Film

Kirikou is a French animated film with a difference. It is set in pre-colonial tribal Africa, all its characters are black and in keeping with the traditional garb of the region, the women are mostly topless and the kids are mostly nekkid. While these are the attributes that immediately hit viewers who have been brought up on a diet of politically-correct-think-of-the-children works, they quickly shift into the background.

A samurai flick that attempts to provide a realistic portrayal of life as a lowly member of the Samurai class in feudal Japan while retaining the action that the audience looks forward to in such movies. Twilight Samurai weaves action, intrigue, suspense and romance into an excellent tapestry which is both striking and moving at the same time. But it could have been a lot better if some more care had been taken with it. This is especially true of the soundtrack which is woeful thanks to artificial keyboard strings etc.

A Welsh director helming an Indonesian martial arts flick. If that isn't tell you that the product is going to be weird and off the beaten track, then please read on.

Insomnia is a Christopher Nolan film starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank. The film is effectively a psychological suspense murder thriller where the good guy has to - through a series of circumstance - work with the bad guy. Pacino and Williams are top notch and Swank is a little overeager. The plot is, even if a little contrived, intriguing, and the dialogue delivery well above par.

John Carter is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' (of Tarzan fame) 1917 novel, A Princess of Mars. I haven't read the book. However, keeping the age of the story in mind, this movie is highly entertaining, if very Hollywood-sy. The story is a nice blend of sci-fi and fantasy with a decent plot and a nice twist at the end. The action is mostly good, the humour mostly funny and the clichés mostly bearable. But the acting could have been better.

A (probably unacknowledged) remake of A Walk to Remember starring that fell whore Mandy Moore (no offence to Mandy, but I couldn't help but rhyme), A Millionaire's First Love is pretty dire. Why I bothered to start watching it or subsequently sit through its entirety, I will never know. But I do know that I cringed on occasions greater than one and less than 500.

Mel Gibson is an unnamed driver driving a getaway car full of money and a dying (and soon dead) accomplice being chased by the police very near the Mexican border. Rather than being caught on US soil, he intentionally crashes through a border fence into Mexico. The cops on the other side (who were also following along) while initially happy to hand over the two American nationals back, change their minds upon seeing the money. They decide to keep it for themselves and hush Gibson up by imprisoning him in 'El Pueblito', a notorious prison controlled by criminals.

A conspiracy thriller starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Max von Sydow, Three Days of the Condor is a decent yarn for 1975. The performances are tight with special mention to von Sydow's sterling portrayal of the sinister gentleman assassin. Sydney Pollack's direction ensures that the movie works even with a weak premise. It is in many ways similar to Will Smith's Enemy of the State.