80 minutes and under

debut from robert rodriguez( sin city from dusk til dawn) and the first in his mariachi films( followed by desperado and once upon a time in mexico, shot in spanish and a reported 7000 dollers, this is a great blend of action and comic moments, a mariachi player gets mixed up for a assassin when he arrives in town, so local thugs decide to terminate him, and a pursuit of the man begins while he also falls in love with a local woman. a great example of what can be acomplished with a minimum budget, the tricks that rodriguez uses to make his budget bigger are great, he was a one crew team and did everything, a great example for all you film school wannabee film makers out there, andalthough looks cheap doesent act it, a great tip watch his audio commetery on the dvd, a great do it your self film hand book, tells you everything you wanna know about becoming a filmmaker and low budgets, a great debut from rodriguez

very funny indeed, and feelsc really real, these guys are hilarious, a great inprovised film, this could be 3 hours long, its comedy will never dull, some people mistake this for a documentary. i can see why. scene after scene of great dialogue, and situations, check out them getting lost on route to the stage, and stonehenge, amazing

great concept, and pulled off great, farrell as a cocky newyorker forced to pour out his emotions and admit to some short comings in his daily life when a sniper has him stuck while talking on the phone, iven certain basic tasks, and having to deal with arogant and pissed off passer buys along the way, very stylishly shot by shumacher, great use of screens popping up, showing other angles and so on, farrell is superb in his role, perfectly capturing a man under pressure, a very brisk running time, and doesent out stay its welcome,

spain gets in on the camcorder footage shot style film, and very good it is too, a young reporter and her cameraman, spend the night with a barcelona fire department, very boring for them until a routine callo to some flats in the city, we get there awith two firemen, and it turns out a old women is behaving strangelly in her apartment, once in, she violently attacks a policeman with them, bites him in the neck, all captured on film, before we know it, from events not seen, the crew, firemen and residents are locked in the building due to health and safety reasons, and here it gets very interesing, more people start getting attacked, trhe atacked come back to bite some more and before long its wits and nerves all over as survival in building is vital, all the while there point of view all seen through a camera filming. yes this has been done before, its nolthing new, blairwitch project, did great things, and this year cloverfield took the concept to blockbuster monster movie level, even romeros diary of the dead, tried it, and heres the thing,its possible its better than all of them, the creepyness of blair witch, is all there, the apartment building, standing in for the woods, really giving of a creepy feel, you could call this a zmbie movie to some degree, and im sorry to say, much much better than diry of the dead, much more scary, very violent, and scenes of horror, thats been much better than anything lately, really tense as well, watching various people wonder halls, and apartments keeps you on your toes, and also a high deathcount considering the small cast, you never feel safe watching this film, you are in there with them, and you cant get out, also very brief at just under 80 mins, and never feels long or for that matter to short, it feels right, im sure seeing this in cinema added a dimension and maybe a extra star for me, as atmosphere really helps this film, the pacing rally is great here, and a very great use of the location to set the structure of story, and the ending, the last scene, oh boy, creepy, i dont wanna spend the night there

i though this would fail. doing the blair witch hand held thing and post 911 fear, it dident look good, but they pulled it off, great effects all shot through hand held amature video comes off very well, superb set pieces, and very realistic looking, really puts you in the action, and after film ended. i thought about this film a lot, its true to say the story is not al that, and there motivations dont really add up.but when does any of that ever play well in big disaster films, so a bad plot device is made up for by superb set pieces, the ist attack, the brooklyn bridge, and tower block all great examples, anyone who thught spielbergs war of the worlds was great will love this, action scenes with emotion, thats what we get here, and a film very relevent to current events over this decade, check this out at cinema, its a experience, no dodgy downloads please, it really wont work,

shane meadows, follows up this is england with another slice of young life, and again starring this is englands thomas turgoose, and again like other meadows films this is england, dead mans shoes, and others naturalistic acting, that brings something to the table always, the two leads once they meet, are superb together, a young polish youngster and a nrthern lad discovering each other in london, its a simple story, and with a short running time , never outstays its welcome, runs veey briskly, and never dull, full of cracking dialogue, and great black and white cinematography, a simple story of friendship

christopher nolans debut, low budget english effort, a interesting idea, a lot covered for brief running time, and a film you can watch again to get it more, not as clever as memento, but the seeds of memento were certainly practised in this debut