Reviews by Anton Bitel

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

  Review preview for Werckmeister Harmonies

  Here cosmos and chaos, action and reaction, hope and despair, love and anger, all bump and grind together in a Satanic tango.

  Cosmos gives way to chaos in Tarr's whale of a tale - 4k reissue.
• 
  Damnation (1988)

  Review preview for Damnation

  The drab decay, no less moral than material, of both Karrer and the town that he haunts is so beautifully composed that no cinephile will begrudge Tarr the occasional longueur.

  Study of a man and his obssession with a bar singer.
• 
  X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

  Review preview for X-Men Origins: Wolverine

  The set-pieces here are spectacular, the dialogue unusually witty, the performances engaging.

  An exploration of the origins of X-men mutant Wolverine.
• 
  Friendship's Death (1987)

  Review preview for Friendship's Death

  It is hard not to admire a film that manages, for all the shoestring meagreness of its budget, to be so broad in its ambitions.

  A war correspondent's conversation with an extraterrestrial amid the chaos of Black September.
• 
  Female Prisoner Scorpion Trilogy (2009)

  Review preview for Female Prisoner Scorpion Trilogy

  This is exploitation cinema of the highest order.

  Box set edition of the trio of women-in-prison movies following a convict's incarceration, escape and revenge.
• 
  The Signal (2007)

  Review preview for The Signal

  Rarely have the faultlines between comedy and horror been exposed with greater precision.

  Three-part tale of horror sees a strange signal start to drive people crazy.
• 
  The Adventures Of White Tuft (2008)

  Review preview for The Adventures Of White Tuft

  Even the footage itself appears to have been both stage-managed in the field and manipulated through editing to suggest a story that would never occur in nature.

  Family film about the life of a beaver clan.
• 
  The Fox Family (2006)

  Review preview for The Fox Family

  Everything here is manic and mercurial.

  A vulpine family are hunting human liver with a view to transforming into people themselves.
• 
  Knowing (2009)

  Review preview for Knowing

  What at first seems a simple premise with a dumb-assed popcorn resolution might well unravel in your head into something altogether more resonant and perplexing (or not).

  A boy finds a time capsule containing deadly predictions, leaving his professor father in a race to avert disaster.
• 
  Rats And Cats (2008)

  Review preview for Rats And Cats

  It has all the cringe-making laughs one might expect from a comedy of celebrity, but Rats And Cats also achieves a surprising subtlety.

  Black comedy about the ugly side of showbiz.
• 
  Men's Group (2008)

  Review preview for Men's Group

  A refreshing examination of the collective male psyche through pure drama.

  Six men, each with heavy emotional baggage, meet once a week to talk, with unexpected consequences.
• 
  Dying Breed (2008)

  Review preview for Dying Breed

  Dwyer has taken this cinematically uncharted landscape and, like the convict runners of old, transported to it all manner of unsavoury foreign elements.

  Four friends find out something - or someone - murderous lurks in the rain-slogged Australian bush.
• 
  The Horseman (2008)

  Review preview for The Horseman

  While The Horseman will have viewers squirming in their seats, its take on the workings of vengeance is remarkably responsible.

  A grief-mad father tracks down the men responsible for his daughter’s death and discovers more about his daughter than a father should ever know.
• 
  Hush (2008)

  Review preview for Hush

  A taut thriller, rooted more in atmosphere, character and nail-gnawing suspense than the sort of sadistic gory excess that has otherwise typified this decade's horror.

  Cat and mouse thriller sees a young couple fall foul of a trucker on the motorway.
• 
  Carnival Of Souls (1962)

  Review preview for Carnival Of Souls

  Harvey leaves enough questions unanswered in this twilight zone to ensure that Carnival Of Souls enjoys a haunting afterlife in the viewer's mind.

  A young girl's life begins to unravel after a car accident.
• 
  Watchmen (2009)

  Review preview for Watchmen

  A sprawling epic of our times – and all times.

  An adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel in which self-proclaimed heroes fight for the good of humanity - or for what they interpret as such.
• 
  Kokoro (1955)

  Review preview for Kokoro

  Exquisitely crafted.

  A pessimistic film exploring one man’s self-imposed isolation.
• 
  Wendy And Lucy (2008)

  Review preview for Wendy And Lucy

  This quiet, unfussy film feels more important than a whole host of glossy blockbusters.

  Drama about a young woman's attempts to find her lost dog.
• 
  Battle Of Wits (2006)

  Review preview for Battle Of Wits

  Jacon Cheung's A Battle Of Wits is concerned far less with the clanging of arms than with the clash of ideologies.

  The art of surviving a siege in ancient China.
• 
  Hansel And Gretel (2007)

  Review preview for Hansel And Gretel

  Every frame beguiles and unnerves in equal measure, and the sense of paranoia is conveyed less by baroque actions than by subtle glances exchanged between characters.

  A young man crashes his car on a forest road and finds himself trapped in the "House of Happy Children".
• 
  The Jim Jarmusch Collection: Volume 2 (2008)

  Review preview for The Jim Jarmusch Collection: Volume 2

  The coolest kid on the indie block has a truly distinctive voice.

  Second volume of films by the coolest of all indie directors. Featuring Mystery Train, Night On Earth and Dead Man.
• 
  Dead Man (1995)

  Review preview for Dead Man

  A western for sleepwalkers and dreamers.

  Road movie about the friendship of a wounded young man in the western frontiers, who hooks up with a Native American.
• 
  Mystery Train (1989)

  Review preview for Mystery Train

  Its hyperreal colours and iconic tableaux ooze retro chic.

  Trio of stories connected by a Memphis hotel and the spirit of Elvis Presley.
• 
  Uprise (2008)

  Review preview for Uprise

  Fragmentary, allusive in style, and slipping fluidly from impressionistic flashbacks to scrambled dreams, Uprise is not so much a narrative as a series of suggestions for a number of possible narratives.

  A man meets a pregnant woman in a hospital... but have they met before?
• 
  Yah Chayka! (2008)

  Review preview for Yah Chayka!

  It ends up packaging human existence as a photo album of tenuous associations and treacly banalities.

  Poet and musician combine forces in an experimental film comprised of stills and music.
• 
  Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

  Review preview for Slumdog Millionaire

  An unabashed crowdpleaser.

  Tale of love and longing across the decades, seen through a streetkid growing up in India.
• 
  Treevenge (2008)

  Review preview for Treevenge

  Short, sweet and wonderfully unhinged.

  Sometimes Christmas is worth crying over.
• 
  The Children (2008)

  Review preview for The Children

  A creepy genre treat that is damn-near perfect in its execution.

  A seasonal house party turns sour after the children are hit by a virus that leads to violence.
• 
  Eden Log (2007)

  Review preview for Eden Log

  A dark treat which, far from patronising us with excessive exposition, leaves plenty of room in which the viewer can either wither or flourish.

  A man awakes in a subterranean land, with no idea how he got there, and begins to try to reach the surface.
• 
  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

  Review preview for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

  Hooper infects characters and viewers alike with the thrill of a madness from which there can be no real escape.

  A tragedy that befalls five youths in the Texas outback takes horror to a new dimension.
• 
  New Town Killers (2008)

  Review preview for New Town Killers

  Jobson uses the inherent thrill of the hunt to pursue his concerns about the vast gulf between the haves and the have-nots, and the arrogant disconnect of those who view life as mere data on a screen.

  A skint teenager realises his life may be on the line after entering into a deadly game of hide and seek.
• 
  Synecdoche, New York (2008)

  Review preview for Synecdoche, New York

  This is without question Charlie Kaufman's finest and most important work.

  The story of a theatre director's drive to produce his masterwork.
• 
  The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

  Review preview for The Midnight Meat Train

  If The Midnight Meat Train starts with what sounds like a bog-standard serial killer premise, it quickly deviates into more uncharted terrains.

  A photographer stalks a serial killer who picks off his victims on the LA underground.
• 
  I Know You Know (2008)

  Review preview for I Know You Know

  Sometimes funny, sometimes very tense, and ultimately poignant too.

  A young boy harbours suspicions that his father is a spy.
• 
  The Market (2007)

  Review preview for The Market

  Like any bazaar, The Market has something for everybody.

  A small-time black market trader tries to change his ways.
• 
  Lazy Days (2007)

  Review preview for Lazy Days

  The humour, while liberally spread, is always tempered with more sombre notes.

  A group of thirtysomething slackers come of age.
• 
  Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

  Review preview for Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist

  Lorene Scafaria's script sparkles with breezy wit.

  Two young people are thrown together one night, as they search for their favourite band's secret gig.
• 
  Anvil! The Story Of Anvil (2008)

  Review preview for Anvil! The Story Of Anvil

  It is impossible not to be charmed.

  Documentary tracks the attempts of rock band Anvil to 'make it' 20 years after their were first hailed as the "demi-gods of Canadian metal".
• 
  Eagle Eye (2008)

  Review preview for Eagle Eye

  Rarely has a film been so serious in its underlying implications and intent, and yet so moronic in its execution.

  Two innocent people find themselves framed in a bizarre military conspiracy.
• 
  Burn After Reading (2008)

  Review preview for Burn After Reading

  It is not as though we have not seen this sort of comic crime-gone-wrong chaos from the Coens before, but there is no-one who does it better.

  When a disc believed to contain sensitive information falls into the wrong hands, the intelligence services rush headlong into a comedy of errors.
• 
  Religulous (2008)

  Review preview for Religulous

  A scabrous, at times shocking assault on the more idiotic aspects of religion, and the dangers that they pose in a society capable for the first time of bringing about its own destructive Apocalypse.

  Comedian Bill Maher champions scepticism in an age of rising religious fundamentalism.
• 
  Shifty (2008)

  Review preview for Shifty

  Races furiously along, capturing perfectly the sense of a life fast spinning out of control.

  Twenty-four hours in the life of a Muslim crack dealer and a friend from his past.
• 
  The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008)

  Review preview for The Good, The Bad, The Weird

  Despite its lengthy duration, this film gallops along.

  Manchurian homage to Sergio Leone sees unlikely protagonists vie over a treasure map.
• 
  Prince Of Darkness (1987)

  Review preview for Prince Of Darkness

  With its well-paced build-up, its ominous soundtrack, and Carpenter's trademark handling of tension, Prince Of Darkness certainly earns its place on the margins of the horror canon.

  I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Satan.
• 
  Of Parents And Children (2008)

  Review preview for Of Parents And Children

  Brims with charming performances and nuanced observations, but these alone are not enough to prevent it from seeming to last an epoch.

  A retired scientist and his adult son reflect on life during their regular walk around the outskirts of Prague.
• 
  Zombie And The Ghost Train (1991)

  Review preview for Zombie And The Ghost Train

  While it has its share of comic observations and poetic flourishes, it is a relentlessly downbeat tale of alienation, dipsomania and nihilistic ruin.

  Story of a talented bass player on the path to self-destruction.
• 
  Goodbye Solo (2008)

  Review preview for Goodbye Solo

  A deeply affecting portrait of the way that we are all changed in small but significant ways by our encounters with others.

  An unlikely relationship between a grumbling old-timer and a Senegalese taxi driver.
• 
  1 Or 2 Things I Don't Know About Him (2008)

  Review preview for 1 Or 2 Things I Don't Know About Him

  All the fixed camerawork, while certainly capturing Guido's emotional stasis, makes for rather unengaging spectacle.

  A man considers his lost love.
• 
  Robot Chicken: Season One (2005)

  Review preview for Robot Chicken: Season One

  Catch one episode of this, and you are likely to be left in awe... catch more than on and you will start noticing the grinding repetitions.

  Pop-culture savvy sketch show from over the Pond.
• 
  A Bloody Aria (2006)

  Review preview for A Bloody Aria

  The best kind of unpleasant.

  A music professor and a young student, on an illicit country drive, encounter a group of murderous young yokels.