steering wheel and she's whipping off the little sticky hair-covered strips when she's disturbed by Caca. It could have been anyone peering in that window, though. I guess that this is what's really meant by a Brazilian wax...

She's doing this in obvious expectation of having sex with Junior, the young good-looking guy drafted in to replace Ze when Ze gets a promotion of sorts. If I were Galega, I would have gone for the much manlier Iremar, but she opts for the younger man, a narcissist who spends hours on his long black hair and has cosmetic braces on his pearly-whites.

They have sex out in the open and, for Galena, it's clearly an itch that needs scratching urgently. Her child's father is God-knows-where and she's scratching (there's that word again!) a living together in the male-dominated world of rodeo. She needs to feel like a woman again for a while, not just a workhorse, excuse the rodeo-related pun.

There's quite a bit of black humour in this testosterone-loaded film. I like the cheeky wide boy selling cheap and trashy womens' knickers through car windows to any interested females. The scene where Iremar and Ze are masturbating the horse- that's right, you heard me!- and trying to procure his aristocratic semen for reasons of financial gain is very funny. Ever seen an erect horse willy? You will here...

The explicit sex scene between Iremar, 'the cologne guy,' and Geisy, the pregnant perfume saleswoman who also works nights doing security in a clothing factory, is just magical. To me, their every move is a right move.

Their love-making on the deserted factory floor in the dead of night is the sexiest, steamiest, most realistic-looking screen sex I've ever seen. Their joint movements are a poem, a ballet of synchronised thrust-and-parry with each one having an opposite and equal reaction of similar beauty and economy.

Given that you do actually see what looks suspiciously like Iremar's erect penis, I'm wondering if the horny pair are in fact really having sex in this scene. What else could account for such utter believability? I'm not even gonna sully this erotic-beyond-words scene by uttering the words 'reverse cowgirl...'

Incidentally, Geisy's being this randy at this advanced stage of her pregnancy is perfectly believable also. This randiness is a fact to which I can attest myself, having birthed two young 'uns in my time and craved non-stop nooky (an old-fashioned English word for sex!) virtually throughout both gestation periods. If my kids ever read this, they will disown me. Again...

It is a real fact of pregnancy, life and nature, though. Remember Rachel from FRIENDS and Phoebe's cardboard standee of Evander Holyfield the boxer...? Watch that episode (they devoted an entire episode to the subject!) and then tell me that expectant women don't get horny.

Anyway, full marks to the director for creating such an electrifying yet believable sex scene. You might think you've seen sexy sex scenes before in movies, and I'm sure you have, but I could nearly guarantee you that this scene is better.

Hotter. Steamier. More memorable. The whole film is infinitely memorable. I can't believe I wasn't keen to watch it at first. I must have been loco, seriously. It's steamier than a kettle full of, well, steam. And, when it comes to the boil, you'd better watch out, and it ain't 'cause Sandy Claws is coming to town...

NEON BULL is out now on Blu-Ray and DVD from SECOND RUN FILMS.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

THE CRITERION COLLECTION PRESENTS: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES. (1978) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-04-16T19:56:00.000+01:00

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES. (1978) DIRECTED BY EDOUARD MOLINARO. FROM THE PLAY BY JEAN POIRET. MUSIC BY ENNIO MORRICONE.

STARRING UGO TOGNAZZI, MICHEL SERRAULT, CLAIRE MAURIER, REMI LAURENT, BENNY LUKE, MICHEL GALABRU, CARMEN SCARPITTA, LUISA MANERI AND LIANI DEL BALZO.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

'Monsieur Baldi, exactly how many mothers does your son have...?'

I don't normally dictate to my readers, but if you don't positively adore this wonderful film, then you must have a swinging brick where your 'feels' department ought to be, lol. It's a flamboyant gay comedy, set in the fabulous St. Tropez, that sometimes descends into all-out farce, but it's not as light and throwaway as this description might seem to imply.

It's got a heart as big as all-outdoors and, at its core, it answers that tricky question of 'who's my family?' with the conclusion that your family is whoever is there for you through thick and thin, it's as simple as that. And it doesn't preach its little message, either. It delivers it beautifully and entertainingly with grace, panache, pathos and, um, bucketloads of sequins and glitter as well...

Renato Baldi is a middle-aged, gay businessman who owns a nightclub called LA CAGE AUX FOLLES. Although he wears make-up and dresses with flair, he can pass for straight when he needs to. He has a twenty-year-old son called Laurent, the result of dipping his toe into the pond of heterosexuality two decades ago with a woman who hasn't seen her son since he was born. They've done all right without her though and it doesn't look as if the wavy-haired Laurent, 'the little white master,' has ever wanted for anything.

Laurent was brought up by his father and his father's lover, Albin. Albin is the drag queen star of the nightclub show and he's flamboyantly gay and an absolute diva to boot. He's the 'woman' in the relationship to Renato's more low-key and stable male. He squeals and screeches when anything surprises him and he just lives for drama. If there's none around, he's quite happy to create his own, lol.

He minces to the store in a lime-green pantsuit teamed with strappy gold sandals and a jaunty little neck-scarf, for which type of thing he gets called 'a queer' a lot. He likes to bling up with lippy and jewellery and he couldn't play it 'straight' if his life depended on it.

But we're not annoyed by him at all, though, despite the temper tantrums and his frequent declarations to Renato that 'you don't love me!' Albin's got a huge heart and he loves Renato and Laurent, his little family, to the ends of the earth and back. What does a little lip-gloss and foundation matter amongst family?

Albin starts out being a tragi-comic, larger-than-life figure of fun but we soon realise that there's more to him than sling-backs and a collection of womens' wigs. He's a genuinely sensitive human being with feelings that can be hurt just like other peoples' can be hurt. He can be hurt terribly, in fact, by any suggestion that he's not good enough as he is, that his gayness or, more particularly maybe, his campness, makes him in some way inferior to other people.

Hilarious shenanigans ensue when the handsome heterosexual Laurent falls in love with a girl and decides to marry her. Andrea Charrier is a lovely sweet blonde girl, but her parents are ultra-conservative and her father is a big wheel in something called the Order of Morality, an organisation or political party that promotes the family above all else and abhors any deviations from the familial norm. Homosexuality and everything that that entails would probably be at the top of their hit-list.

Andrea is flatly unable to tell her parents that Laurent's parents are a couple of queens who own a gay nightclub and live over the shop in a fabulous apartment crammed with artistic- and blatant- tributes to male sexuality. Erect willies and taut buttocks everywhere you look, in other words. Not to mention Jacob, the gay black housekeeper who eschews the wearing of shoes and also, to be absolutely truthful, clothes.

Instead, she tells her stiff-necked, upper-class folks that Laurent's people are cultural attachés, involved in the arts and attached to an embassy. This thrills Andrea's parents, in particular her father, who's going through a bad time at the moment.

The President of their precious Order of Morality has just passed away suddenly in the arms of an underage prostitute. Oooopsies. So much for morality. The mortified Monsieur and Madame Charrier hope that a big white wedding between Andrea and the son of some big swanky cultural ambassador will take the paparazzis' filthy minds off of how their Chief popped his clogs.

A formal 'getting to know you' dinner is arranged between the Charriers and Laurent's 'parents,' to take place at Laurent's 'parents'' home. The race is on to completely heterosexualise both the apartment, which is clearly the home of a couple of flaming gays, and also to man up'Auntie' Albin to an acceptable. Anybody call for a miracle...?

The scene with Laurent's 'two Mothers' is hilarious. Ditto the scene with the 'Bonne Anniversaire' cake-parade and the one where the horrified Charriers have to be smuggled out of the building through the nightclub. Boy, are they getting their eyes opened for them in a big way tonight...!

But underneath all the farcical comings and goings, the love that holds the little family of three together is apparent. It'll take more than a snooty Minister for Morality and a mother who hasn't laid eyes on her son for twenty years to screw that up...

This is such a heartwarming and funny film. And it was super-successful commercially as well, having been turned into various stage productions and what-have-you even before it was ever a hit movie, a movie that straight people enjoy every bit as much as the gay community, by the way.

The play of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES ran for almost 1,800 performances from 1973-1978 at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in Paris. That's a heck of a lot of feathers and greasepaint, darlings. But it was worth it. There was also the American take on the story, THE BIRDCAGE in 1996 starring Nathan Lane and the late great Robin Williams.

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES is a terrific story with, as I said, a ton of heart-and-soul at its core. Albin is as fabulous a diva as any you'll have ever seen, the laughs are plentiful but the love even more so. Watch it. You'll adore it. And that's a promise, darlings...

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, complete with some smashing extra features, is available to buy now from THE CRITERION COLLECTION.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

SIGNATURE ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS: WINGS OF EAGLES. (2016) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-04-04T19:33:00.000+01:00

WINGS OF EAGLES. (2016) DIRECTED BY STEPHEN SHIN AND MICHAEL PARKER. STARRING JOSEPH FIENNES, ELIZABETH ARENDS, JESSE KOVE, AUGUSTA XU-HOLLAND AND BRUCE LOCKE.

'They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

They shall run and not be weary.'

Eric Liddell's monument, Weifang, China.

'It was the prayers of others that carried me to victory. Let's give them something to pray for.'

Eric Liddell.

'No matter who is a Chinese or a foreigner, we are all a family now.'

Xu Niu, Eric Liddell's friend.

Eric Liddell was a remarkable man, the kind of guy who makes you look at your own life and wonder if you've actually been wasting it, lol. He crammed a hell of a lot into his short time on Earth (1902-1945) and he seems to have been an inspiration to everyone who knew him.

Born in China to Scottish missionary parents, he won a gold medal for running- and winning!- the 400 metres race in the 1924 Olympic Games which were held in China. They don't just give 'em out for participation, you know. Like bleedin' Smarties...

Although his preferred race was the 100 metres, he famously refused to run it because it was scheduled for a Sunday, the traditional day of rest for the Christians. He won his 400 metres anyway, becoming Scotland's most popular athlete along the way.

The 1981 historical drama film CHARIOTS OF FIRE (yeah, that's right, running in slow motion to the music of Vangelis!) is about Eric Liddell's, and also Harold Abrahams', experience at the 1924 Olympics. Eric is described on Wikipedia as 'a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God' and Harold Abrahams as 'an English Jew running to overcome prejudice.'

I mention this film in case you're thinking, hey, I've already seen a film about Eric Liddell! This was the first film about Eric and it concentrated mainly on his Olympic experience. The running-in-slow-motion scene has been lovingly parodied in various media many times since.

WINGS OF EAGLES is a 2016 movie about the same man, but it concentrates on his missionary work in China after he'd more or less given up the athletics and not on his Olympic period and the win that brought him, and Scotland, so much glory.

The story is told from the point of view of a Chinese friend of Eric's, Xu Niu. Here's a selection of some of his comments about his friend Eric:

'I would only run from a nest of hornets, or to escape a man who would put me in jail, but I would run with Mr. Liddell.'

'Running helps you find peace. I was struck by his (Eric's) fearlessness as he ran to find peace in the face of an escalating war. He was running not just for himself, but for us.'

'Eric Liddell's unwavering faith in the essential goodness of man had cracked the coldness of my earthly soul.'

'I had received many gifts from Eric Liddell that had made me a worthy person, but the greatest of these was hope.'

Yeah, this guy really hated Eric's guts, lol. If you're starting to think, by the way, that this Eric Liddell chap sounds like a bit of a saint, well, yes, he's been referred to as such in some quarters and I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear someday that a bid for his canonisation had been made.

I wonder how you apply for sainthood. Would there be an online form or something or would you have to write a letter to the Vatican...? I wonder if you'd have to put a stamp on that. Surely you could get away with FREEPOST if you were writing to His Holiness the Pope.

Anyway, the film tells the harrowing story of Eric's missionary work as a teacher of English, Chemistry and Athletics in a China that was still occupied by Japan. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941, it meant that the Japanese were at war with the United States and things were about to change big-time.

The Japanese rounded up all the foreign nationals and put 'em in internment camps, supposedly for 'their own protection,' and sort of as guests of their Emperor's. Guests who were locked up in prison camps, that is, with shite food and not enough medical supplies or warm clothing. That kind of guest...

Eric, as you've already guessed, was unfortunate enough to be one of these internees. Luckily his family, consisting of a preggers wife and two young daughters, had already been safely packed off to Canada to stay with Florence's, the wife's, family.

Florence came from missionary stock herself and she was for the most part understanding of her husband's devotion to the children he taught. It's really obvious, however, that here she wants her husband to come with them. She's going to have his third child, for crying out loud.

'We've made a family together, Eric. Not just God's family. Our own family.' Ouch.

But a tearful Eric packs her off with the words 'We'll all be together soon.' Then he settles down, or tries to, to life within the confines of the camp that has the words 'Courtyard Of The Happy Way' inscribed ironically over its entrance. A little lighter in tone than Arbeit Macht Frei, maybe, but still...

Eric Liddell spent his period of incarceration teaching the kiddies in the camp Science and English, and he took 'em running every day as well for fun and exercise. He kept up the spirits of his fellow inmates, raced against the Japanese commander for extra food and medical supplies, and gained the respect and friendship of everyone in the camp. He was known as Uncle Li to the kiddies, who by all accounts worrshipped the ground he walked- sorry, sprinted!- on.

He even turned down a chance to go home under the Repatriation Act in order to let a pregnant fellow prisoner get out instead. I bet his wife wanted to throttle him when she heard about this, lol. She had to have their third child while her beloved husband was halfway across the world. It can't have been easy for either of them.

The film's not all running and people going without things so that others can have a better chance of survival and people being nice to each other. The Japanese commit some pretty heinous acts of cruelty in it and there's no doubt that malnourishment and cold wreaked their own brands of havoc among the poor internees as well.

It's a hard film to watch at times. But it's definitely worth it. And I wouldn't have missed out on the chance of meeting Eric Liddell (so to speak) for all the tea in, um, China, lol. He was a great bloke and, who knows, maybe one day he'll have the word 'Saint' before his name. As a devout Irish Mammy who prays nightly to forty-seven Saints, two Archangels, one Virgin and a Holy Ghost, I'd gladly pop him on the list.

ON WINGS OF EAGLES is available to buy now from SIGNATURE ENTERTAINMENT.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

PYEWACKET. (2017) A SUPERNATURAL HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-03-31T15:25:00.000+01:00

PYEWACKET. WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ADAM MCDONALD. STARRING NICOLE MUNOZ, LAURIE HOLDEN, CHLOE ROSE, ERIC OSBORNE AND BIANCA MELCHIOR. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Leah: 'You're all over the place.'

Mom: 'What's that supposed to mean?'

Leah: 'It means I don't even know who I'm coming home to anymore.'

'Be careful what you wish for. Someone might be listening.'

'Pyewacket can take many forms, so don't trust your lying eyes.'

Rowan Dove, author of BLACK RIVER, BLACK MAGIC.

'A teenage girl regrets performing a ritual to summon a witch in this brilliant, brooding and flat-out frightening supernatural chiller from the producers of modern horror classics The Witch and The Void, featuring The Walking Dead’s Laurie Holden.'

I love movies about witches and witchcraft, whether they be of the old Salem Witch Trial variety or the more modern version. And I've always maintained too that witches are scarier and more evil and cruel than male supernatural villains.

Like female serial killers and women drivers, witches are utterly without mercy or compassion, especially towards other women unfortunate enough to fall into their pitiless clutches. Gimme a Jason Voorhees or a Michael Myers over a Blair Witch any day of the week.

Men can be bribed with sexual favours, lol, women not so much unless they are themselves of the Sapphic persuasion. That's enough of an introduction, methinks. Now we will talk about PYEWACKET, as serviceable a little witch-and-witchcraft film as any I've seen lately.

Leah is an attractive young high school girl. Canadian, I think, as the film was made in Canada. She's turned Goth since the death of her father, an event which hit both Leah and her mother really hard as there were just the three of them and they seem to have been a tight-knit unit.

Or, she may have been a Goth before this tragic event but since it, she's immersed herself in Goth culture and customs a lot more. She says it provides her with comfort and makes her feel better. Her mother has a problem with this, screaming at her that drawing pentagrams on her person isn't the answer to her problems, or words to that effect. 'What is this, a pentagram? You wanna be a Manson chick or something?'

Siblings may have been able to share the burden of Mom's misery and growing depression and diffuse it a little. As it is, the whole thing falls to Leah, and the relationship between Mom and daughter has never been worse. Finally, the Mom, who's very young-looking and resembles the singer Anastacia a bit, drops a bombshell that devastates Leah.

They're moving house, moving far away, at least an hour's drive, from the house they lived in with Dad. 'Every day here is like Dad's funeral all over again. Moving on is impossible with you,' Mom tells Leah. 'Everytime I look at you, I see your father's face. Sometimes I wish that I could just wipe it off.' Harsh words, Mom. And will moving house change the fact that Leah looks like her Dad...?

Leah is gutted anyway. She has friends she doesn't want to leave behind, one of whom, Aaron, is turning out to be more than just a friend. Mom says she needn't change schools till

the new term, but it's not much of a consolation. Especially as Mom will be driving Leah to and from her old school every day just like she's her jailer or something.

The house is a gorgeous wooden cabin-on-the-edge-of-the-woods-type of structure. The upstairs bedroom window is the kind of window you expect to see an evil face looking out at you from and then, when you look again, the face is mysteriously gone. I love it, lol.

Almost the first thing that Leah does when she gets to the new house is to run off into the spooky woods. In their bleak, murky depths, she uses an old book of the occult to make a spell summoning up the dark spirit Pyewacket to come and kill her Mom.

Yes, I know, it's a bit extreme, isn't it? They haven't been getting along lately but that's entirely down to the bereavement and also to the fact that mothers and teenage daughters do fight. Frequently. Long and loud, in pointless arguments that go round and round in circles until everyone involved wants to shoot themselves just to put an end to it.

What do they argue about? About everything from unfinished homework to unsuitable boys to black nail polish and exactly how much lipstick constitutes tartiness on a teenage girl's lips. It's all perfectly normal behaviour.

It comes with the territory of being a teenager with a natural tendency towards rebellion against authority, but also that of being a parent who's terrified that things are changing and they can never again be the way they were before. We all go through it, from both sides of the fence.

It's painful as hell but a natural part of life. Can you fast-forward through it? Absolutely not, heh-heh-heh. You have to live through every irritating, agonising moment or else you haven't properly paid your dues, either as a teenager or the parent of a teenager. And anyone who tells you that their teenage son or daughter is an 'angel' is lying. Or on really strong drugs, lol.

But the balance of Leah's mind is possibly unbalanced, plus maybe the house itself is working on her. Either way, one cut wrist, some shocking arboreal abuse and a whole lotta chanting later, and the die is well and truly cast, along with the spell.

There's no going back now. Leah is the bridge by which the evil spirit of Pyewacket crosses over into this world. Everything that happens from now on is Leah's fault, pretty much, including the super-creepy stuff that occurs with her pretty Goth friend Janice. You can guarantee one thing, anyway. She'll be sorry she ever heard the name Pyewacket...

The film reminds me of that other brilliant Goth culture cinematic offering, THE CRAFT (Remember light as a feather, stiff as a board?) with Fairuza Balk and her chums kissing the Goddess Ironica for an hour, hour-and-a-half (Lisa Simpson to Milhouse Van Houten in THE SIMPSONS!).

Also, fans of the 'Nineties/'Noughties Finnish love metal band HIM, fronted by heart-throb Ville Valo, will be thrilled to see one of their old posters adorning Leah's wall. And not just in passing, either. They get no less than a full-screen close-up. Methinks the director is a fan, or even a pal...! Here, any chance of an autograph, mate? I'm totally asking for a friend...

Key talent:

Laurie Holden (The Walking Dead, The Mist)
Nicole Munoz (Once Upon A Time, Hemlock Grove)
Chloe Rose (Hellions)
James McGowan (Suicide Squad)
Adam MacDonald (Director, Backcountry)
Lee Malia (Composer, guitarist with Bring Me The Horizon)
Jonathan Bronfman (Producer, The Void, The Witch)

PYEWACKET is released on Digital HD 16th April and DVD on 23rd April 2018 from Signature Entertainment.

Signature Entertainment:

Launched in 2011, Signature Entertainment is one of the leading names in UK film distribution. The team combines a wealth of film expertise with a fresh commercial outlook, delivering diverse quality entertainment to a broad audience in cinemas and at home. Signature has released over 600 titles into the UK market since inception, leading the way with innovative, bold ways of releasing and quality productions. Signature’s recent releases include The Exception starring Lily James and Christopher Plummer Jungle starring Daniel Radcliffe and big-budget sci-fi sequel Beyond Skyline. Their impressive upcoming slate includes Sylvester Stallone's Escape Plan 2 and Charlie Hunnam's Papillon.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

FABULOUS FILMS PRESENTS: DOCTOR FAUSTUS: THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL FOR A WOMAN. (1968) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-03-25T15:07:00.000+01:00

DOCTOR FAUSTUS. (1968) BASED ON THE PLAY BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. DIRECTED BY RICHARD BURTON AND NEVILL COGHILL. STARRING RICHARD BURTON, ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND MEMBERS OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY DRAMATIC SOCIETY.

'Released in 1968, the film is a permanent record of a 1966 theatrical performance of DOCTOR FAUSTUS that Burton and Taylor starred in. Neither actors were paid for their performances. Instead, all the money earned went towards building a studio-theatre extension at Oxford University now known as the Burton-Taylor rooms. After the success of the production, which played to a full house every night, Burton expressed an interest in turning it into a film. A year later, the film version was released, co-directed by Burton and Nevill Coghill.'

'Meet me in my study at midnight and there resolve me of thy Master's mind.'

'There is no chief but Beelzebub to whom Faustus doth dedicate himself.'

'With Mephistopheles beside thee, what God can hurt thee, Faustus?'

Now, if you don't feel terribly cultured- and cultural- after reading this review, there's no hope for you, lol. As you can see from the wee blurb of promotional material above, it was something of a personal passion project for Richard Burton.

He was one of the truly fine actors of his day, with such a terrific voice that he was often called upon to narrate stuff for films as well, for example, in the movie ZULU, starring Michael Caine and Stanley Baker.

The film is based on the play by Christopher Marlowe, the English playwright who was both a contemporary of and an important influence on good old Willie Shakespeare, and who was dead at twenty-nine after being stabbed through the forehead in a brawl. Talk about live fast, die young and leave a slightly disfigured corpse. The play's full title is THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS and most of us have at least heard of its premise.

It's about the titular Doctor Faustus of Wittenberg, Germany, who famously made a deal with the Devil to 'live deliciously' (Black Philip, THE WITCH) for twenty-four years, after which time the Devil would drag his sorry ass, and his condemned soul, down to Hell for all Eternity.

Hmmm. Twenty-four years of living it up versus an Eternity in Hell? I personally wouldn't do it. It's not worth it. The lapsed Catholic in me shudders at the very thought, but Doctor Faustus is burning with a desire to know and experience all things while he lives. It doesn't seem like such a hard bargain to him, at least not at first. We'll see how he feels when it comes time to pay the Piper, as it inevitably will.

I was aided in my study of the film by an adorable little battered copy of the play itself, a copy that was published in 1947 and which smells old, old and chock-full of history. The writing is very Shakespearean-sounding and so it was handy to have the actual words written down in front of me, as Shakespeare and his contemporaries all used quite old-fashioned (old-fashioned to us, not to them!), high-faluting language at times. However, zounds, gadzooks and other similar olde-timey words appear nowhere in the text, lol.

Anyway, it is in rooms gorgeously decorated with ancient astrolabes and old tomes and walls lavishly encrusted with skulls that Faustus first summons Mephistopheles, Lucifer's minister. Mephistopheles, in the form of a young bald monk in a friar's robe, tells him that, indeed, he can have anything he wants in the world in exchange for his soul.

Grand, says Faustus, let's get on with it so! Not so fast, chides Mephistopheles. This has all got to be nice and legal-like, for my Master's peace of mind. You've got to sign this pact with

him in your own blood, and it's got to be a deed of gift made out to my Master. Faustus merrily does as he's asked, with never a thought for his immortal soul. 'Faustus gives to thee his soul.'

The first thing he does after he's signed the deed is to tell Lucifer's minister that he doesn't believe in Hell. 'First, I will question thee about Hell. Where is this place that men call Hell?' He laughs when Mephistopheles tells him that Hell is 'under the Heavens.' He replies: 'There is no Hell.' In the fullness of time, of course, he might think differently.

We can clearly see poor Faustus setting himself up for the fall of all time, but we're powerless to prevent him from so doing. He goes into this enterprise with his eyes wide open, and he must presumably come out of it the same way.

The pact with the Devil gives him back his youth and gives him the Queen of Love, played by Elizabeth Taylor in a non-talking role, to do with as he wishes. As Faustus is a man first and a doctor of learning second, you can be sure that he knows exactly what to do when he finds the most beautiful woman in the world in his arms.

Elizabeth Taylor, in a variety of fabulous costumes and elaborate hairstyles, also plays Helen of Greece, the face that launched a thousand ships, the beautiful paramour of Alexander the Great and, at the end, the Queen of Hell, but she only opens her mouth once, to laugh nastily at poor Faustus as she bears him away to fulfil his awful Destiny which none can now alter.

Still, we are very much aware of her smoky, sultry, smouldering presence throughout the film. She is the ultimate prize for the befuddled Doctor Faustus, who seemingly thinks she's worth going to Hell for. Maybe she is, we don't know.

My God though, but she had the most bewitching eyes! They are emphasised to the max here, as are her lovely bosoms, which I rather suspect are the main reason Faustus wants to sell his soul for her. Never underestimate the effect of a nice pair of knockers on a man.

Time passes, and Faustus gains knowledge beyond his wildest dreams and gets to impress his friends, his students at the University and even his Emperor with the flashy parlour tricks he can now perform with Mephistopheles at his beck-and-call.

He gets to meet and question the Seven Deadly Sins in person and causes havoc with his mischief and powers of invisibility during An Audience With His Holiness The Pope. (Father Dougal in clerical sitcom FATHER TED: 'An Audience With Lily Savage, that was good as well...!')

Anyway, the twenty-four years pass in a heartbeat. When the end is near, Faustus pleads with time to stand still, so that the dreaded hour of his undoing may never come. But time and tide wait for no man, as you will know perfectly well if you've ever run for a bus that disappears over the horizon just as you reach the stop, puffing like a pair of bellows and cursing like a f**king docker.

Will Faustus be saved from his own folly at the eleventh hour, or will the Devil come to claim his own? If you've seen this marvellous film or read the play, you'll know, of course. The play is surprisingly short, a mere forty-five small pages long, so I read it all in one sitting last night, while keeping an eye on the IRELAND'S GOT TALENT final with my kids, lol. It's not as hard to read as I was expecting either, which was a relief.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS is out now on DVD from FABULOUS FILMS LTD/FREMANTLE MEDIA ENTERPRISES. It's a visually gorgeous film with fantastic costumes and settings. And if you have a copy of the play to hand, you'll be able to follow the dialogue down to the last apostrophe. If you don't have the play, don't worry. It won't make a blind bit of difference. Just relax and watch the film.

There's not many horror fans who wouldn't be attracted to a film in which a man sells his soul to The Man Downstairs, so I say go for it. Watch this and shiver a little at Faustus's utter blind naivety in thinking that he can gain the whole world yet not lose his soul in return...

The pact: 'On these conditions following. First, that Faustus may be a spirit in form and substance. Secondly, that Mephistopheles shall be his servant, and at his command. Thirdly, that Mephistopheles shall do for him, and bring him whatsoever he desires. Fourthly, that he shall be in his chamber or house invisible. Lastly, that he shall appear to the said John Faustus, at all times, in what shape or form soever he please.

I, John Faustus of Wittenberg, Doctor, by these presents, do give both body and soul to Lucifer prince of the east, and his minister Mephistopheles: and furthermore grant unto them, twenty-four years being expired, the articles above written inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood or goods, into their habitation wheresoever. By me, JOHN FAUSTUS.'

Well, it's all there in black and white...

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

FEVER. (2017) A POST-APOCALYPTIC HORROR-THRILLER REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-03-24T15:17:00.000+00:00

FEVER. (2017) DIRECTED, WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY HENRIK FALLER. STARRING TOM MILLER, ANYA KURZUN, JULIEN CAPLAN AND JULIEN MICHEL. HAIR AND MAKE-UP BY SARAH MILES. MUSIC BY JOHANNES BIRLINGER.

SIGNAL ONE ENTERTAINMENT AND INTENSE DISTRIBUTION ARE EXCITED TO BRING FRIGHTFEST HIT 'FEVER,' AKA 'MOUNTAIN FEVER,' TO UK AUDIENCES!

'Believe it or not, this flu kills.'

I was not impressed at having to watch a film with a ton of snow in it, just weeks after the Big Irish Snow-In of 2018. Lucky for FEVER that it's a well-made, watchable horror-thriller that deals with a home invasion/siege during an outbreak of a fatal flu virus that has killed off half of Europe. Two themes for the price of one here, so. I like it, stupid annoying snow notwithstanding. Actually, I love it. It's as gritty as hell and has pretty much everything you want in a post-Apocalyptic movie.

Set in the French Alps (it was actually filmed in France), it's the story of a really wussy English guy called Jacques (we'll call him Jack) who, during this outbreak, manages to make it to his parents' house in a picturesque little Alpine village, only to find that his parents have gone.

They've left a note saying they're going to try to get to Lyons, where apparently there's some kind of survivors' camp, but the implication is strong that they've died en route of the virus. Jack is therefore alone in the deserted house, alone except for a cute, scraggly-looking one-eyed ginger tabby cat whom I understand has since sadly passed away, the poor moggy. But he lives on in this film, and that's probably more than most felines can say.

Jack is not equipped to deal with catastrophic, post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world situations like this one. Like he screams to his co-star halfway through the film: 'I work in IT. I fix computers!' He seems barely to be able to function away from his laptop, lol. Typical techie nerd. Knows everything about computers and the Internet but can't rub two stones together to make a fire. What he needs is to take a course in MCGYVER 101. That'll sort him out right nice.

Anyway, he's not long in his depressingly empty house, snow falling silently all around, when he encounters Kara, a desperate Ukrainian woman on the run from the virus, and maybe from something else as well. She's got a gun and she uses it to commandeer Jack's tinned food and his fire and, in general, his house. Jack hasn't much of a choice but to comply.

Well, he's about twice Kara's size so technically he could overpower her in a heartbeat, relieve her of the shooter and boot her out of his house but, like I told you, he's a big wuss, his fingers more used to flying over the keys on his computer that manhandling a woman. He decides to let Kara stay, as if he has any choice in the matter. Her balls are decidedly bigger than his, I fear.

The situation worsens when two men, one of whom is coughing up yucky blood and has obviously caught the deadly flu virus, break into the house. They are looking, not for food or random spoils, but for the beautiful blonde Kara in particular. She's got something of theirs and they're not prepared to leave without it...

The terrified Jack and Kara, allies now against the greater foe, barricade themselves into one of the rooms while Michel and Arnaud, the two brothers, wait for them outside. It's a bit like PANIC ROOM in this sense. Jack is going out of his mind with fear and anger. Who are these men, he demands of the close-mouthed Kara, and what the fuck do you have of theirs? Give it back, woman, whatever it is! The man talks sense. I'd do what he says.

Meanwhile, Kara has a horrible bloody festering wound on her leg that needs to be cauterised with a blade that's been dipped in fire. It's unlikely that the sissy Jack will be equal to the task so she's got to grit her teeth and get on with it herself. If you don't mind my saying, Kara dear, that's gonna hurt something powerful. But it's gotta be done, or else that leg gon' get maggoty. Is there any whiskey in the house at all...?

There are some powerful images in the film that will stick in your head for a while. Jack in his huge hooded coat and a gas-mask, blundering about like some mad bespectacled Yeti in

the snow. The riderless horse cantering through the clearly deserted village. Where have all the villagers gone?

There's also Her Majesty the Queen of England's face going up in flames as the survivors burn money to keep warm. Isn't that treason or something, burning legal tender? I certainly hope that they make a note to turn themselves in to the local authorities when the pandemic is over, tsk tsk. Deadly outbreak or no deadly outbreak, the laws must still be upheld. Humph.

A rather chilling (excuse the pun) piano score is a great aid to the atmosphere here. Will Jack and Kara ever get out of the room, never mind the house, alive? Is there really a survivors' camp in Lyons and, as Kara says to Jack, what if all this ends sometime? Well, all things have to end sometime, even pandemics. But what kind of world, if any, will be left when it does? And what will its inhabitants be like?

I must say, this film only reinforces my long-held notion that I'd be completely unable to cope with any kind of pesky post-Apocalyptic future. I'd hate having to wear the same clothes for weeks on end while eating sweetcorn straight from the tin (if I'm lucky) and pooping in the woods like a bear.

No social media (dear Jesus!), no Netflix, no iTunes and no Facebook. No lattes or mocha lattes, no bread, milk and bog roll and positively no reception on the old Nokia. No texting or phoning? Might as well hang myself from the nearest tree straightaway and be done with it.

My best bet would be to latch on to some guy and play the helpless female until he was forced to drag me along with him to a place of safety. Would I repay his kindness with sexual favours? Maybe, maybe. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do.

And we'll almost certainly need each other to re-populate the Earth after the virus has killed off everyone else, bless 'em. Hmm. I quite like the thought of this rough-and-ready fictional guy's scratchy, post-Apocalyptic growth of beard tickling my lily-white bosoms. Oooh, I wonder if he's solvent as well? What's that they say, girls? Every cloud has a silver lining...

'FEVER' is out on DVD on March 12^th 2018 and on iTunes on 30^th April 2018.

Below is a link to the ‘Fever’ trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_-qlqYlfb8

http://www.intenseproductions.co.uk

https://signaloneentertainment.com/

Background On Signal One Entertainment:

Launched in October 2015, Signal One Entertainment is a UK-based DVD and Blu-ray label dedicated to releasing exceptional films in high quality editions. Working with major studios, such as MGM and Twentieth-Century Fox, we select a range of classic, cult and often overlooked films from a variety of genres and eras in order to give them the home video treatment they richly deserve.

Extras:

Rare archival extras, such as on-set footage and on-stage discussions, as well as newly-produced features, such as audio commentaries and on-camera interviews, complement our expertly-encoded presentations, while our on-pack designs are always based on striking original artwork.

Accessibility:

Subtitles for the hard-of-hearing are included on each release.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

BREATHE. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-03-11T16:00:00.000+00:00

BREATHE. (2017) BASED ON TRUE EVENTS. DIRECTED BY ANDY SERKIS. PRODUCED BY JONATHAN CAVENDISH. STARRING ANDREW GARFIELD, CLAIRE FOY, TOM HOLLANDER, JONATHAN HYDE, STEPHEN MANGAN, DIANA RIGG AND HUGH BONNEVILLE.

'Based on the true story of producer Jonathan Cavendish's own parents, BREATHE is an inspirational and highly emotional celebration of bravery and human possibility, a love story about living every breath as though it's your last.'

Robin: 'God's a joke.'

Paddy: 'No, God's a joker. Look at the pig's mickey he's made out of you and me.'

This one was a bit close to home for me, as a friend of mine was diagnosed recently with Motor Neurone Disease. Not the exact same as polio, I know, but similar in that it will cause my friend to gradually lose the use of his limbs. The last time I saw him- it will be the last time I see him- he had already started using a walker to assist him to stand unaided and his arms and shoulders were weakening also.

Now he's gone back to his own country on the other side of the world to be with his family and live out what remains of his life. I thought about him during this film. It made me sad. And I was only the one watching it. Imagine what it must have been like to live through it.

Anyway, let's get to the storyline here. Robin and Diana are only young when they meet during a cricket match on a sunny English green in the late 'Fifties. Robin is enchanted by the sight of Diana, sitting there in her flowery dress and bright red lipstick. She agrees to marry Robin, much to the surprise of their friends, amongst whom Diana was deemed a great catch.

The loved-up, plummy-voiced pair of poshos high-tail it off to Africa- Kenya, to be precise, where Robin is a broker of tea. While there, Diana tells Robin that they're to become parents. 'It's a bit of a bugger, actually,' she enunciates in clipped British tones as she breaks the news. Robin, in an equally low-key British fashion, seems jolly thrilled at the idea. But there's more than just a baby coming their way...

While in Africa, Robin starts to feel unwell and is rushed to hospital. It isn't long before a diagnosis of polio is returned. I hadn't a clue that you could contract it through droplets in the air. That was terrifying to hear. It's a horrible disease that attacks the nerves of the spinal cord and leaves the patient paralysed from the neck down.

Poor Diana! She asks the consultant in her crisp, no-nonsense tones how long they can expect Robin to be like this. Um, forever, is the answer. The words 'irreversible,' 'permanent damage' and 'months to live' get bandied round. Robin goes into a decline- hardly surprising- and decides he'd be better off dead. Diana the Warrior, however, won't hear of such defeatism.

They return to England where Robin will be under the care of the pessimistic Doctor Entwhistle. He's a firm believer in disabled people accepting their fate swiftly and living out their short, miserable lives as disabled people. In other words, they shouldn't expect that they have the right to the same quality of life as fully-abled people.

It's not that he's cruel, I believe. It's more that he doesn't think outside the box, the box in which he expects disabled people to dwell without any nonsense about getting out and about and having fun and a life like so-called 'normal' people.

Diana brings Robin home from the hospital, at his request, to live with her and their baby son Jonathan in the fabulous old country house she's bought for a cool seven grand. Robin's bed has a ventilator attached, the ventilator which will have to 'breathe' for him for the rest of his life. If it's ever unplugged, he'll die painfully within a few minutes. The scene where the dog accidentally unplugs him during a game with the baby Jonathan is a near miss...

Thanks to Diana's determination, hard work and willingness to do whatever it takes to keep Robin alive and by her side, Robin goes on living. He far exceeds Dr. Entwhistle's gloomy predictions that 'he'll be dead in two weeks' if he leaves the hospital. Not only does Robin leave the hospital, he does plenty of other worthwhile things too.

Thanks to an inventor/Oxford professor friend (of all the luck!) of theirs, Teddy Hall, Robin gets to go out and about in a custom-made wheelchair with a ventilator attached. He flies to Spain in his chair, with Diana and Jonathan in tow, for a holiday that turns into a big fiesta with all the locals on the side of a hill in the dying light of a Spanish evening. They must have had some wonderful memories of that time.

He and Diana also fly to Germany with their doctor friend Clement Aitken to speak at a conference about disability. 'Why do you keep your disabled people in prisons?' Robin asks the attendees, after seeing the way patients are treated in a hospital they visit.

Ironically, it's run by a doctor who's famous for his work with the disabled. He's got all the mod cons, but somewhere along the way, the heart and soul dropped out of the operation.

In tandem with Doctor Aitken, Robin and Teddy go into production together, making the wheelchairs with ventilators attached that will allow people like Robin more freedom of movement. That will allow them to have a life, more importantly. They're a huge success.

Then one day, Diana finds her beloved Robin choking on his own blood. It'll happen a lot from now on, the doctor explains. It's something to do with Robin's having been on the old ventilator for such a long time. About two decades, at least.

Robin reluctantly comes to the conclusion that it might be time for him to let go of the tight hold on his life he's had for such a long time. But will Diana, the Warrior, the tenacious little fighter, agree with her beloved hubby on this one...?

I'm glad that Robin and Diana had such a long, productive and happy time together, but they had advantages that some other disabled people/couples may not have had. They had the money to buy and maintain that fabulous old country mansion, for one thing, and then to buy wheelchairs and beds with ventilators attached. Not to mention money for travel.

They also had a fantastic network of support from friends and family who all rooted for Robin and Diana to succeed. They had Diana's funny and loving older twin brothers (if they weren't gay I'll eat my hat!), Bloggs and David Blacker.

They had Teddy the Inventor, Dr. Clement Aitken and a whole host of loving friends who came to their parties and crowded happily around Robin's wheelchair. He was the centre of all their celebrations.

The pair also had the benefit of education and intellect that enabled them to understand what they needed and to ask for it. They had easy access also to other educated, like-minded people, for example Teddy, their Oxford professor whose technological successes allowed Robin to live his life with more freedom than he would otherwise have had.

I wonder if an old man without family, living in a tenement at that time with no-one to care about him or for him, would fare so well if he were to be struck down by the dreaded polio. He'd most likely have been stuck in a state home and left there to rot.

This angle I've put forward here reminds me of something I said when I reviewed LIFE, ANIMATED last year. It's the story of a young autistic man who learned to communicate through the medium of Disney films.

His family were quite obviously wealthy and they did marvellous things for the lad, like helping him to find a lovely safe place where he could live independently but still have help and assistance nearby if he needed it.

I was the wicked witch at the party and I remarked that you can do all kinds of things for a disadvantaged family member if you have the cash. I stand by that, having an autistic son myself and no funds to do the things for him which I'd like to do.

My cynicism shouldn't stop you from enjoying BREATHE, however. It's still a story of the triumph of courage and determination over adversity, like Nando Parrado climbing out of the

Andes single-handed when his plane crashed there in the early 'Seventies.

Or Daniel Radcliffe finding his way alone out of the Amazonian jungle in that film where Daniel Radcliffe finds his way alone out of the Amazonian jungle. I think it was called 'THE BUS THAT COULDN'T SLOW DOWN.'

I've always admired that kind of true grit and tenacity. I like to hope I'd be as strong-willed myself if the circumstances called for it but we never know what we'd do until we're in the situation ourselves. Let's hope it never arises...

BREATHE is available to buy now on DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, BLU-RAY and DVD, courtesy of STX ENTERTAINMENT, a division of SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-03-08T20:37:00.000+00:00

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. DIRECTED BY LUCA GUADAGNINO. SCREENPLAY BY JAMES IVORY. BASED ON THE 2007 BOOK BY ANDRE ACIMAN.

STARRING TIMOTHEE CHALAMET, ARMIE HAMMER, MICHAEL STUHLBARG, AMIRA CASAR, ESTHER GARREL AND VICTOIRE DU BOIS.

'Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine.'

This is an absolutely gorgeous and compelling film. It kept me pretty much mesmerised for the whole two hours and twelve minutes of its duration, but there's much in it to make you uncomfortable as well.

And it all hinges around one issue, really, which is whether or not you think a lad of seventeen is still a child who needs protection from himself and others, or a mature adult who can think for himself and decide if he's ready for a full-blown sexual relationship. With another man. An older man, lol. Does that change things? Who knows? We'll have a look at the plot anyway, see what we make of it.

It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old teen Elio Perlman is spending a gloriously lazy summer in his rich family's villa in Italy. Isn't it well for some? He's a Jewish American-Italian lad who speaks both French and English in this film. Elio's Dad is a well-known and respected professor of Classics and Archaeology and the family, consisting of Elio, his sister, his Mum and his Dad, are all annoyingly multi-lingual.

There's a fabulous scene where Elio, his Dad and Oliver (of whom more in a minute) go on an archaeology trip to view an old statue from ancient times that's been found in the sea. The battered statue is just awe-inspiring. It could have come right out of Ancient Greece or Rome.

It made me think of Zeus and Hera and all the lads- and lasses!- up on Mount Olympus having a grand old time while we mere mortals scurried around frantically down here like ants, attempting to go about our daily business while the gods and goddesses snickered at the futility of our petty endeavours. Yeah, that's what they did. They was bitches.

While Dad potters about reading his books, drinking wine and studying his bits of old statuary, Mum drinks wine and sunbathes out in the fabulous grounds and the sister goes off somewhere bicycling with friends. She might be drinking wine as well for all we know. It certainly seems to be the done thing, anyway.

Elio swims in the villa's stunning pool (it's not a hotel-type pool, it's cut out of the rock in the garden!), reads books or transcribes the music he loves. He's a bit of a musical prodigy in fact. He also hangs out with his girlfriend Marzia, a girl who loves him maybe better than he deserves.

Into this idyllic, lazy hazy summer scene comes Oliver, a handsome Jewish American scholar and graduate student who's going to be the Professor's intern for the summer. Elio seems both fascinated and frightened by Oliver from the start.

They swim together, go on bike rides together around the beautiful sunny countryside, eat together out-of-doors (they all eat out-of-doors in the gorgeous garden all the time, out in the sunshine with their wine and fruit and crusty baguettes and their intellectual conversations) and share a bathroom. This is all done with the lads wearing only the minimum of clothing. Well, it's summer in sunny Italy after all...!

They each make moves which get rejected by the other. They each show interest in other people too. Oliver kisses a woman at a local disco. I doubt if Elio will ever forget the sight of his crush dancing- badly but passionately- to the music of The Psychedelic Furs, dancing as if no-one else exists in the world but him and the music. That's the way dancing should be, if you ask me. It's a very potent scene.

Elio has sex for the first time with the pretty Marzia, who's only too happy to have his full attention. But is Elio doing it because he loves her back? I doubt it somehow. His head is full of Oliver. He loves Oliver.

Is he trying to make the older man jealous? Or trying to take his mind off Oliver? It's probably a combination of all of these things. Either way, poor Marzia is shocked by how fast she's dumped after the sex. Welcome to the real world, love...!

When Elio and Oliver finally stop dancing around each other and get it together enough to

have sex with each other, they're happy but Elio looks so much like a teenage boy hugging his dad or older brother that it was a bit uncomfortable to watch.

Elio is so thin and baby-faced, with the mop of dark curly hair no European teenage boy in films is ever seen without. He wears little boyish boxer shorts and little boyish regular shorts and his little backpack looks like a wee schoolbag. Is he old enough for this kind of ultra-complicated sexual relationship?

Elio's Dad doesn't bat an eyelid when Elio talks openly about his sex life with Marzia. Maybe in Europe kids mature earlier. We already know that they're experienced connoisseurs of fine wines and suchlike by the time they leave school. The Perlmans certainly seem to have a liberal attitude towards sex and a policy of total openness when it comes to talking about it.

The thing is, I was sure that the parents, agreeable to the notion of their precious son having so-called normal sexual relations with a girl his own age, would freak out at the notion of an older man having designs on Elio. The opposite, in fact, turns out to be the case.

When I think of how uptight my own parents were on the subject of sex, it shocks me to see how liberal the Perlmans are. Mind you, there's no-one as uptight about sex as an elderly Irish Catholic parent. They certainly never invited an attractive older man into the house for the summer and then smiled benignly while he, um, had sex with their only son.

I was never told the facts of life by my parents. I picked up bits-and-pieces from the other girls in my school like everyone else my age, lol. School Biology classes were all but useless. The teacher would drone on endlessly about the sperm meeting the egg (where, exactly? At a bar in town?) but these dry facts didn't seem to have any application to our real lives and bodies.

Most of what I now know about sex I learned at University, lol. There's nothing like being away from home for the first time, away from the shackles of dreary familial rules and regulations, to help a girl learn about men and life. And learn I did, but I never stop making mistakes. That's the thing about education. You're never done learning.

Anyway, let's set aside the rights and wrongs of Oliver's and Elio's situation for a moment. As a summer romance movie, it captures wonderfully the magical nights and moments and experiences the newly-created couple share in those heady few months. Oliver dancing his heart out at the disco that night while Elio watches is a scene I'll never forget. It captures that feeling of an unforgettable summer moment perfectly.

The pain of the summer romance ending is caught here brilliantly as well. Everyone knows the pain of a first love ending, unless you're lucky enough to have married your first love and stayed with them ever since. But how many people are that sensible?

I remember walking by the river in the rain when my first real love affair came to a cruel end. It might sound poetic but, trust me, it wasn't. It was downright miserable, tears and raindrops melting together on my blotchy red face. The first cut is the deepest, isn't that what they say? They're not wrong.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is a glorious watch. I completely forgot my own problems while I was watching it, lol. If you want to be reminded of the bitter-sweet pain and longing and heady passion of a first love and the inevitable parting, watch this film.

With an 'Eighties- and classical- soundtrack (Psychedelic Furs with Love My Way, F.R. David singing Words Don't Come Easy) to accompany the angsty uncertainties and the magnificent certainties of the doomed summer romance, this film is a surefire winner. By the way, Elio my lad, peaches are for eating. Nothing else. You hear me, boy...?

Available to Buy and Keep 26^th February
Out on Blu-ray and DVD 5^th March
4 Oscar^® Nominations including Best Picture & Best Actor
4 BAFTA^® Nominations including Best Film & Best Actor

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME has been nominated for 4 Oscars^®including Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Chalamet), Best Adapted Screenplay (James Ivory) and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures - Original Song (Sufjan Stevens). In addition the film has received 4 BAFTA^®nominations including Best Film, Best Leading Actor (Chalamet), Best Screenplay - Adapted (James Ivory) and the David Lean Award for Direction (Luca Guadagnino).

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME has a running time of approx. 2 hours 12 minutes
and is rated 15.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

LIONSGATE PRESENTS: JIGSAW. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

2018-02-21T19:56:00.000+00:00

JIGSAW. (2017) DIRECTED BY THE SPIERIG BROTHERS. BASED ON 'SAW' AND CHARACTERS CREATED BY JAMES WAN AND LEIGH WHANNELL.

STARRING TOBIN BELL, MATT PASSMORE, HANNAH EMILY ANDERSON, CALLUM KEITH RENNIE, PAUL BRAUNSTEIN, MANDELA VAN PEEBLES, BRITTANY ALLEN AND LAURA VANDERVOORT.

I'd better come clean straightaway and admit that I don't dig the SAW films, even though they're the phenomenally successful brainchild of horror wunderkinder James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Yeah, you know those guys!

They could scribble down the bones of an idea for a horror film while sitting on the can and, by tea-time, it'd be the first film in a bazillion-selling series of horror flicks. Yeah, those guys can do no wrong. I've no quarrel with them. They're rich enough to have me killed anyway, lol. I'm not gonna badmouth those guys!

But I still don't like the SAW films. Frequently described as 'torture porn,' a label the two lads apparently dislike, they're just not my cup of tea and that's fine. Everyone knows I tend to prefer atmospheric old horror movies with haunted houses, loads of fog and a locked room at the top of the house where Mother sleeps, but she won't be any trouble at all and you won't even see her so you might as well just go ahead and rent the house for the summer and, when we return in the Fall, you totally won't have been killed by the house which, did we forget to mention, needs to suck the life out of unsuspecting human beings in order to survive... Oh, we forgot to mention that, did we? Well, you'll be dead anyway so tough shit, lol. That's my kind of film. I love a good old possession movie too.

That's not to say, however, that millions of people didn't watch and love the first few SAW films, which fans say are some of the best horror films ever made. There's a lot of love for the first film, in particular, the one which starred Cary Elwes in a locked room with a tape cassette and a little hacksaw which he was meant to use to hack off his own feet. I saw that film, excuse the pun, and even though I still personally hated it, I could see why other people liked it.

The films revolve around a man with terminal brain cancer called John Kramer, a man known to the police as 'the Jigsaw Killer,' who teaches his victims a healthy respect for life and living by trapping them in horrific life-or-death situations and seeing what they'll do. He lights the blue touch-paper and then stands well back...

I can see why this might work for a bit but JIGSAW is, like, the sixty-seventh film in the franchise and, excuse me for saying this, but I think the idea is a bit shop-soiled by now. Tired, worn out, played-out, all washed-up, finito. Eeek, is that the sound of angry SAW fans breaking down my front door? Well, good, because I'm in the mood to play a little game, my pretties. Are you...?

JIGSAW has no heart, no soul. It's as cold and clinical and baffling as an episode of some one-hour rubbish forensic drama on one of those television channels I refuse point-blank to shell out for. I was bored to death while watching it because the characters were so awful and I didn't know them or identify with them or care what happened to them in the slightest.

A quintet of really unpleasant people wake up trapped in a room somewhere. Yeah yeah. Getting free from the room and the traps it contains will involve confessing their sins, which are lame and piddly compared to the grim circumstances in which they currently find themselves. Except for the woman who shifted the blame for killing her baby onto her husband. That was nasty. She nasty. But she can think on her feet, I'll give her that.

Anyway, there's a detective called Halloran who's on the case, a forensic pathologist called Logan Nelson and his assistant, a madwoman called Eleanor who's a JIGSAW fangirl, if you can believe that. She's so into the crimes of the late John Kramer that she's built an exact replica of his gruesome torture chamber in a premises somewhere. By herself. Wiv 'er own lily-white hands. You find this believable? I did not. Not in the slightest. I'm afraid the acting is a bit below-par also, not looking at anyone in particular, tsk tsk.

The detective and the two pathologists are all suspicious of each other and are pointing fingers willy-nilly at each other. Meanwhile, the five people we don't really give a shit about are trying to- yawn- escape from the- yawn again- torture room and there's also some suggestion that the deceased serial killer John Kramer has come back from the dead.

As Tobin Bell is in the credits, I'd say there's every chance that this is true. Or is he merely a memory, a flashback, a faint shadow of his former self...? You'll have to wait and see, dear reader. I'm off now to change my identity and disappear into the general population so that the creators of SAW can't ever find me and lock me up in one of their torture rooms for slagging off this film. Mind you, I could probably escape no bother. After all, we've all seen the films...

THE GAME CONTINUES ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD 19TH FEBRUARY 2018 AND ON DVD, BLU-RAY, 4K, UV, STEELBOOK AND BOX-SET 26TH FEBRUARY. (LIONSGATE)

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

You can contact Sandra at:

https://www.facebook.com/SandraHarrisPureFilthPoetry

http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com

http://sexysandieblog.wordpress.com

http://serenaharker.wordpress.com

sandrasandraharris@gmail.com

https://twitter.com/SandraAuthor

Cinehouse

STUDIOCANAL'S VINTAGE WORLD CINEMA PRESENTS JACQUES RIVETTE'S BANNED FILM: THE NUN. (1966) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

SIMPLY MEDIA PRESENTS: LONGFORD. (2006) A SUPERB TV FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

The BFI To Release Paul Wright's Arcadia On DVD

THUNDERBIRD RELEASING PRESENTS: IT CAME FROM THE DESERT. (2017) A BRILLIANT CREATURE-FEATURE REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THUNDERBIRD RELEASING PRESENTS: THE LODGERS. (2017) A CLASSIC GHOST STORY REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

101 FILMS PRESENTS: JACKALS. (2017) A HOME-INVASION HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THE WOUND. (2017) A MAGNIFICENT SOUTH AFRICAN LGBT DRAMA REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

ACORN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS: ROMPER STOMPER: THE COMPLETE 6-PART TV SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

101 FILMS PRESENTS: BLACK BUTTERFLY. (2017) AN EXCELLENT THRILLER REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

SIMPLY MEDIA PRESENTS: A FOREIGN FIELD. (1993) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

LEFT FILMS PRESENTS: DOGGED. (2017) A FOLK HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

101 FILMS PRESENTS: JASON MOMOA IN 'BRAVEN.' (2018) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

DEMON. (2015) A POLISH HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

ON DVD 28 MAY 2018

SUNSET. (2018) AN AWARD-WINNING FILM ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

BRADFORD INTERNATIONAL FILM ASSOCIATES PRESENTS: LIES WE TELL. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

STUDIOCANAL PRESENTS: THE AVENGERS: TUNNEL OF FEAR. LOST EPISODE REDISCOVERED AFTER 55 YEARS! REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

SECOND RUN FILMS PRESENTS: NEON BULL. (2015) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THE CRITERION COLLECTION PRESENTS: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES. (1978) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

SIGNATURE ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS: WINGS OF EAGLES. (2016) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

PYEWACKET. (2017) A SUPERNATURAL HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

FABULOUS FILMS PRESENTS: DOCTOR FAUSTUS: THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL FOR A WOMAN. (1968) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

FEVER. (2017) A POST-APOCALYPTIC HORROR-THRILLER REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Background On Signal One Entertainment:

Extras:

Accessibility:

BREATHE. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Available to Buy and Keep 26th FebruaryOut on Blu-ray and DVD 5th March4 Oscar® Nominations including Best Picture & Best Actor4 BAFTA® Nominations including Best Film & Best Actor

LIONSGATE PRESENTS: JIGSAW. (2017) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Available to Buy and Keep 26^th February
Out on Blu-ray and DVD 5^th March
4 Oscar^® Nominations including Best Picture & Best Actor
4 BAFTA^® Nominations including Best Film & Best Actor