Movie time!

I've fallen a bit behind with film reviews (such as they are) lately, and I've got a bit of a backlog, so without further ado, let's get on with them.

From Hell
I approached this film with caution, since I know it's been disowned by comic-book legend Alan Moore, who wrote the original graphic novel on which it is based. He was also the man behind The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta, and he has also disowned those two films too. So it's safe to say that this man believes film-makers are doing a disservice to his stories. That said, I am a sucker for Johnny Depp films, even ones in which he adopts dodgy Cockney accents. At least his Cockney wasn't as bad as Heather Graham's Irish attempt. Who knew we had travelled such a short distance from the days of Dick Van Dyke as the chimney sweep? I like Jack the Ripper tales, though, and as it happens I don't think this was too bad. Opium wasn't Depp's only addiction, and when he fell for Graham's whore, I couldn't help but wonder whether absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. This one gets a throat-slashing 62 points.

Hercules in New York
It would be unfair to score this since I really saw only 20 minutes or so over lunch the other day. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger's first movie role, and he is so fresh-faced that it's hard to believe that he had even started shaving. This is unmissable if you get the chance. So terribly bad that it's great. In the scenes I saw, Arnie, playing Greek god Hercules, demonstrated his all-round prowess to a New York athletics team, before going off for a horse-and-carriage ride through Central Park with the daughter of the team's coach. Meanwhile, a European brown bear escapes from the zoo and finds its way into the park, whereupon Arnie wrestles and boxes the beats to the ground, thankfully subduing rather than killing it (not like that cunt from Metallica, who goes shooting bears in Russia for fun). The great thing about the bear scene, which takes place after dinner one autumn evening, is that it moves from dead-of-night-darkness to midday daylight. Fucking insane! This fish-out-of-water tale is really the forerunner of Borat, but 30 years earlier. Not scored.

Historias Mínimas (Minimal Stories)
From the maker of Bombón El Perro comes another wonderful little flick. I enjoyed this much more than Bombón because I wasn't expecting danger at every turn. It's a story of three folk from the same small Patagonian town heading to the city, some 200 miles away, for various reasons. There's barely a word more suitable for this than just "delightful". In the best possible way. Not much happens really for us as viewers; the journey here is all about the characters. I can't say fairer than 75 for this one.

Night Watch
This is currently in rotation on Film 4 in the UK, so if vampires are your thing, why not check it out? It's a Russian movie, apparently the first in a trilogy, and it was actually quite enjoyable. Not wholly original, though, since it clearly draws a lot of influence from both the Blade and Highlander franchises. What I will say, though, is that it is über-fucking-stylish. Also, I watch quite a lot of subtitled movies, and this one absolutely takes the cake for its subtitling. The humble text at the bottom of the screen almost becomes a character in its own right: coloured red it shifts in the water like the blood flowing from a child's nose; when a computer geek talks, the letters appear on screen one word at a time, as though being typed; when someone shouts, the words grow to half the size of the screen; when a character gasps, the words shimmer and flutter. They also sit on a plane somewhere within the action, so a person might walk past and wipe the words away as they move. The subtitling in this movie is great. And the movie's okay, too. A blood-sucking 64 out of 100.