Reviews by Anton Bitel

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  El Topo (1970)

  Review preview for El Topo

  There is nobody who makes films quite like Jodorowsky's, and El Topo is one of his finest.

  A gunfighter is born again in a strange underground rite and must confront his past. Out to own as part of the six-disc Jodorowsky Collection.
• 
  The Flowers And The Angry Waves (1964)

  Review preview for The Flowers And The Angry Waves

  Cinematographer Kazue Nagatsuka and production designer Takeo Kimura maximise the potential of the Asakusa setting for claustrophobic effect.

  A man rescues his lover from marrige to a yakuza and the go on the run to Tokyo, only to find it increasingly difficult to escape his violent past.
• 
  Midnight Movies: From The Margin To The Mainstream (2005)

  Review preview for Midnight Movies: From The Margin To The Mainstream

  Samuels' film both contextualises and celebrates these strange slices of subversive counter-culture.

  A documentary about the success of some of the most popular late night cult movies.
• 
  The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

  Review preview for The Hills Have Eyes 2

  A bog-standard pick-'em-off-one-by-one splatterfest.

  A group of young National Guard trainees run afoul of rural cannibals.
• 
  The Family Friend (2005)

  Review preview for The Family Friend

  The Family Friend is never less than arresting in its manipulation of mood and expectation

  A world of a miserable old man is turned up side down by the arrival of romance.
• 
  The Lives Of Others (2006)

  Review preview for The Lives Of Others

  Its authenticity and fidelity to the time in which it is set are beyond doubt.

  East German secret police spy on a playwright and follow the course of his life over a number of years.
• 
  Assault (1971)

  Review preview for Assault

  Assault shows all the slick professionalism - and stylistic blandness - that might be expected of, say, a crime thriller on ITV.

  A witness to rape offers to help police catch him by putting herself in harm's way.
• 
  The Backwoods (2006)

  Review preview for The Backwoods

  It is as though all the moral ambiguity and mean-spiritedness of 1970s cinema had never died.

  A British couple's Spanish holiday turns to horror after a disturbing discovery on a hunting trip.
• 
  Hot Fuzz (2007)

  Tongue-in-cheek British twist on the buddy cop genre.
• 
  A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints (2006)

  Review preview for A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints

  What rescues A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints from bland conventionality is Montiel's bravura approach to direction.

  A man haunted by a summer from his past, returns to his old stamping ground to confront old ghosts.
• 
  Le Portrait De Petit Cossette (2004)

  Review preview for Le Portrait De Petit Cossette

  Despite scenes of brutal murder and demonic torture, the film is imbued with a tone of surprising innocence.

  Creepy anime on the madness of artists and treachery of images.
• 
  The Fountain (2006)

  Review preview for The Fountain

  Seldom in cinema has eschatology been treated with such intelligence, or inspired such aching awe.

  Three parallel stories, running across more than 1000 years explore the notions of life, love, obssession and loss.
• 
  Babel (2006)

  Modern melodrama, tracing four interlocking stories across three continents.
• 
  Three... Extremes 2 (2002)

  Review preview for Three... Extremes 2

  A far more essential viewing experience than its dumb-assed Western title might suggest.

  Tryptich of short horror films, featuring Memories, The Wheel and Going Home.
• 
  Flushed Away (2006)

  Review preview for Flushed Away

  Exciting, adventurous, and flush with visual and verbal gags

  A pet mouse flushed down a toilet struggles to find his way home, encountering all manner of adventures along the way.
• 
  Ninja Scroll: The Series (2003)

  Review preview for Ninja Scroll: The Series

  Adults should best avoid, but younger viewers (and drug-users of all ages) are likely to be stimulated by its trippy visuals.

  Mercenary ninja becomes involved in a violent struggle between two clans of demons.
• 
  Pale Flower (1964)

  Review preview for Pale Flower

  Rarely has the vacuum of values left by dramatic social upheaval been captured with such subtlety.

  An ex con is seduced by the allure of a thrill-seeking female gambler, while returning to his old gang to settle a score.
• 
  School Of The Holy Beast (1974)

  Review preview for School Of The Holy Beast

  One minute School of the Holy Beast is titillating viewers with light porn, the next it is staging theological debates about the nature of faith and the problem of evil.

  A celebration of sadomasochism and other painful pleasures in a naughty nunnery.
• 
  Jigoku (1960)

  Review preview for Jigoku

  Its play with lighting effects, colour gels and jarring camera angles makes everything - both on earth and below - seem an off-kilter nightmare.

  A young student's life spirals into catastrophe after he meets a mysterious young man.
• 
  Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)

  Review preview for Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41

  Aesthetically striking and deliriously weird.

  A wrongly convicted prisoner goes on the run in classic arthouse sequel.
• 
  Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan (2006)

  Review preview for Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan

  The unconscious is never suppressed and the id runs riot

  A fake documentary about a Kazakhstani TV reporter on a cultural mission to America.
• 
  Paranoia Agent: The Complete Series Box Set (2004)

  Review preview for Paranoia Agent: The Complete Series Box Set

  If your experience of Japanese anime has so far been confined to bubblegum tweenies and manga mechas, then Kon's altogether more adult animation will come as a real revelation.

  A surreal investigation of a closed society's dark psychic underbelly.
• River Queen (2005)

  Review preview for River Queen

  A hauntingly beautiful piece of cinema.

  A young Irish woman searches for her kidnapped half-Maori son.
• 
  The Host (2006)

  Review preview for The Host

  The Host is like a mutant hybrid spawned from the improbable union of Little Miss Sunshine and Godzilla.

  A toxic monster terrorises Seoul.
• 
  Serial Experiments Lain (1998)

  Review preview for Serial Experiments Lain

  Everything is awash with an eerie, disorienting atmosphere... riveting.

  Lysergic adult anime series about a young schoolgirl caught between the real and the virtual.
• 
  New Police Story (2004)

  A maverick Hong Kong cop takes on a dangerous gang.
• 
  Woman Of The Dunes (1964)

  Review preview for Woman Of The Dunes

  A richly evocative masterpiece of domestic claustrophobia, erotic tension and existential crisis.

  Japanese classic explores the bond between a lonely woman and her reluctant guest.
• 
  The House With Laughing Windows (1976)

  Review preview for The House With Laughing Windows

  A gripping murder mystery.

  A church painting restorer discovers an horrific web of intrigue in an isolated village.
• 
  Children Of Men (2006)

  Review preview for Children Of Men

  There is little that can be faulted in Cuarón's film.

  Conspiracy surrounds the birth of a child in an infertile post-apocalyptic world.
• 
  Fantastic Planet (1973)

  Review preview for Fantastic Planet

  Laloux has woven a dense tapestry of allegorical resonances that link the theological to the political to the anthropological.

  Trippy, Seventies animated version of the biblical story of Exodus.
• 
  The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

  A young journalist struggles to survive in the cut-throat world of fashion.
• 
  Harsh Times (2005)

  A war veteran loses his mind in South Central LA.
• 
  Clerks II (2006)

  The clerks start life anew in another miserable retail job.
• 
  Odd Man Out (1947)

  Review preview for Odd Man Out

  Even if almost all of Johnny's journey into darkness takes place on foot, only his first steps are truly pedestrian.

  An injured IRA man goes on the run in the forbidding back streets of Belfast.
• 
  Twin Falls Idaho (1999)

  Review preview for Twin Falls Idaho

  The overall effect is not unlike watching a delicate and subtle poem slowly turn into something altogether more clumsy and prosaic.

  Conjoined twins find their world turned upside down by the love of a call girl.
• 
  CSA: The Confederate States Of America (2004)

  What if the American south had won the Civil War?
• 
  My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

  Review preview for My Super Ex-Girlfriend

  At heart a deeply misogynistic view of female empowerment.

  Super-charged break-up leads to powerful problems.
• 
  Renaissance (2006)

  Review preview for Renaissance

  Renaissance is blessed with a script that not only feels like genuine noir rather than a hastily written pastiche, but also is not subordinated to all the visual razzle-dazzle.

  Ground-breaking animated film noir in which a hard-boiled detective hunts a kidnapped dame.
• 
  Warrior King (2005)

  Review preview for Warrior King

  The comedy may be hokey, the acting third rate, the characterisation flat and the plotting threadbare, but once the daftly over-the-top action set-pieces get going, your jaw will drop to the floor and stay there.

  Tony Jaa kicks ass for the elephants.
• 
  Superman Returns (2006)

  Review preview for Superman Returns

  Overlong and just a tad underwhelming.

  The Man of Steel returns to save lives - but can he salvage his own?
• 
  District 13 (2004)

  Two reluctant heroes rush to defuse a bomb in a future Paris enclave ruled by violent gangs.
• 
  Reeker (2005)

  Review preview for Reeker

  Reeker is slyly funny and certainly macabre (if not exactly scary).

  The humour is dark and the effects gruesome in this terror motel Eighties-style gorefest.
• 
  Thank You For Smoking (2005)

  Review preview for Thank You For Smoking

  Played so amiably that you barely notice how prickly its barbs are until they have dug right in.

  Satire on smoking and spin.
• 
  United 93 (2006)

  Review preview for United 93

  A compelling (if inevitably speculative) version of events.

  A recreation of events surrounding the hijacking of United Airlines flight 93 on the 11th of September, 2001.
• 
  Poseidon (2006)

  Review preview for Poseidon

  A handful of the passengers may eventually get out of the ship alive, but in this massive overhaul of The Poseidon Adventure (1972), nothing, it seems, can save them from Mark Protosevich's sinking script.

  Another cruise liner, another wet day at the office, another remake
• 
  Princess Mononoke (1997)

  Review preview for Princess Mononoke

  In this way, Miyazaki avoids any simplistic 'message', preferring to present a more complicated dialectic on the environmental difficulties that continue to 'curse' us to this day.

  A prince becomes caught up in a battle between a mining town and a forest.
• 
  Come And See (1985)

  Review preview for Come And See

  Come And See is an intimate epic, in which all the promise of adolescence is perverted by war.

  A young teenager witnesses the genocide by Nazis during the German occupation of Belorussia.
• 
  Revolver (2005)

  Review preview for Revolver

  Probably Ritchie's boldest and most interesting film to date, even if it is also pretentious enough to give his detractors yet another rope to hang him by.

  An ex-con is out for vegeance on the man he believes caused his downfall.
• 
  Brick (2005)

  Review preview for Brick

  While all the tropes of the teen movie are present and correct, they are also inflected with the unmistakable stylings of Dashiell Hammett

  A teenager investigates the underworld of a local high school.
• 
  Fateless (2005)

  Hungarian teenager discovers a certain "happiness" in the Nazi death camps.