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Glenn Marshall won a copy of the Death Note 1 & 2 set in our Blu-ray giveaway. Glenn has kindly sent in some words on the prize he received – along with a photo of his prize (although he’s a little shy).
It's a great premise finding a note book that anyone’s name you write in it dies. I'm sure, like the main protagonist, you'd start with good intentions; genocidal despots, mass murders, child molesters, but pretty soon I'd be onto the b**tard whole stole my bike, Manchester United Football Club, anyone who writes for the Daily Mail, and, finally, those queuing at grocery store check outs who only realise they need to dig their purses from the bottom of their bag once the cashier tells them how much their bill is…finally ending up with anyone who says 'Get Go'!
Loved all the plots twists and Kenichi Matsuyama's bonkers performance as L. Although I thought the CGI a bit dodgy, particularly of the Shinigami Ryuk. If the SFX for the new film Monsters was done by Gareth Edwards in his bedroom, these must've been done in 10 minutes on an etch-a-sketch sitting on the toilet.
There were rumours of a US remake, so god help us, probably end up as ‘Death iPad' with Johnny Depp and Jim Carrey as Ryuk.
Israr Baig won a copy of La Planete Sauvage in our Blu-ray giveaway, and kindly sent in a picture of himself with his prize.
Ray Spendley won a copy of La Planete Sauvage in our Blu-ray giveaway, and has kindly sent in some words on the prize he received.
DVD arrived this morning and I have enjoyed watching it.
A great sci-fi animated film with some very surreal artwork.A quite simple plot, but with loads of imagination. Some people might see it as being rather 'primitive' compared to modern CGI animation, but I loved it.
It's a film to watch more than once. Music is great, too! Thanks once again.
Andrew Mack won a copy of Instant Swamp in our DVD giveaway, and kindly sent in a picture of himself with his prize.
Dave Taylor won a copy of Instant Swamp in our DVD giveaway and has kindly sent in some words on the prize he received.
Haname Jinchoge is a quirky girl, and Instant Swamp is a quirky film generally. If you imagine a Japanese Amelie then you might be getting somewhere close. I certainly felt the coma scenes, the obsession with technology, the parental dilemmas and the odd boyfriend had direct linkage to its French counterpart.
Instant Swamp is likeable, and the character of Haname is one with which you can identify, as a girl hovering on the outside – it’s not quite mainstream – you find yourself urging her on, as well as urging the pace of the film along at times. It’s just a little pedestrian. And then you wonder just how eccentric Haname can be, or is it down to some combination of her character and the cultural differences between us and the Japanese. The British and the Japanese are two weird island races anyway – alike in many respects - but you’ll find some inexplicable and alien goings-on in Instant Swamp to be sure.
I urge you to see it through to the end. You’ll never guess who re-appears! DT
Robert Schwarmer from Rostock, Germany won a copy of Raging Phoenix in our DVD giveaway and has kindly sent in some words on the prize he received.
“The movie is okay and better than her last movie Chocolate - it has some new interesting martial arts moves. Thanks again for the DVD.”
Valley Of The Bees has an austere beauty about it, especially in its stark black-and-white photography, and a lot of its fascination for me comes from the minimalist performances of the two central actors playing the hero (Petr Cepek) and his antagonist (Jan Kacer) - though this is a sophisticated film which seems to argue against simple interpretations of good and evil, which are the foundation of the fourteenth-century monastic order the hero is given to as a young boy by his tyrannical father. These devout men, The Order of the Teutonic Knights, will also slaughter their fellow man without flinching if they feel it is Divine will they do so (and in historic reality, they did so, in the name of converting heathens).
In the character of Armin (Jan Kacer), who tracks down the hero or anti-hero of the story Ondrej when he deserts the Order's castle to return to his family's village, the film presents a character who in the name of his genuinely-held Christian belief is capable of both being a Good Samaritan (he save Ondrej's life in an attack by vagabonds - Ondrej rewards him by knocking him unconscious with a rock and stealing his horse) and a brutal killer, or as he would see it himself, an Angel of Death.
It seems almost certain to me that the director was making a subtle comparison between the ruthless true believers of the Crusader era and the hard-hearted but (in many cases, at least) honest men of the Communist Party ruling his country (the Prague Spring rebellion and attempt to democratise socialism by Czech dissidents was in Spring 1968, only a year after this film was made). But whether one is interested in this historical context or not, the story itself says something valid about the paradox between ideals and reality, heavenly absolutism and earthly compromise, that resound beyond the era the film was made in. Well worth viewing. JC
