Stephen M (harrycaul)

"C'mon, Ace, let's go fishing"

Ordinarily I'm very cynical of so-called director's cuts and the reasons for their release. The way I see it, unless there was outside interference, the director should have got it right first time. And with something like Apocalypse Now, frankly I have much more respect for Coppola's artistic integrity circa 1976-1979, when he made it, than in 2001 when he re-edited it. Anyway, here's a potentially great little movie that really was ruined by studio interference and which, I feel, would not need a great deal of tweaking to improve it immeasurably. First to go, obviously, would be the unbearably corny, tacked-on ending. I'm trying not to give too much away for those who haven't seen it, but why not just end the movie directly after the tense climax, on the optimistic note that Allan (Jason Beghe) has done enough to guarantee his spinal surgery? It would, however, be unfair to blame the studio for everything that is wrong with this picture. Back in 1976/1977 when he made his brilliant modern day vampire movie, Martin, Romero was clever enough not to make an issue of pointy teeth, unless it was to poke fun at the silliness of traditional vampire lore. In Monkey Shines, Romero's own, unnecessary, equally silly dental fixation suggests a significant erosion of his artistic good sense over the intervening decade.

Just as the term film noir was coined by the French to describe the cinematic equivalent of their black-jacketed hardboiled crime literature, the giallo, the Italian slasher movie, derives its name from the series of lurid, yellow paperbacks that directly inspired the films. By boldly naming his movie after the genre that has sustained him for the past forty years - the genre which he has done more than anybody else to popularise and of which he was once the undisputed master - you'd be forgiven for thinking that Dario Argento has something important to say here. A definitive statement? The culmination of a lifetime's work? Dare we even whisper it, a return to form?!?! Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. I won't give anything away because, quite frankly, this utterly dreadful film is short of surprises, even lame ones; let's just say I was reading too much into the origin of that title.

Aside from the increasingly unpleasant level of misogyny on display, Argento's recent work has been characterised by a preference for realistic backdrops. To say that Argento and realism go together like oil and water would be an understatement; realism is the salt to his slug! Even the best of Argento is too silly to bear close scrutiny but it gets by on bravura style coupled with a certain dreamlike logic; shine the harsh, natural light of day into his world and it just falls apart, becomes ridiculous. Argento is also one of those directors whose films rarely reach a satisfactory conclusion; they either end too abruptly or contain a final twist they'd have been better off without, Opera being a good example of the latter. As with Sleepless, the credits of Giallo begin to roll before the movie seems to have finished, as if the director reached an arbitrary point, got bored (what took him so long???) and called a wrap.

Anyway, I've now come to the conclusion that Dario Argento should be forcibly restrained from making any more movies. Oh, just in case you can't see through terrible acting and worse make-up, here's an anagram for your two year old child to solve: Byron Deidra

The most beautiful, imaginative and ambitious fantasy film ever made. Everyone should see it. Originally commissioned to improve Anglo-American relations at the tail end of WWII!

More of a character study than a thriller, though it does have a lovely twist at the end. Easily the best thing Coppola ever made and undoubtedly Gene Hackman's finest hour. I annoy people by declaring this Harrison Ford's best movie!