WOZ inOZ

Dreary French/Italian production plods along in the South of France finding Bronson as an ex-army con on the run trying to make a new life for himself after dumping his army associates at the prison gates. Surprise, surprise, they turn up soon enough looking for some payback lead by James Mason looking and sounding rather stayed with an American Southern drawl. Bronson reels this one in on auto drive playing the usual tough guy he's played a hundred times before, but seems way out of his depth outside of the fleeting action scenes, and uncomfortably wooden especially beside Liv Ullman playing his naive wife. Bronson not surprisingly relaxes more by his (off screen) wife Jill Ireland who also plays a pathetic stereo typical 'wild child.'

From a dull start, this film continues to amble on even when Mason and his henchman show, it is only when Bronson has to fight off a ticking clock both in the story and the film's evaporating running time does 'Cold Sweat' come alive, with an obligatory but none the less well executed car chase. After Bronson ditches the car 'Cold Sweat' reverts back to it's predictable proceedings and inevitable conclusion, resulting in a regrettably thin Bronson vehicle, all the more surprising considering it was based on a Richard Matheson story and directed by Terence Young, of early Bond films such as 'Dr No' and 'Thunderball.'

Peter Jackson's humble beginnings are open for all to see in the quirky comedy sci-fi/horror of the aptly named Bad Taste. The ultra-cheap budget is equally apparent, with a small cast which looks more like a gathering of some of the directors mates (which is probably not so far from the truth) however Jackson's creative and technical talents make this project a whole lot more enjoyable than the script points towards.

The story of a heavily disguised alien party being rumbled by a secret government task force with some very dubious recruits is kept simple but crammed with plenty of set pieces, dollops of gore, physical gags and some off-kilter jokes.

Peter Jackson's talents as a director were already beginning to flourish with his work here, and his hands on approach to film making from the creation of gun props from metal stampings to choreographing a two people fight sequence with one actor, have put together an original entertaining piece of schlock.

While the over the top make-up effects and surreal humour (what the hell was that car with the Beatles driving all about?) may not be everyone's cup of tea, Fangoria fans and struggling film students alike will find Bad Taste inspiring, proving lack of funds can be overcome by a little ingenuity and a little imagination.

Bertrand Tavernier's tale of a critically ill woman hounded by a television network for its popular show 'Deathwatch' could be looked back in 1980 as almost a premonition in these times of reality TV and their popularity with today's viewing public.

A strong cast portrays a simple, if at times ponderous story dealing the acceptance of death and those out to prosper from it, with Harvey Keitel putting in a passionate driving performance as the TV company's 'virtual camera', a point in the film which adds a certain element of fantasy to the whole proceedings, along with vague decrepit industrial towns and eerie bays as the backdrop for the main characters to drift through. However, despite strong performances all round, the journey the film takes never seems to reach a definitive destination, rather slows, bogs down and then finally stops, and despite keeping the viewer intrigued throughout never seems to deliver anything more than the inevitable.

There is no doubt 'Deathwatch' is an original, eerie and at times beautiful film but one that does not necessarily make sense, just like Max von Sydow's eloquent line in the film that 'Events that have no significance like the flight of a bird, do not have to mean something.'

Tourist trap starts off decidedly weird and continues to get plain weirder as the running time flies by. David Schmoeller's tale of a derelict wax museum run by a 'not all there' Chuck Connors sticks to the stalk and slash basics by taking a group of kids to a house and bumping them off one by one. However rather than a lone axeman or maniac in a hockey mask doing the bumping, the main bad guy (or guys) is the wax mannequins of the museum and their creator who brings them to life.

Quirky from the start, 'Tourist Trap' waits for no establishing set piece scenes or even spends any time introducing characters, it just moves a broken down car load of would be victims (including the delectable Tanya Roberts sporting black hair) off to their impending doom. After a brief skinny dip, along comes Chuck Connors to tell 'those pesky kids' that the area they are hanging out in, isn't quite right since 'they built the highway' through it, and he ain't telling the half of it!

'Tourist Trap' seems to show promise early on when the dummies are first discovered, with some genuinely eerie scenes with dummies in frozen poses and fixed smiles, moving their eyes. However when their creator is introduced the film takes a different direction, away from the Scooby Doo plot and edges toward Texas Chainsaw Massacre territory with a few supernatural touches and attempts at humour thrown in.

Along with the drudging chase sequences through the undergrowth and too many cat and mouse scenes, 'Tourist Trap' eventually sinks in it's repetitive nature, and the unsurprising revelation of the identity of the main villain offers little to the movie's mediocrity.

The stylish Interstate '76 was brought kicking and screaming into the eighties by Zack Norman, updating characters Taurus (Gregg Eagles) and Groove Champion (Andrew Heckler) with new cars, new wardrobe and some rather colourful new villains. However the transition from the funky seventies to the clean, sharp and materialistic driven eighties was not necessarily a change for the better.

The story is a straight forward yet at times forgettable one, with Taurus seeking Groove who has mysteriously disappeared after stumbling upon a politcal conspiracy involving the Contras. It is here Interstate '82 perhaps falters the most with some fairly weak supporting characters and voice acting and a script that seems to fade in enthusiasm the further you play, including a pretty awful Star Wars parody, and a disappointing climax. Despite these factors Taurus still manages to lift spirits with his cooler than a swimmin' pool lines and comebacks.

Graphics in the game do the job without earning any gold stars, but the new engine has some smart lighting effects and shifts along at a fair pace. Also the environments have changed with more urbanised routes rather than the sweeping landscapes of '76. However these urban environments are evidently harder to pull off, and there are a heap of other games out there with more convincing looking city levels than this one, the Las Vegas level looks particularly lacking in detail giving the impression the artists working on the project didn't even use reference material in the construction of the city.

Cinematic sequences are also of an average quality, apart from the evocative intro which captures the atmosphere of the eighties, or rather eighties TV action shows, more than anything else contained in the game. The remaining film sequences in an awfully dark and blotchy resolution, caused in part by blowing up a smaller picture to fill the screen, produced by the aptly named Blur Studio Inc. Are a bit of a let down, with overly chatty scenes and the aforementioned cloudy picture quality making it all the harder to make out what's going on. The transition of these scenes to the in-game graphics is an unsettling one and it becomes more apparent by players of the previous game how well it blended the two and injected a whole lot of personality into the retro styled low polygon characters.

As for cars there's a few new models available to drive, but not as many as you'd expect for a new decade of motoring, if the 70's choice of ride came mainly in the shape of big engined American muscle cars, Interstate '82's come in the form of smaller sports cars mostly from Europe. Despite keeping a lot of cars available from Interstate '76, one car is surprisingly absent; Vixen's Pickard Piranha, which players of the previous game (and Nitro Riders) would have been attached to or at least accustomed with.

Despite some shortcomings with the story and characters, '82 as a game is still is a lot of fun to play. Activision added some more weapons, including some over the top variants, as well as updating Multiplayer options, and a clever car customisation facility where anyone with access to a PC paint package can produce their own personal paint scheme. The one player game remains very similar to the original, blending driving and combat with salvaging equipment from beaten foes, linked by an enveloping story. Auto salvage has also become more of a factor, with your choice of car at times more important than how you use it. And while players being able to leave their vehicle and hijack others at gunpoint adds some variation to the game, it also tends to slow down the action and does a complete U-turn around the adage in Interstate '76 of 'Don't get out of the car.' In general it seems Interstate '82 has taken a step backward a little from the success of it's predecessor and like Groove Champion, time hasn't been so kind to either of them.

If the zombie film genre wasn't filled with amateurish garbage enough, Bruno Mattei's 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' (UK title) dumped a large trash load on uneducated viewers in the late 70's, closely riding the coat tails of George Romero's popular 'Dawn of the Dead' a year before.

Like 'Zombi Holocaust,' 'Zombie Flesh Eaters' and 'Cannibal Holocaust,' Mattei mixed a heady concoction from Dawn of the Dead's proven ingredients, that have become almost de riguer for a modern zombie film; the tooled up SWAT team, a mad scientist, a heap of machine-gun fodder zombies and some prime meat for them to feed on. In fact at times you could even be forgiven for mistaking 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' for 'Dawn...' With the sound turned down. Mattei's blatant plagiarism continues with similar locations and even use of Italian progressive rock group Goblin on the soundtrack, as well as jarringly obvious (and annoying) intercut scenes of native flora and fauna nicked from the local film library, but then again what else would we expect from the man who ripped off Jaws in 'Cruel Jaws' and created more dubious gems like 'Porno Holocaust' and 'S.S. Extermination Love Camp.'

A shallow almost nonexistent script compliments the horrendously shoddy direction to a tee, with some truly wince-inducing performances. Margrit Evelyn Newton may have a fine pair of lungs on her, but her latex dummy double in the films climax pulls off a more convincing performance, and while we are talking 'special' effects the zombies in the film amount to not much more than black people with faces painted white and white people....er.....painted black! There also seems to be huge holes in continuity, in fact 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' just about messes up in every category apart from it's unintentional stupidity, and at times laughingly so, it has an amateurish almost school yard craftsmanship about it (albeit an extremely violent one) from beginning to end, and it is in these times of resurfacing and repackaged duds (due in part to popularity of DVD) that they are finding a whole new unfortunate audience. We can only hope 'Zombie Creeping Flesh' remains where it belongs, in the corner of some crusty old video store in it's thick battered plastic case gathering dust for all but the most overly curious horror aficionado's and those with a zesty appetite for absolute tackiness in filmaking.

This hard to find drama about two hunting parties that decide to wage war on each other after a party member is killed from a previous encounter, seems at first promising, but after a ponderous snail-paced middle act, patchy characters and a somewhat unbelievable story to begin with, 'Shoot' begins to lose it's credibility with each slow moving scene.

Despite a half decent cast of it's day, the likes of Ernest Borgnine and Henry Silva have little to do, the pale script seemingly stretched just a little too thin for the film's running time, in fact the film seems a lot more suited to TV of which director Harvey Hart is more accustomed to. Cliff Robertson admittedly pulls off a hard driven performance as the unhinged Major Rex, however his character's actions do seem a little unbelievable and unintentionally funny at times as do the escalating events that lead the hunting party into more conflict.

Though an interesting premise, that could be easily mistaken for a John Woo plot if there ever was one, 'Shoot' suffers the most by it's shallow unlikeable characters and it's slow yet meticulous build up to the final bitter act, which when finally surfacing leaves the viewer feeling undeniably shortchanged.

The Australian cult hit and financial record breaker from 1979 still holds a fascination with it's young and young at heart audience. A fresh faced George Miller put together an astounding package with local talent, little money and heaps of energy with clearly visible panache. The plot is a simple tale of tragedy and revenge set 'a few days from now.' The near future timeline and Australia's slightly unfamiliar surroundings make 'Mad Max' appear almost like a violent comic book brought to life.

Mel Gibson produces a memorable role in the film that would launch him toward super stardom, providing a certain amount of credability among the intense action scenes and the almost spaghetti western style proceedings (which become even more evident with some versions that are dubbed with transatlantic voices) This is a film of good guys and bad guys, love, loss and vengeance, with cops in persuing V8 Ford Falcons and bikers on Kawasaki's replacing the western's Gunslingers on steeds. Very rarely does Miller's direction fail to engross the viewer, complimenting a catchy, well paced script filled with some quite memorable lines that could be considered at times cheesy, but fit the mood perfectly. Steve Bisley has his fare share, playing the live-wired but doomed Jim Goose who provides some of the more light-hearted moments earlier in the film. Playing the villains we have Hugh Keays Byrne on top form as the charismatic Toe Cutter who becomes almost a mystically evil character teaching Tim Burns as 'Johnny the Boy' his disturbed apprentice. Thumbs up should also go to Vince Gil as the 'Night Rider' a key character in one of the best scene setters of any action film, bar none. The entire sequence is crafted expertly, building from a quiet balmy day to a police car chase that becomes rapidly more dangerous as the miles fly by. Speed is conveyed masterfully by Miller, with impeccable editing from Cliff Hayes and Tony Paterson, presenting Grant Page's ballsy and damn well dangerous stunt sequences with maximum impact, ranking it as one of the finest car chases in celluloid history. It is easy to see how some other critics point out the film even suffers after this sequence, with the rest of the film unable to match the hi-octane opening. However the film does hold well throughout. With only a slowing of pace during the middle act, the film continues to build upon it's characters before the tragic events unfold, driving to it's unescapeable conclusion.

As well as keeping action fans entertained, 'Mad Max' is also a petrol-head's dream. The Australian car customising scene is clearly evident, adding an original look and feel to the film, which manages to still hold up well today. And though Max Max is not a road movie almost all the film is situated on or near the black liquorice tarmac of the road and the beasts that prowl on it.

Cult films historically have a hard-core underground following, of which George Miller's film has plenty, but unlike so many other cult films, Mad Max has been recognised by a wider audience with over $100 million box office takings to prove it, a success of which is deservedly so.

'Jagged Alliance' and it's multiplayer expansion kit 'Deadly Games' has built up quite a cult following with tactical and role-playing gamers over the years, 'Jagged Alliance 2' is no exception, using a familiar (and now proven) game structure, competent graphics and clever use of sound and speech.

Beside combat, gameplay is fleshed out with roleplaying encounters, which add dedicated assignments and tasks linked with the characters (both hospitable and argumentative) that you meet on the way, while a solid storyline unfolds the more you progress and explore further into the game. Progress and development is also another strong and important element of the game with the player able to strengthen his team through experience on the field and training, and the opportunity to acquire funding for better Mercenaries, weaponry, armour and other factual hardware, of which there is a wide choice, which adds a welcoming attention to detail.

Hardcore tactical gamers will delight in the array of options available while players new to the genre should have no problem getting to grips with the controls as the interface is not as daunting as it may first appear. Sir Tech keeps things informative with many features but without bogging down the player with unnecessary clutter.

For some, Jagged Alliance's game style maybe a little dated, (especially in these intensely 3-D biased times) and there's no denying anybody who has played 'Sabre Team', 'Breach' or the classic 'X-Com' will find themselves in familiar isometric surroundings. Jagged Alliance expands on this, adding more depth, more realism, and a healthy dose of talented voice acting which add a huge amount of life to the proceedings, elevating the game from simply good to one of the best of it's kind.

Adaptations from comic book to the big screen have always had an unsettled history, 'Spawn' being a classic example, with creator Todd McFarlane describing himself as 'the only guy dumb enough or brave enough' to pitch his vision of Hell to Hollywood and all in the limited confines of a PG-13 feature.

Ambitious or not, Spawn's translation is an inconsistent yet eclectic mix of action, espionage, black humour, and supernatural legend immersed in a heavy environment of digital and make-up effects, punchily edited with an MTV soundtrack, but even with an R rating Spawn's story begins to convulse and collapse under it's own zest to cram just about everything in but the Devil's kitchen sink. Unfortunately it's all stuff we've seen before; a broken hero seeking revenge, the family he's lost, the cold business like villain and even the mandatory street kid sidekick. So by the time Spawn's origin is established and the bullets and chains start to fly, interest begins to wane. Admittedly hi-octane, larger than life action fans may find something of interest here as Spawn doesn't stay still for long, with action scenes sharing the same absurd energy that many Manga titles depend on.

It is difficult to work out where Spawn fails most, as the film has both weaknesses and strengths in the same areas. While the cast has some respectable names their delivery is often marred by tacky dialogue, with Michael Jai White handed undoubtedly the worst. Martin Sheen sails through without too much effort despite using an awfully cliched tough guy voice that seems just a little over done even here. The almost unrecognizable John Leguizamo playing the spitting clown, adds some humour with some catchy but yet again over used one-liners. Nic Williamson is a talented actor and wise choice of narrator but doesn't seem to fit comfortably within the scenes, his character is far too reminiscent of an Obi-Wan Kenobi figure.

Industrial Light and Magic's effects are also of hugely varifying quality, Spawn's transforming costume a high point, but too many low points are evident to mention, except for the truly appalling main demon. One can only guess the stretched budget was a key factor in this. Low budget aside, Spawn's script and ultimate direction seems to be it's biggest stumbling block, there are some bare bones of excitement contained but it's handled messily as the effects, sharing a similar fate as so many other comic book adaptations before, simply unable to convey itself effectively on camera to a wider audience.

Blending cartoon characters with adult humour may have been a gamble for it's time, but the laughs (if not satire) have not dated well. Starts promisingly enough but soon begins to drag as the audience drudges through Fritz' drug and sex fueled journey. May intrigue the curious or die hard Crumb fans, even though the talented creator detested it.

Though it's been a long time since I saw 'The Burning' and my memory of the film could be just a little clouded by teenage nostalgia, I cannot deny it's partly successful attempts at creepiness and razor sharp shocks that were certainly head and shoulders above the deluge of other stalk-and-slash films of it's day.

Apart from a fairly typical but proved story line, the film is well paced, has it's fair share of scares, and some gruesomely horrific make-up effects from Tom Savini; the man responsible for some of the best in the business, with films such as 'Day of the Dead', 'The Prowler' and the original 'Friday the 13th' to his credit. 'The Burning' could arguably be written off as a simple Friday the 13th clone, but the top set pieces and driving score from Rick Wakeman work well, putting it up there with some of the best of it's type.

Be warned though, 'The Burning' was originally taken off of the shelves in England by the BBFC during the 'video nasties' uproar, and has subsequently reappeared with scenes heavily (and amateurishly) cut, including the show stopping raft massacre scene which deserves a place in horror film history, and will never make you look at a pair of garden shears quite the same again.

Lively but unbalanced adventure from the pen of Michael Crichton suffers from studio sets that don't quite make the grade and quirky casting, from Tim Curry's camp Rumanian treasure hunter, to Ernie Hudson's great 'black' hunter, complete with a distinguished English accent that could have been worse, after all there was always Keanu Reeves in 'Dracula'.

The film also suffers from two bland leads, a talking ape and some shocking over acting from minor performers. Even Frank Marshall's direction seems a little hurried, making the film appear more like a Sunday matinee B-movie from the fifties than it actually is.

Entertaining tale where Quaid plays a man able to enter other peoples dreams via cutting edge technology but soon ends up in hot water in a political conspiracy to kill the president.

Shares a lot in common with similar films released around the same time (Brainstorm, The Dead Zone) but manages to hold it's own with familiar faces and a fair paced script despite it's more lightweight tone.

'Touch Me in the Morning' uses a familiar structure of episodic intimate encounters held together by a simple story line using fine performers producing equally fine performances. Paul Thomas plays his usual placid self as the husband of Veronica Hart's character who positively shines in her myriad of encounters.

Seemingly portraying a marriage on the rocks, the film showcases the couples other non-platonic relationships with zeal. Top billing must got to Thomas' fantasy where he joins a stunningly seductive Lisa De Leeuw to the chord's of Ravel's 'Bolero' in a remarkably memorable scene that features no dialogue whatsoever. Veronica Hart once again is faultless with fine acting throughout the entire film, adding both credibility and maturity to the somewhat familiar proceedings.

Better than expected farce with Keaton in full-on comedy mode. Interesting plot that could have had a whole lot more possibilities tends to go for the cheap laugh too often, but still manages to hit the funny bone most of the time.

Finding Cannibal Holocaust 'entertaining' may well come down to personal boundaries of taste. For Cannibal Holocaust is an uncompromising exercise in exploitation film-making about as far as you can take it. It contains scenes of real animal cruelty, which are far more sickening than the rehearsed acts of violence in the film. It seems a common ingredient in a lot of cannibal films, which have understandably been criticised and black listed because of it. But for anybody to suggest it has any redeeming social commentary to make, maybe looking too deeply into something that is simply not there.

Admittedly Deodato (the director) deserves his dues, for an exploitation pic' Cannibal Holocaust is a lot more crafty and manipulative than most and is certainly the better of a pretty awful bunch of movies, but that doesn't mean it's all that good in it's own right either. Despite it's shortcomings it does manage to effortlessly attract the curious like a bad roadside accident, and has the same strange, unclean and hard to ignore quality, which ultimately becomes a nauseating experience leaving the viewer wondering why the hell they are watching this sickening display, something a few of the 'video nasties' have in common, the other being that most of them are plain trash.

Cannibal Holocaust recently has collected more of it's fair share of attention, with people pointing out similarities with 'The Blair Witch Project' and it's use of 'lost footage' and a storyline of a film crew ending up in s**t creek down in the woods (or in this case the jungle). Unfortunately this is giving the cannibal film a bit of cheap publicity riding on the back of the more recent, genuine bit of clever student film making, that Blair Witch is. Personally I believe Cannibal Holocaust should remain an obscure oddity, because a film that delights in animal torture has no right to be more than even that.

Like I said in the beginning, I guess it's a question of taste, or lack of it. If you are on the look out for some kind of queer cheap thrill some may find in the carnage of an auto-accident (which lets face it, can be pretty horrific if you're into that kind of thing) or perhaps you are simply intrigued by so many people's comments, you may be suckered in by attempting to find this movie, but on the other hand if Deodato's disregard for both human and animal life sickens you (and I hope it does) as much as the director relished putting it up there on screen, I can only hope you're choice in whether to watch is more of a thoughtful than voyeuristic one.

Harmless revenge film with a sci-fi twist where the spirit of a murdered teenager returns in the form of a ghostly Supercar. Undeniably eighties in style and content including a popular soft-rock soundtrack as well as some appalling hairstyles.

The Wraith's car may raise a few eyebrows, but generally the stunts and car chases it features in are nothing special, and the quality of acting throughout fluctuates from overblown to mediocre, Charlie Sheen proving to be one of the few competent performers. It's all put together succinctly enough and very rarely sits still. May prove more popular with younger audiences and those who got a kick out of the Knightrider TV series which it has a lot in common with.

The game that evolved Doom into a true 3-D experience and paved the way for a hundred imitations can be considered nothing less than a classic of modern gaming history. Out went the 2-D scaled bitmap graphics and in came a true interactive 3-D engine with dynamic lighting effects, animation and equally creepy 3-D enemies to inhabit this world, something today we all take for granted, but was very much a new milestone back in 1996.

I.D's game had it's critics in one-player mode, (the Polygon monsters came in lesser numbers than the flat enemies of Doom) but in Multiplayer it was and still could be considered one of the most exciting, immersive combat experiences that you could ever play on a PC. Anyone who's played a 16-man deathmatch amongst friends or acquaintances alike cannot deny the sheer power of this game. The sound was sickly detailed (with the help of one Trent Reznor) and the graphics were dark, earthy and atmospherically unmistakable.

Quake for many has been the closest thing to experiencing armed warfare (or a close approximation) without having to actually leave your seat, except of course when you need one of those sweaty adrenaline induced toilet breaks after you've just slaughtered your best buddies in over the top (but graphically intense) detail, with the fattest smile on your face, and for that I.D. we salute you!

Carpenter seems to go through the motions on this modern tale of hunters on the trail of a master vampire. Despite a tongue in cheek performance from the talented James Woods playing the bitter Jack Crow, and some fine sweeping shots of the New Mexico countryside for his ensemble of renegade mercenaries to strut their stuff and brandish their shiny weapons around in, the film doesn't seem to go anywhere but stroll through some feisty vampire hunting scenes, which don't offer anything more than what we all saw in 'From Dusk Till Dawn' until a final showdown with the aforementioned master vampire. The Vatican is briefly introduced, possibly to flesh out the thin storyline and we get a little background info on Jack's past, and pointers to why he's always so pissed off, which he is (quite enjoyably) through the entire movie! And of course we get a lot of guys (and gals) with pointed teeth and heavy brows being harpooned and dragged to their fiery deaths. It's all handled quite unpassionately by Carpenter, even the master's revenge rampage scene early on in the movie is edited together more befitting to a romantic montage, with images fading in and over one another, making it seem like Carpenter just wants to get the thing over with, when it should have been real toe curler. This also seems painfully evident in a disappointing finale which has more plot holes than some of the staked vampires.

Like a lot of Carpenter's more recent work, Vampire$ is fun enough but ultimately flawed, it's quirky, at times funny and fairly lively but at the end of the day it's just another one of those films destined for video rental mediocrity that could've been so much more. And if it weren't for James Woods' slightly uncomfortable but ironic anti-hero it would have been even much less than that.

With Roger Moore making the part his own by this; his third bond film, Albert R. Broccoli had to come up with a strong action-packed epic, if they were to attract audiences that had been spoilt rotten by 'Star Wars' the same year.

'The Spy Who Loved Me' offers no new scenarios, in fact you could easily dissect each key scene and match it to something that's been done before. There's an underwater battle like the one in 'Thunderball' a ski chase not too dissimilar to the one in 'Her Majesty's...' and even the final big shoot out is not unlike the one in 'You Only Live Twice' which was also directed by Lewis Gilbert. However 'The Spy Who Loved me' is more than merely a sum of its parts, and when each part is handled as expertly as these, you don't seem to care if it has indeed been done before.

The film like Moore exudes a certain charm, and provides a certain amount of nostalgia looking back at it now, with it's lively 70's fashions, even Bond's theme gets the disco treatment, quite superbly. Ken Adam's stunning larger than life sets fit the film's extravagant, big budget flavour perfectly. Appreciative nods must also go to some fantastically attractive women, Caroline Munro playing the enticing Naomi has to be one of the most seductive looking femme fatales to steam up a wide-screen, and more's the pity that she didn't grace it longer. Barbara Bach is equally alluring, and a fine match for Roger Moore in every sense of the word. The film also offers a wealth of laughs while not forgetting the chills and spills, Richard Keil providing all as the relentless and unforgettable Jaws. The scene where he tears open a Sherpa Van like a sardine can is particularly memorable, as is him brushing himself off after plummeting into a farmhouse from a flying Mercedes. Some fine touches of drama too, Bond's response to XXX's remarks about his career and wife are handled with compassion and reverence.

So in all everything is here you could possibly want in a 007 adventure; top stunts, beautiful women, cool villains, those gloriously huge Pinewood sets and THAT car, wrapped in an exciting globe-trotting story line where Bond has to save the world from certain destruction, accompanied by the svelte tones of Carly Simon singing 'Nobody does it better' it's not surprising that the 'Spy Who Loved Me' is one of the most memorable of all Bond films.

Dull outing from the Paul Thomas stable about dysfunctional couples and their relationships comes across like an overlong episode of 'Knots Landing.'

Savannah acts sweet and innocent as ever and you can't help feeling sorry for her when Buck Adams manages to get her into bed. Jeanna Fine adds a little genuine excitement as the out of control sex addict while Mike Horner provides some unintentional laughs again as Fine's frustrated therapist.

Some nice locations and more importantly nice women, but unfortunately wrapped together in a story that, like the men in the film, just don't want to appreciate them.

Oliver Stone and Michael Caine may well feel a little embarrassed by this tale of a cartoonist haunted by his own severed drawing hand, but despite it's ludicrous premise and rather rubbery effects from Stan Winston, the film isn't all THAT bad.

Michael Caine brings an amiable nonchalance to the E.C. horror comic style proceedings while portraying his character's ever growing bitterness perfectly. While the story provides little in surprises the film does work on more than one level, leaving the viewer wondering if what's going on, is all in mind of Caine's character or that it is indeed actually happening. And for a film like this that makes you think, or more fittingly, makes you stop thinking how all very silly this all is, is no mean feat.

Fine actioner based on Alistair MacLean's novel holds a few surprises for those lucky enough to catch this underrated gem. An unorthodox and at times bitty script is held together by an amiable cast including a young Ben Kingsley (debuting with a full head of hair) surprisingly in his only film before his Oscar winning performance of 'Ghandi' ten years later.

The screenplay is a crafty one, with Barry Newman ploughing through the first half of the film seemingly out of control and playing a role hauntingly similar to his one in 'Vanishing Point' but this time in a Ford Gran Torino, keeping the viewer guessing what's going to happen next and why. After a slightly boggy, espionage filled middle act the film coolly builds to a dramatic nail-biting finale and it is only here in the film's dying moments do you actually discover the truth. Though the ending may not quite reach some viewers expectations, it does wrap things up succinctly, making the thrills on the way (including a fine car chase that bursts from a courthouse breakout) all the more worthwhile.

'Document of the Dead' is an interesting look at the making of 'Dawn of the Dead' and other works of George A. Romero, but despite the subject matter, 'Document...' for me was a little disappointing. Well hyped in the press and by the production crew itself, I couldn't help feel a little sold short by the final package. Admittedly this in part can be explained due to technical difficulties when the film was being made, (see trivia) and we can only guess how much more interesting 'Document...' would have been with those extra 66 shots, but the film has other faults. Sound quality at times was poor, while the voice of narrator Susan Tyrell I found coma inducing, and at times narration was overtly technical to the point of boredom. There was also some repetitive cuts (including a whole rerun of the final credits and time coded footage) that obviously wasn't supposed to be there, though I'm not sure if this was down to the original production team or the video distributor.

Die hard Romero fans will no doubt salivate at the behind the scenes and extra unseen footage, as may curious independent filmmakers and students, but the presentation here will more likely bore unfamiliar, less technically minded audiences. Romero's work, and how he works is in no dispute though, it is fascinatingly interesting. He comes across eloquently while still remaining down to earth and you can't help empathise with his struggle despite his successful track record. Interviews with Tom Savini also help immensely, livening the film with his energy and obvious passion he has for his work.

'Document...' isn't quite the companion to 'Dawn of the Dead' that I was hoping for, but under the circumstances it's understandable, in fact it's a credit to the film makers that it ever got put out there at all! But despite covering some of Romero's other work, Dawn footage is what we were all here for and it's a shame that in the end there just wasn't quite enough.