All User Reviews

I haven’t a scientific bone on my body, so am always amazed when I see documentaries like this that use some creations straight out of science fiction and microscopes showing us the tiniest of cells to explain just how our bodies function. Or don’t! This film tries to rudimentarily explain just what cancer is, how it spreads, how it destroys and how scientists around the world are trying to understand what it is and how it might be treated. This is obviously a bit of a “Janet and John” exercise, but I think that helps by not bamboozling us with Latin or technological terminology and just keepi…

Anna Mary Moses has spent much of her near eighty years living on the farm. Having married young, she reared ten children with her husband before a few dexterity issues in later life led her to try out painting. In many ways her works are a little like LS Lowry’s more industrial scenes. Not grand scale works of art, nor beautifully detailed still lives; these are more natural scenarios painted from what she can see of her rustic and seasonal surroundings or, quite poignantly, from what she can remember from her younger years. I must admit, I found the narration quite bland, the soundtrack dist…

Some movies entertain. Some movies enlighten. And some movies haunt you to the core in ways that are difficult to put into words. That description is most aptly applied to the latest offering from writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania, a fact-based dramatization that skillfully, sensitively yet effectively straddles the line between documentary and narrative features in a chillingly realistic story that can’t help but move viewers and leave an indelible impression on one’s soul. In January 2024, volunteer members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society stationed in Ramallah in the Occupied Territ…

69/100 "Lost Bullet" was a drama with action, "Lost Bullet 2" was wall-to-wall action and this one sort of balanced between the two. The story is simple but played very effectively with great characters and there's some good dramatic beats here. The action is great but not as over-the-top or as constant as the second film ..although the fireworks was a great gag. Exciting and quite tense, at times, you should enjoy this just fine if you don't expect it to be better than its predecessors. They didn't try to surpass themselves... they just gave us another fun movie. Enjoy with popcorn. --…

Why Korea, indeed? This documentary actually has precious little to do with that peninsula. It’s purpose seems to be to use the Soviet backed North Korea and a whole load of other tangential communist advances throughout Europe to rattle a sabre at Moscow’s imperialist agenda. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria might have been a relevant place to start had we stayed in that part of the world, but that was just the start of a global assessment of ambitious politicians from Stalin, Mussolini and, of course, Hitler. The archive is impressive but the narration is repetitious in the extreme. Joe …

A surreal, psychedelic fantasy production filmed in the style of a Japanese cartoon. The director was asked to make a film in the vein of *Jaws*, but he veers slightly away from that, instead weaving elements that unsettle his own daughter—old grandfather clocks, piano lessons, and mysterious elderly relatives—into the story, crafting something bizarre. The film is more amusing than terrifying, which can perhaps be attributed to the atmosphere of absurdity that carries through from start to finish. It also blends numerous Western elements very well, since pop culture is plentiful in the film.…

A strange film that demands steel-like patience to endure its bizarre science fiction story—a grotesque tale where the actors, as if undergoing a crisis, throw themselves around with frantic abandon in never-ending monologues. It features peculiar cinematography and is highly original.…

67/100 A P.I. is hired to find a missing girl but there's more going on than just that. This was a thoroughly solid drama with excellent acting and writing all around. What was really nice was the P.I. Moseby character. Rather than play the stereotypical hard drinking, morally questionable guy ready for conflict, Gene Hackman gave us a genuinely nice guy full of empathy and a need to do the right thing, regardless of where it goes. Even his discovery of his wife's infidelity is treated with maturity and constraint. Really a unique character and overall, a great character study. -- DrNos…

It’s not really a documentary this, more a collection of archive footage of some conflagrations that the courageous firefighters of the United States have had to deal with over the years. After some extensive training, these men have to battle everything from structural fires to chemical ones, on land and on sea, and always with the dangers of crashing masonry, unhelpful weather and toxic fumes to deal with. Some of the camerawork is quite impressive: clearly the cameraman wasn’t afraid to get up close to the flames either and in ten minutes we get a sense, from the comfort of our chair, of ju…

Quite why anyone thought it was necessary, or a good idea, to try to condense a few hundred years of American colonisation into twenty minutes is anyone’s guess, but by cannibalising a few other movies and including a rousing score this has a go. We start with some disillusioned British pilgrims arriving before deciding they wanted to burn their tea and establish their own congrefs. Despite the protestations of the indigenous population, these interlopers spread themselves and their religion in all directions and that works for a while til the confederacy decides it doesn’t care much for Abe’s…