The Master of the Flying Guillotine is often cited as one of Tarantino’s favourite films. A real tournament film, Flying Guillotine is the sequel to director Jimmy Wu Yang’s Hong Kong martial arts film One Armed Boxer. Our hero, the One Armed Boxer, is a martial arts specialist who runs a school for mastering martial arts. When he is invited to compete in a martial arts tournament, which has drawn specialists from all disciplines from all over the world, a rival master at arms decides to exact his revenge on the one armed boxer and heads off to the tournament to find his one armed nemesis and using his flying guillotine to decapitate our hero, decimating every one armed man along the way.

This is the perfect martial arts film with a lackluster plot, over the top set ups for ridiculous fight scenes and wacky zany characters such as a Yoga master who can extend his arms to achieve great reach, a young Taiwanese boxer who dances before he fights, and a monkey boxer, who becomes like a monkey when he fights. The film is ridiculous but hilarious, though it probably wasn’t supposed to be. The final fight scene is pretty incredible, as the Master of the Flying Guillotine is blind, but his other senses are much heightened and the One Armed Boxer must use all of his strength and cunning to defeat him.

The program will include such classics as Cronenberg’s dystopian 80s Sci-fi Scanners, the original Repo Man starring Emilio Estevez, and self-funded Australian Outback Ozploitation The Nullarbor Nymph. So if you’re a fan of paranormal zombies, killer cars and the Angel of Death then check out Cultastrophe at Nova every Friday at 9.45pm.

And here’s a little portal that will tell you more!

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Dead Man Down

Rapace plays Beatrice, a troubled young woman physically and emotionally scarred from a car accident, who attempts to blackmail a low level gangster (Colin Farrell) into extracting revenge on the judge who inflicted her injuries. If that wasn’t enough, Farrell’s stern and reticent perp is himself associated with a criminal organisation on the hunt for an individual who is carrying out a preposterously detailed quest for vengeance against the group.

The slow intertwining of these narrative threads unfortunately gifts the audience with a particularly unfocused and muddled film. Dead Man Down seemingly wants to present itself as possessing a complex story with in-depth characters. But these aspirations are often undermined by a tendency to devolve into mindless scenes of excessive violence, not to mention its awkward depiction of the evolving relationship between Farrell’s and Rapace’s characters.

Matters are not helped by by a poor audio mix, which when combined with brusque performances from many of the film’s male actors, renders vital expository dialogue close to unintelligible. By the time the key plot twists are eventually spelled out, you’ll more likely be relieved as opposed to hanging on the edge of your seat.

The casting of Isabelle Huppert as Beatrice’s hearing impaired mother is one of a few early left field touches which suggests are a far more interesting film than the one which eventuates. For all of the frantic energy expended in outlying its many plot contrivances, viewers are left with little more than an unremarkable and lackluster genre effort.

Dead Man Down is in Australian cinemas from 23 May through Sony Pictures.

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In Snitch, Johnson plays construction company owner, John Matthews, whose estranged son, Jason (Ravi Gavron), has been arrested for intent to distribute narcotics. A minimum ten-year sentence for narcotics distribution can be lessened for those who snitch on drug world connections, but Jason has been set up and he doesn’t feel comfortable setting anyone up for the sake of his own freedom.

Desperate to ensure his son’s release, John seeks the help of district attorney, Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon), and proposes to go undercover to expose a major drug cartel in exchange for his son’s release. However, this involves implicating an ex-con, Daniel (Jon Bernthal), whose life is just getting back on track with a new job at John’s construction company. It is a risky move which will place them and potentially their families right in the centre of a bloody drugs war.

Snitch has been marketed as an action-packed thrill ride but viewers might be surprised at the relative sparseness of explosions and corpses. Apparently based on true events, director Ric Roman Waugh and  co-writer Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road) provide a serious-minded screenplay with enough legal and character detail to distinguish this from your average shoot ‘em up cop procedural.

They have squarely pointed the finger at the exorbitant penalties for first time drug offences, which in some cases are said to outlast rape or murder sentences. We see the results of prison brutality on Jason’s face in glimpses and the disproportionate toll a stupid mistake can make on a naive young kid but this message inevitably gets a bit lost with the undercover operation taking centre stage.

Johnson does eventually become the Action Man promised by the poster, but his performance mostly is considered, emotive and probably the best of his career. Bernthal is solid in support while Barry Pepper and Michael Kenneth Williams are impressive as cop and drug lord respectively. And then there is Susan Sarandon who once again plays Susan Sarandon. But what can I say; she does it well.

This isn’t the adrenaline-fuelled blockbuster people might expect from The Rock but that bit more investment in characters over bullets makes this a satisfying and tense ride. I just wish they’d get rid of that bloody shaky camera.

Snitch is in Australian cinemas from May 16 through Hoyts Distribution Australia

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The premise is simple: Jordan (Halle Berry) is a veteran 911 call operator who has suffered emotionally on the job after a call she was on lead to the kidnapping and brutal murder of a young girl. Now she is on training detailing until a newbie struggles with a 911 call from a distressed Casey (Abigail Breslin) who is in the trunk of a mans car. Jordan jumps on the line and, determined not to fail this time, does all she can to help Casey help herself. A word of warning for anyone who might find themselves in a shopping centre car park alone; have two phones on you and make sure the hidden one is not a disposable. The drama of the film comes from the law enforcement teams inability to locate the car due to a lack of GPS response from Casey’s phone.

This film elicited physical reactions in my chest that I haven’t experienced since I saw The Hunger Games  for the first time having not read any of the books. My heart was thumping despite myself, for director Brad Anderson has masterfully woven a situation not only plausible, but also a little close to home in light of the recent, senseless, random murder of Jill Meagher on our very city streets.

The Call pulls out all the stops from creepy killer taglines “it’s already done”, to we-got-him-wait-no-we-don’t moments galore. My only beef with this film is the unrealistic, almost grindhouse conclusion to the film, conjuring memories of the final moments of Death Proof rather than the neatly wrapped up outings of Andersons previous work such as The Machinist.

A good night out for an adrenalin seeking movie-goer, but by no means a genre changing turn.

The Call is in Australian cinemas from 16 May through Roadshow Films.

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The main narrative opens with Pilar (Teresa Madruga), a quiet, compassionate woman living next door to Aurora (Laura Soveral), an elderly woman whose memory is beginning to deteriorate, and her housemaid, Santa (Isabel Muñoz Cardoso). Aurora is often confused, with a penchant for gambling and paranoia, and Pilar is genuinely concerned for her welfare. This first chapter is meandering and languid, and whilst the insights provided into these characters’ lives are touching and resonant, the slow pacing suppresses a clear sense of direction from emerging. Consequently, the themes of isolation and loneliness which characterize this first chapter are prevented from being fully-realised and powerful underlying currents, and instead they become lost in the lethargy.

An encounter with Ventura (Henrique Espírito Santo), Aurora’s former lover, allows the film to segue into its second chapter, in which Ventura narrates and reminisces about their love affair in a Portuguese colony in Africa. Young, married Aurora (Ana Moreira) embarks on an affair with young Ventura (Carloto Cotta), and despite knowing their relationship is doomed, they persist in their secrecy, with dire consequences. In addition to being filmed in black-and-white, this section is also largely devoid of direct spoken dialogue between characters. The cinematography is beautifully shot, and an atmosphere of nostalgia is successful invoked.

However, despite having a narrower focus than the first chapter, this section does not fully recover from the film’s slow start. The lengthy unfolding of their relationship seems to dilute their longing and passion, counteracting a momentum from building towards the film’s climax.

Ultimately, Tabu’s slow start establishes a slow pacing which undermines its other elements, and makes the film less engaging in the process.

Tabu is in Australian cinemas from 16 May through Palace Films.

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