Freedom Beckons! - ***½

Sleep deep in liberty's knapsack

1948, USA, Black & White, 97 minutes

Written and directed by Kurt K Harthorn

In recent years the spate of mockumentaries and sarcastic types like Michael Moore have warped the propaganda documentary genre. This unfairly detracts from the glory that is 1948's Freedom Beckons! Filmed immediately before the Cold War really began it is a breathlessly excited journey through the newly liberated states of Europe. Do we care if the producers were being ironic? No!

Watch out for – The Narrator trying to trade a box of Lucky Strikes for more film

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Presence of Mynd - ***½

Existence in the blink of a high

1984, Italy, Colour, 157 minutes

Directed by Serito Pantoni. Written by Mantino Motto

Starring Humberto Ilago, Sabina Frida, Nunzio Drahma, Takahito Azuma

The earth is merely the hallucinations of a wizard high on a drug called Mynd. Parts of the world begin to disappear when the wizard's parents send him to a detox centre. It's up to a rag-tag group of heroes (a big game hunter, a samurai, a Colombian drug lord, and a beat poet) to travel out of the wizard's mind to his world and try to keep him high. Sadly the genre of sorcery-related metaphysical adventure never caught on outside of the town halls of Sicily, the only place Pantoni's films have ever screened.

Watch out for – the scene where our heroes are shoved into a waiting room with other hallucinations of detoxing Mynd addicts.

Quote – “I thought we were special, but there's nothing special about drugs. Other than the ability to imagine entire worlds and civilisations.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Thoroughly Gripping – ***½

LOL!!

2007, USA , Colour, 76 minutes

Directed by Glorious. B. Visage (afraid to use real name for fear or retaliation)

Written by Johnny Roffle, I. Nic Staines (see above)

Ever read publicity material for a film or book that doesn't bare any relationship with the truth or even the English language? You are not alone, as this documentary on the review industry proves. So just why do the industry persist in throwing out unbelievable praise on the junk they produce? Is it hubris or part of a wider conspiracy to defraud the American public? Turns out it's the latter.

Great moment – The hidden camera scene when a gang of school kids beat up the writer of the now infamous "tweenies will love twinnies" comment for one of the forgettable Olsen Twins vehicles.

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Forthright Cliché – ***1/2

You know where this is going, darling

1955, USA, Black & White,

Directed by Arthur Garvin. Written by Alan Rys, Daniel Maher, Trick Jones (strictly for marketing purposes)

Starring Trick Jones, Suzanne Leonardo, Kipper Smith

What makes a leading man click with the public? Is it the chiselled jaw? The witty off-the-cuff remarks? The ease of seduction? Or is it all about solid dialogue and well chosen roles? After watching Forthright, what some would call the seminal Trick Jones opus, I'd say a mixture of all three.

As the above breathless commentary suggests, this film has it all, and by all I mean 1950s American beefcake (that was born in Britain but you'd only know because he was knighted later on in life by that Jones fanboy of fanboys, HRH). Which no doubt was the main draw card at the time. But in the modern world women and men demand a more defined visage and so the movie must stand more upon things other than a pretty face. And it does.

Gordon Smith does something at the Mill, something that gives him time to lounge about wearing sharp suits and chatting up the secretaries. So he's probably the boss's idiot nephew or something. But he has another mistress, one that doesn't wear a low cut blouse. Yes, Gordon is an alcoholic, but the good kind, one who solves crime. I could go on for hours, but why, when you really came just to see a blurred still of Jones leaning on the bar?

Quotable – "Ma'am, the only list you forgot today was the one with my name on it. Next to yours."

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

The Dream Sequencer - ***1/2

Il a rendu des films trop personnels même pour le Français

1971, France, Colour, 95 minutes

Written and directed by Philippe Gaga

Starring Philippe Gaga, Sylvie Marie Sylvie, Rot Callais

A whimsical silent fantasy written, directed, and starring French mime Gaga. He plays a formerly famous film technician who used his invention to record people’s dreams onto film while they sleep, a highly economical way of making dream sequences. But when the French New Wave hits, dream sequences become blasé, and he finds himself unemployed. To make ends meet he works as a psychoanalyst, but his patients are so intensely crazy that mere celluloid can’t contain their dreams. He becomes trapped in his patients nightmare world with his saucy secretary Coco, and can only escape by curing them with two-fisted Freudian psychoanalysis. Good fun.

Watch out for – the scene where Gaga and Coco hide in a giant prosthetic butt crack to avoid being shot by a squadron of milk-shooting breastplanes; predating the Death Star raid in Star Wars.

Quote – “…”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Nebula Escapade - ***1/2

See the stars in stunning black & white!

1928, UK, Black & White, 37 minutes

Written and directed by Thedderidge White

Starring Jimmy B. Blime, Connie Tine

Comedian Blime stars as a hapless astronomer who, while working late one night on the world’s most powerful British telescope, makes an error in his calculations and zaps himself and the observatory’s cleaning lady (Tine) into the closest nebula. They have several humorous escapades as they run from place to place in the nebula encountering curious species and solving their problems. The surprise is that Tine proves to be the more useful of the two, having voluminous amounts of distasteful East End back alley knowledge at her disposal. Some say this film has dated, but writer/director White’s technique of basing his aliens on recognisable ethnic minorities is still very much in use today

Watch out for – the scene where Tine shows the ladies of Omnipharlax-B how to abort unwanted parasitic brain babies with a rusty space fork.

Quote – “It’s misty up here, like back in the East End. I hope there’s no Star Ripper, I really do hope. Cause I be hard up for money.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderunk

Our Friends Are Desperate - ***1/2

VERY DESPERATE

1979, USA, Black & White, 97 minutes

Written and directed by Jayden Kane

Starring Jim Sagem, Ghana O'Hara, Mern Forrie'

A frankly entertaining examination of the pitfalls and small joys of petty corruption and small business in small town America. The dialogue is a masterful example of what can be achieved when suggestive wording is almost, but not quite taken too far. It spawned a generation, or at least a year, of annoying encounters with one's friends as they fumbled the lines in order to repeat the pop culture references. Sigh.

Not to be missed - when James encounters Mary at the Bus Station and well known pornographer Xantos makes a cameo as a traffic policeman.

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

A Swansong Too Far - ***½

Toe tapping mystery at its best!

1970, UK, Colour, 94 minutes

Directed by Gan Hertford. Written by Jimmy Shank

Starring Allen Kinderson, Marie Forthworth, Lulu Brown

Blackpool's most reputable Music Hall is wracked by mystery. Who is stalking Lady Bloomer? Who is frightening the Pantomine Horse? Why have all the pianos suddenly gone out of tune? In a delightful 94 minutes Jarvis takes us through the drama of these mysteries while also pouring out his great love for the proud British tradition of the music hall, then, as now, a dying art-form. It turns out that the ticket seller did it.

Great moment – when the snatch squad from the local police station have to pretend to be a chorus line in order to prevent a riot.

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

The Green Plant - ***1/2

Filthy little plant, take that!

1986, West Germany, Black & White, 97 minutess

Directed by Herrick Schmidt. Written by Gus Kleinberg

Starring David Meinerton

Kreddy just turned 19 and received his summons for military services, but fearing the harsh life of a German soldier he hides in deserted woodlands not far from the border with East Germany. Then, things start to happen that make the 5AM ice baths more attractive. If it was just the strange sounds and poisoned meat then I am sure Kreddy could have coped, but when the cruel taunting started, and, well, that just pushed him over the top. People do not always need blood or gore to get the adrenaline pumping, not when a finely turned phrase can get the same result

Educational lesson - The best horror films often use totally original plot or stories, then are mercilessly copied until you begin to hate the original film even though it was genuinely good.

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Beta 2.0 – ***1/2

You are not ready

2007, US/Canada, Colour, 117 minutes

Acting, writing and directing credits incomplete at time of release

A near bewildering mixture of music, faces and technology, all linked in with a kicking use of neo slang that just begs to be popularised on the internet, pours out of the screen as soon as the film starts rolling. The problem with this is that it is very hard to actually explain to someone what actually happens in the film, you know, does the guy get the girl? Is there a guy or girl? So far as I can piece together once one gets past the wall of cultural memes it seems that a new social order is forming on the streets, made up of disaffected youth and high technology. It is 1917 all over again and the Winter Palace is your middle class existence, and the commies are your children. As the title suggests things don't go quite as planned, but who'd ever know? Evolution versus Revolution?

All I know is that I think I really liked it and will need to buy the DVD to double check.

Great Moment – In Seaworld where the performing whale explodes, a single firework shoots to the sky and unfurls the message "Environmentalism. Lol"

Reviewed by Juan Incognito