I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK
Year: 2006
Director: Park Chan-Wook
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean

When thinking of films that take place in mental institutions, most avid movie buffs would point to Milos Forman's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, James Mangold's  Girl, Interrupted or Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor. The former and the latter begin with sane characters - who come from a sane & stable world-and have them plunged into a world of chaos. Few films start with insanity and roll with it, I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK is fairly unique in that respect.

A girl (Su-jeong Lim) who thinks she is a combat cyborg checks into a mental hospital, where she encounters other psychotics. Eventually, she falls for a man (Rain) who thinks he can steal people's souls. 

South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook defies standards with every new film, thus it's hard to nail him down to any specific genre or style. The same man who has made this weird and quirky film has also made the ultra violent Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. The film’s story focuses entirely on the institution’s deluded, paranoid, compulsive, and hallucinatory patients. Taking this unconventional approach, he finds a curious sense of romanticism influenced by the imbalanced fantasies of his subjects.

Like the characters, this film cannot be put in a box. When we think the picture has enough humor to be labelled as a "comedy" it hits us with hard truth, showing quite sad confessionals of every patient which make them a victim of both themselves and their circumstances. Granted there is an energy in every scene, along with joyful romance and mesmerizing delusion. It's quite hard to compare this film to anything else, perhaps it is an odd mix of 12 Monkeys and Monty Python.

Barely distributed in the United States, Park’s film was profitable in his own country and proved to be a critical success. The film will definitely disappoint fans of his more outrageously bloody affairs, but overall it's quite engaging and entertaining. Not a "great" film, but eccentric enough to capture your interest.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Review - By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Year: 1978
Director: Phillip Kaufman
Country: US
Language: English

A spiritual sequel and remake of Don Siegel's 1956 original, Kaufman's film remains the definitive version of Jack Finney's oft-adapted novel The Body Snatchers. The book itself first appeared as a serial in Collier's Magazine in 1954 and expanded into hardback publication. Critics were not receptive to it at first, claiming it lacked originality. Indeed media regarding reds under the bed (the thought that anyone, even your next door neighbor could be a stranger/communist) wasn't new or innovative. Kaufman, thankfully, removed any cold war political subtext for his picture and made the film more alarmingly relevant.

 In San Francisco, a group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion.

When Director Philip Kaufman set out to remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers with screenwriter W.D. Richter for United Artists, he chose his hometown San Fransisco for the setting. This decision was wise, as San Fransisco was the birthplace of Generation Me.  During the then-modern late 70's everyone's own self-involvement was too preoccupying to detect that something horrible could happen around them. The same generation struggled in its search for identity against an urban expansion movement that signified social homogenization. It's a hopeless world for characters whose narcissistic drives make them perfect targets, not unlike our current culture where the individual remains physically isolated yet somehow gratified by social media.

Continuing into the current day, San Fransisco's cityscape has been reshaped dramatically by separated people from one another,  creating physical and social borders. Modern architecture enhances the fetishized indulgence of the Self, to where entire cities look outward at their community with suspicion and confusion, wondering, Who are these people? with an appropriate level of paranoia.Depicting an entire an entire culture bent on self-discovery, but no longer knows who their friends and family are, Phillip Kaufman creates a remarkable analysis regarding North American society starting in the late 70's. 

With a budget of under $3.5 million, and a sizeable portion of that going to the haunting post-production sound FX achieved by sound designer Ben Burtt (of Star Wars fame), Phillip Kaufman relies on inventive camerawork, incredible acting and bizarre writing to get the story across to his audience. Invasion of the Body Snatches is endlessly entertaining.

Unforgiven Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

 Title: Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Director: Clint Eastwood
Country: US
Language: English

Unforgiven, much like John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, is a critique of Hollywood’s treatment of the West. Director Clint Eastwood rethinks how we view the Western and, to a greater extent, America. His film questions how we understand a Western hero, how we applaud the hero’s violent ways, and how history is so often exaggerated. The film represents a turning point in Eastwood's filmography; after this he would slowly inch away from Hollywood and attempt to make more mature pictures. 

 Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny (Clint Eastwood)  reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner (Morgan Freeman) and a young man (Richard Harris). 

Six years prior to its release, Clint Eastwood bought Unforgiven's screenplay from David Webb. He waited on it not because he wanted to make changes, but Eastwood wanted to make the picture when it was more relevant to Hollywood and his career.  Eastwood maintains that his intentions behind the film were to provide a commentary on violence in cinema, saying “We’ve reached a stage of our history, where I said to myself that violence shouldn’t be a source of humor or attraction.” Aside from the ending, the majority of the film is grim and portrays violence as having dire consequences. 

By 1992, the typical Western had lost an enormous amount of popularity. Audiences were sick of tradition and myth; they wanted truth and humanity in the Old West. Hollywood would oblige and Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves won 7 Oscars in 1990. Unforgiven would not only tap into what audiences needed at the time (becoming a financial success in doing so), but it would also be the first of many of Eastwood's self reflective pictures. Perhaps, at the time, he regretted his past contribution to a culture of violence.

Eastwood exposes typical Western Tropes and reverses them for the sake of his film. The heroes defend the honor of prostitutes and not a God-fearing innocent. Rugged gunslingers are exposed as cowards and weaklings and liars, while others find they have outlived any desire to take another man’s life. He denies a west full of heroes and villains; claiming that only drunken fools with big mouths managed to make themselves considered "legends". 

The Last Crusade Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: The Last Crusade
Year: 1989
Director: Steven Spielberg
Country: US
Language: English

Compared to the near horror quality of Temple of Doom, the third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is far lighter in tone and attempts to maintain humor throughout its run-time. The Last Crusade is ripe with exposition as we hear about Indy's familial turmoil through a prologue reaching back into Indy’s rebellious teen years. Essentially our hero now has daddy issues and, in true Spielbergian form, must confront his emotional history. 

When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery) suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) must follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis. 

Film critic Pauline Kael famously griped about the characterizations in Raiders of the Lost Ark by claiming they are nonexistent; any personal touch was removed for the sake of an adventurous story. Last Crusade makes up for this by putting Indy's psychological issues at the forefront, greatly overcompensating for any previous lack of character development. Did audiences really want to know that more about Indy? I felt his lack of backstory made him a more enticing mysterious figure. 

Spielberg can't help but explore father-son relationships reflective of his own broken rapport from childhood. The failure to connect with his own father is reflective in his works and thus can make them quite tragic. Unfortunately this theme doesn't belong in a franchise like Indiana Jones, which is supposed to take place in locations far from the familiar and domicile. Even though it is not devoid of action or suspense, infact many scenes can be absolutely enthralling, the sentimental undercurrent distracts from the mythical quality of the story. 

Overall, Last Crusade didn't impress me as much as Raiders of the Lost Arc and Temple of Doom did. I wasn't as engrossed in Indy's exotic world because of its focus on humor and familiarity. Sure it has more humanity, and is Spielberg's most personal entry into the franchise, but overall it falls flat. We did not need to understand Indy's motives and we certainly didn't need to see a father-son dynamic. 

Son of Saul Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Son of Saul
Year: 2015
Director: Laszlo Nemes
Country: Hungary
Language: Hungarian

Claude Lanzmann, the acclaimed director of Shoah (1985) and other documentaries about the Holocaust, has praised Son of Saul saying "It's a film that gives a very real sense of what it was like to be in the Sonderkommando. It's not at all melodramatic. It's done with a very great modesty."It has been similarly beloved by historians Zoltán Vági, Gideon Greif and Philippe Mesnard, Holocaust surviors like Nobel Prize winner  Elie Wiesel and Laszlo Nemes and critics from all over the world. It had a very small budget (1.5 million Euro) & ultimately succeeded despite setbacks.

Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig), Hungarian prisoner working as a member of the Sonderkommando at one of the Auschwitz Crematoriums, tries to find a rabbi and bury the boy he takes for his son. This is a next to impossible task, as the Sonderkommando is to be liquidated at any moment.

 Between 15 May and 9 July 1944, approximately 437,000 Hungarian citizens of Jewish ethnicity were deported with 147 trains, mainly to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The vast majority of them being unfit for slave labour (either disabled, elderly or children) they were exterminated immediately upon arrival. The Hungarian government's quick collaboration with Nazi authority surprised even the most cold-hearted Germans. Unfortunately many authorities in Hungary today are in denial about their alliance with the devil; the country is still seeping with antisemitism and gypsy prejudice. Son of Saul is an important film because it does not allow Hungary to remain in its state of denial; its international success speaks volumes and prevents silence about such issues. 

The camera stays inches from Saul's face throughout the entirety of the two hour duration. Containing the action in the boxed-in 4:3 Academy ratio, it leads to the perception of being trapped in a hellacious underworld while never once straining credibility. It's an intimate experience that captures the immediacy of Saul's task. Son of Saul is a hard film to watch because it's blunt, confrontational and doesn't sugarcoat the hard life of Auschwitz. We see the pain, hear the agony and we can imagine what the burning flesh smells like. 

Far from sentimentalizing Saul's plight, Director Laszlo Nemes creates an atmosphere of emptiness and uneasiness that lingers from frame to frame. In a sense it's an inspiring and optimistic film that demonstrates mankind's desire for survival and the strength of hope alone, despite impossible odds. Even in Auschwitz, we can still find our faith in humanity. Still, the film is not for the faint of heart. I considered avoiding this picture because the subject matter can really be hard to take in. It's a masterpiece that tackles the Holocaust in a way no picture before it has.

Top Ten Animated Films- By Michael J. Carlisle

The inventor of the viewing device called a praxinoscope (1877) , French scientist Charles-Emile Reynaud, also created a large-scale system called Theatre Optique (1888) which could take a strip of pictures or images and project them onto a screen. It was the first instance of projected animated cartoon films.

 To create the animations, individually-created images were painted directly onto the frames of a flexible strip of transparent gelatine and run through his projection system. Reynaud would make three animated films that were 12-15 minutes each and would show them for the Paris' Musee Grevin.

In the decades that followed Reynaud's initial invention, animated films would see many "firsts". The first fully animated film was Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908);  the first prominent cartoon star was a brontosaurus named Gertie in Gertie the Dinosaur (1914); the first historical cartoon drama was The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), a depiction of the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat; the first cartoon character to gain international success was Felix the Cat.

While Walt Disney and the rest of the West like to claim Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was the earliest feature-length picture, film historians know that it is in fact The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). Of course we ought to give credit where credit is due; one of the reasons animation remained successful during the 30's and 40's was mainly because of Walt Disney. Their groundbreaking techniques changed the way animation was being made and how audiences would perceive such films in the theater. 

Unfortunately overtime animated film would gain the reputation of being "just for children". Disney greatly contributed to this notion as they would directly market to children for decades. Fortunately the rise of Japanese anime has done well to detract from stereotype. The animation of the East is typically more mature in tone than that of the West. There are many animated films that deserve to be taken seriously and seen by an audience in 2016. With that in mind, here are my top ten favourite animated films. Click on each individual title to read the review (Note: Not all titles will have been reviewed)


1. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

2. Watership Down (1978)

3. My Neighbour Totoro (1988

4. Fantastic Planet (1973) 

5. Feherlofia (1981) 

6. Allegro Non Troppo (1976)

7. Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)

8. Fritz the Cat (1972)

9. Chicken Run (2000)

10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

They Call Me Bruce?: The Caitlyn Jenner Story- Reviewed by Michael J. Carlisle

Title: They Call Me Bruce? The Caitlyn Jenner Story
Year: 2016
Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: US
Language: English

Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born October 28, 1949), formerly known as Bruce Jenner, is an American television personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. After intense training, Jenner won the 1976 Olympics decathlon title at the Montreal Summer Olympics (after a Soviet athlete had won the title in 1972) during the Cold War,gaining fame as "an all-American hero". He/She announced that they identified as a trans-woman in April 2015 and publicly named his/her/their name change from "Bruce" to "Caitlyn"

They Call Me Bruce? tells the true story of a brave male athlete who decided to become/transform/materialize into a woman known as Caitlyn. It covers the intense media coverage of her/his/its/their new public identity and the struggle it took to finally win an ESPY Award. Now an inspiration to millions, it's safe to say that we can forget about the time he/she/it/they/them killed a woman in a car crash and then sued her family. 

No seriously, Caitlyn/Bruce/Brucelyn killed a woman in a car crash and then had the nerve to sue the family for the deceased. How much did she/he/it/otter sue for? $18.5 MILLION. It wasn't like the driver was at fault either, Caitlyn/Bruce/Brucelyn was driving OVER the speed limit and was thought to be driving negligently. Not only that, but she injured SIX other people in the process. It wasn't like this was 40 years ago either ,this happened in 2015, less than a year ago! Now just because of her/his/its/their transformation she's a hero to LGBTT youth? Gimme a friggin break! Oh sorry, back to the review.

The cinematography is top-notch, I particularly loved Simon Goerth's emphasis on tall mountains and vast canyons. The score, written by Paul Simon, creates an atmosphere of peace and serenity. For the first time on film, we can really experience the endless joy that comes with deciding to have a C-Cup breast implant.  Wait...she/he/it/thee is against gay marriage and most LGBTT/women's rights? What the...how is she/he/it/hither a leader within  the LGBTT community if they're actively against what trans folk believe in? 

That being said, the acting by Dr.Dre is phenomenal. He embodies the ESPY award to a tee, deserving an Oscar for his brave performance. The plastic surgeon, played by Woody Allen, gives a lackluster performance at best, but it's hard to do well when given such a mediocre script (written by George Lucas). Despite its flaws, They Call Me Bruce? is an enchanting film about...wait are you serious? She's voting for Ted Cruz!? Ugh!

Top Ten Favourite Musicals

 The 1920's saw a technological leap forward that would change cinema forever; namely, the introduction of sound. The Jazz Singer (1927) featured the first sequence of synchronized sound in a widely distributed feature film, and was met with immediate success. From its very inception, the use of sound in cinema was linked with music, and more specifically yet singing, so the connection to musical theater was recognized and explored immediately.

 Early successes of the pre-sound cinema, like Buster Keaton, one of the great silent comedians,  fell to the wayside in favor of more musical fare. Stars who could sing and dance, like Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, flourished during the early era of the "talkies". During this time different genres fell in and out of popularity, for instance Universal's horror pictures were very popular in the 30's but not so much in the 40's, but the musical lasted in Old Hollywood because it adapted to public outcry. War films becoming popular? Lets make South Pacific.

Unfortunately times would change and the musical would have to meet its maker. The rise of television coincided with the rise of suburbia, which allowed people to watch a show in their living room rather than travel into the cities to see a flick. The rise of New Hollywood, an industry known for a changing of the guard and refusal to commit to old rules, brought forth a disdain for the musical affair. Frankly, if I was an audience member of the 60's and was subjected to Clint Eastwood's musical "talent" in Paint Your Wagon (1969) I'd get sick of musicals too. Films like Sound of Music (1965) and Doctor Dolittle (1967) didn't reflect the styles, emotions and politics of the time.  

The musical has never gone away, Broadway genius' like Bob Fosse have been able to turn ashes into gold, but there's no denying that it hasn't been- and will never be- as popular as it was in Old Hollywood. With that in mind, here are my top ten favourite musicals. Click on the individual title for a link to the review. (Note: Not all films have been reviewed)

1. All That Jazz (1979)

2. Cabaret (1972)

3. 42nd Street (1933)

4. Young Girls of Rocheforte (1967)

5. Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

6. Jailhouse Rock (1957) 

7. Singin in the Rain (1952)

8. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

9. Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)

10. Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)