A fresh month and a fresh load of reviews for Videovista.
- Love Circles - High concept soft-core pornography that, despite some attractive actresses combines silly writing with a touch of racism to produce a film that is about as erotic as stomach surgery.
- 638 Ways to Kill Castro - An intelligent British documentary about the past and present of the war against Castro that is hampered by the film-maker's desire to be both funny and accessible and hard-hitting and politically scathing. Vastly improved by its DVD extras.
- Valmont - Milos Forman's unfairly over-looked adaptation of Les Laisons Dangereuses starring Colin Firth and Annette Benning. Chooses to portray the characters as humans rather than robots and as a result makes for a far more intelligent and challenging film.
- Kissed - A strange Canadian drama attempting to deal with necrophilia in a sympathetic manner. Despite being quite short and having a few interesting things to say, the film nonetheless feels strangely padded.
- River's End - A sociopath's guide to child-rearing disguised as an American family film. The more wholesome it tries to be, the more disturbing it becomes.
An interesting rather than a great month and my desire to watch softcore pornography has well and truly been sated. My pick of the month is a close run thing with both 638 Ways to Kill Castro and Valmont turning out to be better than I expected them to be. However, if I had to pick I would definitely go for Valmont. Even if you've seen the other screen adaptations, Forman's take on the text is different enough to show them in a completely new light.
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