Tuesday 22 February 2011

BS #21

My 'Blood Spectrum' DVD & blu-ray column in Black Static #21 (TTA Press) has 22 reviews on nine pages:

Shogun Assassin (6/10)
Piranha 3D (5/10)
A Serbian Film (9/10)
Mirrors 2 (3/10)
Outcast (5/10)
Amer (7/10)
I Spit On Your Grave - remake (5/10)
Buried (8/10)
Let Me In (5/10)
We Are What We Are (3/10)

        Damage Control: Round-up
Ghosts Of War (4/10)
Choose (2/10)
Open House (3/10)
Sinbad And The Minotaur (1/10)
In Their Sleep (3/10)
Burke & Hare - remake (5/10)
Gnaw (0/10)
Bedevilled (3/10)
Terror Trap (1/10)
Damned By Dawn (3/10)
Someone’s Knocking At The Door (4/10)
The Unforgiving (1/10)

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Best foreign film


Told in flashbacks, Oscar-winning Argentinean crime drama The Secret In Their Eyes concerns a retired judge, Espósito, writing a novel about an actual rape and murder case - one that he believed sent the wrong culprits to prison, two men who were framed by a corrupt authority for the sake of legal expediency. Haunted by the outcome of this ‘Morales case’, Espósito re-opens investigations to expose the injustice, and convict the real killer. 

Director Juan José Campanella maintains a fluidity of pacing in the unfolding narrative that most clearly resembles a superior TV movie, but its genre elements are too few for any serious consideration as horror or thriller, despite fine performances from the main cast in an intriguing mystery storyline, and some romantic complications of the protagonist’s life, which broaden the film’s appeal.