george_a_romero Reviews

Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler (2009)

Brilliant!

[10/10 · 25 July 2010]

The colourful cast of Death Note (2006) reunite for this inspired manga/anime adaptation. It is a riveting sizzler of a movie made with nerve-jangling Japanese brutality. Kaiji is a down and out thirty-year-old blue-collar loser who has no luck in life. He is bored of his dead-end job at the hypermarket, irritated that pompous and prosperous people drive around in Mercedes and depressed that he never has enough dough to rise above his comatose lifestyle. One day, a debt collector arrives at his flat to offer him the chance to change his empty existence: go on a cruise with other down and outs, gamble, and repay his debts in the ultimate game of deception. If you win, you start your life afresh, if you lose, well, you will never want to fool around with rock-paper-scissors again because Brave Men Road is the only way to escape 15-years of forced underground slave labour.

Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler (2009) examines the languor of Japanese consumer culture: work, devour, and squander your verve in an everlasting cycle of mass suppression that upholds the lower-class/upper-class divide. This regimented Metropolis style nightmare comes to fruition in the symbolic utopian underground kingdom that blue-collar slave workers must construct for aristocratic city-dwellers. The languid masses march in union, take showers together and buy beer and munchies with their meagre pay to nullify and distract themselves from their authoritarianism. The moral at the heart of Kaiji is simple: if you want to achieve your dreams in this hum/drum existence, you have to wake up, fight, and live recklessly. Would you be willing to walk across an electrified beam between two skyscrapers to pay off your debts while superficial business executives watch you on television screens? If you want to rise above your own worthless comatose lifestyle, why not take up the challenge, you could win lots of money because that is what Brave Men Road is all about, or is it… Verdict: This riveting Battle Royale intoned masterpiece is made with nail-biting suspense, brain-teasing intelligence and mind-blowing wit:-

Profound Desires of the Gods (1968)

deftly captures the alchemy of the natural world.

[10/10 · 16 June 2010]

Trying to acknowledge the enigma of Japanese Cinema, outside the paddock of Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai) and Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), is a daunting yet arousing act. With Profound Desires of the Gods (1968), Shõhei Imamura redefined the rigorous notions of 'Japaneseness'. Because the Futori family retain the traditional belief that their island of Kurage was created through the sexual union of a brother god and sister goddess, the other more progressive islanders vilify them. When a Tokyo engineer arrives to supervise the creation of a new well, he unearths the mystifying extremism of the Noro (shaman). With Profound Desires, Imamura examines the dogma of Japanese mythology and investigates the disparaging effect of modernity and the ruinous consequence of Coca-Cola. It is a sizzling masterwork filled with Buñuelian surrealism, which deftly captures the alchemy of the natural world.

Halloween (2007)

A mess!!!!!!!!

[1/10 · 22 June 2008]

Where's the Zero out of 10????? Rob Zombies Halloween 07' is a noisy headache of a film filled with insecure intellectual psychobabble that tries to explain Micheal Myers mental condition (those video inserts were cheesy).

It totally strips away the magic of John Carpenters original, like using paint remover on a beautiful painting. Malcom McDowell is totally miscast as Loomis, Rob Zombie has no zest or flare nor delicacy as a director, keeps all the action on the surface, the script is awfully hammy, like it was written in a few days and zombie celebrates mindless violence.

Show Me Love (1998)

***** totally as real as films can get

[10/10 · 9 June 2000]

i saw this film yesterday that goes by the title of SHOW ME LOVE in the UK, i dont think the BBFC could use the title FUCKING AMAL. But i saw it at the local film theatre.

I was totally amazed by how good this film was. Im a male, and this film about female suject matter really touched me. WE NEED MORE FILM LIKE THIS.

The portrayal of ELIN was excellent, I even could relate to the character and how hard it is to live life. I must say that it would be great for films like this to be commercially viable in the UK. I was very lucky to catch this film becasue it was a one day special at this "ART HOUSE" cinema.

its not very normal in the UK to get a film with female potagonists who you can relate too.

THE ENDING WAS GOOD TO BECAUSE it keeped you wondering for like 3 hours what would happen next and you make storys for them and what it was like when they went back school.

The entrapment scene in the toilet was brilliantly edited. The way they are traped by their true feeling and the door is a symbol of traped souls "the door is there but you have to open it".

THIS IS TRUE Social REALISM at its best. cant rate it high enough!