This British film stars Malcolm McDowell and was made in 1973 by director Lindsay Anderson. McDowell plays the chirpy Mick Travis, a young man who wants to get ahead. Starting off as a travelling salesman for a  coffee firm it’s not long before he gets caught up in strange and surreal goings on.

Along the way he is given a gold suit, arrested for being a spy, revived by being breast fed by a vicar’s wife and escapes from a mad doctor’s experimental hospital. He eventually gets the opening he’s been looking for when he meets Helen Mirren whose father is a rich industrialist, and he becomes his personal assistant. There are some dodgy dealings going on and unfortunately when the police arrive he has been set up to take the blame. He gets sent to prison, on his release his natural optimism very soon evaporates when he is robbed of the little he has and finds himself at a soup kitchen with the down and outs.

After being given a handbill he attends an audition for a film and is singled out by the director. Initially he is unresponsive to the director’s instructions but the director perserveres and this shakes him out of his depression. The film ends with his old optimism returning and much smiling and laughter.

Many of the actors in the film play multiple parts which adds to the general surrealism, McDowell occasionally giving them a double take as if to say ‘don’t I know you?’

Alan Price and his band provide the film’s music and unusally, appear in film too. The songs reflect on the pitfalls of capitalism as shown by the progression of the film and very good they are too. The film soundtrack has been available but is now out of print.

I found marvellous film to be thoroughly enthralling, you never know what is going to happen next and it does require the viewer to engage their brain while  watching.

Tanguy is a light hearted look at what happens when your kids just don’t move out.

Tanguy is the only son of Paul and Edith Guetz, he’s 28, he still lives at home, he’s handsome, he’s got more education than you can shake a stick at, he’s still studying for a doctorate, he doesn’t have an income, he brings girls home, he crashes his parent’s parties, everyone thinks he’s lovely, he’s driving his parents nuts.

His Mum cracks first, Tanguy just doesn’t catch on that it’s time for him to strike out on his own. They hatch plans to get him out of the house, make things awkward for him. When he does finally go he rings them up in the middle of the night, it’s worse than having him at home. This film could have easily descended into farce but it stays the right side of the line, the acting is all good and the dialogue sharp and witty. Thoroughly enjoyable.

This film starts with the death of a couple in a bizarre accident and then centres around their surviving offspring. The main character is Sumika, she lives in Tokyo as she is determined to become an actress. She is completely self obsessed,  parading around expecting deferential treatment from all as she is clearly so special, unfortunately she is totally talentless.

The younger sister is constantly belittled by Sumika however as the film progresses we learn that she is the talented one, with a plan and her feet planted firmly on the ground. Then there is the step brother, he runs the family charcoal making business, drinks lots of beer and treats his wife like a doormat.

The story concerns Sumika’s attempts to get acting work, these are unsuccessful and she takes out her failure on her little sister,  who in turn draws a manga story of Sumika’s talentless exploits which wins a competition and gets published. Sumika is furious. Meanwhile the step brother is slipping into a suicidal depression.

This is a very black comedy with some interesting characters and funny moments, the little sister having the last laugh.

This Japanese film turned out to be real epic clocking in at three and a half hours. The story covers a lot of ground in that time, so to describe it I’m going to nick LoveFilm’s synopsis:

Japanese director Sion Sono writes and directs this irreverently zany, three-and-a half hour, black-comedy drama which captures a year in the life of 17-year-old Yu (Takahiro Nishijima). Yu falls into sinful ways after the death of his saintly mother and his father’s subsequent ordainment to the Catholic priesthood. Yu’s speciality as a petty criminal is taking sneaky camera shots up girls’ skirts while he ostensibly performs elaborate martial arts moves. He falls in love with rough diamond Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima), but their future together comes under threat when the creepy Koike (Sakura Ando) goes all out to lure Yu into his religious cult.

This covers maybe two thirds of the film tops, no mention here of Yu being disowned by his father or him winding up in a mental hospital. Although the film is ostensibly about a young lad wanting a girlfriend it’s not quite the light hearted romp the synopsis might have you believe.

The underlying theme to the film is religion. Yu’s mother is deeply religious, she falls ill and dies when Yu is still very young. His father then determines to become a priest,  he starts well but becomes obsessed and rejects Yu as he perceives him to be somehow unworthy. While Yu is coming to terms with his father’s behaviour he comes to the attention of the Zero Church, a mysterious cult who try to convert families to their beliefs and having the family of a priest would be a massive coup. The Zeros begin a campaign to lure Yu into their group, Yu doesn’t have any time for them but the girl he has fallen for has become infatuated with the Zeros. Yu eventually manages to bring about the downfall of the Zero church and free the girl but is commited to an asylum for his actions but….  the girl rescues him!

This isn’t a bad film by any means, I quite enjoyed it but it is very l…o…n…g. Some ruthless editing could have shaved off at least 30 minutes and made it into a much snappier piece.

Made in 1960 Plein Soleil is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s book ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’, Alain Delon stars as Tom Ripley hired by the Greenleaf family to bring their errant son Philip home to San Francisco. Philip is having a fine old time living on the coast in southern Italy,  sailing his yacht with his girlfriend and has no intention of going anywhere.

In this adaptation Tom Ripley makes no secret of his purpose or the fact that he is deeply envious of Greenleaf’s wealth, for his part Philip finds this all very amusing. Ripley is scheming from the start and when Philip plainly states that he won’t be going to San Francisco, thereby voiding Ripley’s contract with the Greenleaf family, things take a darker turn.

Ripley engineers an arguement between Philip and his girlfriend and she leaves for Paris. Ripley murders Philip, moves to Rome and assumes his identity. This proves harder than he imagined, Philip was quite well known and family friends keep popping up. Eventually one them discovers Ripley’s ruse and he has to go too. By now the Police are sniffing around Ripley and he’s having a hard job keeping all the plates spinning.

He manages to keep ahead of the pursuing pack and in the final sequence gets together with Philip’s girlfriend who is now the recipient of Philip’s will, a will forged by Ripley. Everything has turned out well for Ripley, or has it?

This version of ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ is much darker than the later Matt Damon/Jude Law version, itself no bad film but Alain Delon goes about his work cynically and with no remorse in a way that Hollywood rarely manages.

Bob Hoskins stars in this Neil Jordan film as George, a low level career criminal. The film begins with him getting out of gaol having done a stretch rather than grassing his boss up (Michael Caine),and  he expects to be looked after in return. It’s pretty clear that George isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer so he’s given the job of chauffeuring Simone, a high class prostitute, around.

George and Simone get off to a prickly start but quickly become friends. Simone is looking for a friend, another prostitute called Cathy, who she fears is being turned into a heroin addict by a pimp. Simone asks George to help her find Cathy as he can look for her inconspicuously in places Simone can’t go to. George takes up the task with relish, he’s getting fairly keen on Simone and wants to help her. The trail leads to some interesting incidents but George has no idea what he’s dealing with. He eventually tracks Cathy down and re-unites her with Simone only to discover they are lovers and that his boss is behind everything.

This may be Bob Hoskins finest role, he plays the streetwise but naive George with just the right amount of innocence and has Robbie Coltrane as his faithful sidekick. The story is very much about the manipulation and sordidness of the sex industry and doesn’t try to dress it up into a fairytale like Pretty Woman, a lot of fine performances and an engrossing story of a side of human nature we really could do without.

Mr. Shamoto is a pretty quiet guy, he runs a tropical fish shop. His daughter gets into some trouble in the supermarket and a friendly stranger helps to sort it out. This is Mr Murata, he has a much larger tropical fish shop, staffed by a small army of attractive young ladies, Mr Murata drives a Ferrari.

Mr Murata is very enthusiastic about pretty much everything and Mr Shamoto’s wife thinks it would be a good thing for Mr Shamoto to get friendly with him. Mr Murata is not what he appears to be and soon Mr Shamoto is involved in criminal activity that he cannot escape from. Worse is yet to come, Mr Murata and his wife are both psychopaths who specialise in making people disappear in a most gory fashion. Mr Shamoto is deeply upset by all this but he is powerless to stop it or extricate himself from this situation, Mr Murata takes pleasure goading Mr Shamoto calling him weak.

The story progresses, the police are following him, gangs of hoodlums want to know where their money has gone, Mr Murata has bedded Mr Shamoto’s wife. Eventually Mr Shamoto cracks and transforms himself into angel of death. We are now in full slasher film territory,  blood and entrails abound. Mr Shamoto takes vengeance on all those who have disappointed him including himself. Mr Murata wasn’t so smart after all.