Everyone knows about the successful and highly influential spate of Japanese horror films from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, This isn’t as well known as Ring or Ju-On: The Grudge but it’s still considered the progenitor of that wave. Unfortunately while the grainy film esthetic and general tone of the cinematography are similar, I found this one to be a not very scary and not very impressive example of the genre. After being subjected to truly horrific supernatural entities, a hypnotist no matter how implausibly skilled, just doesn’t rate that highly as a threat and worse still, the film is utterly uninterested in exploring the backstory of the villain.

Everyone knows the song ‘White Christmas’ but how many know that it comes from this musical? Between that song and the appearance of stars like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, I thought this might make for an entertaining watch. Unfortunately ‘White Christmas’ is the only good song in here and the film itself is just mediocre. Having two male leads and no real female lead is an odd choice but what really kills it is the blackface performance later on and the inclusion of a stock ‘Mamie’ character. Between the two, it gives some bad vibes to the familiar ‘White Christmas’ song and the plot is just nonsense. Avoid.

Tony Hawk is inarguably the world’s most famous skateboarder and has a strong claim to be the world’s best ever. As a videogamer, it’s impossible to miss the innumerable games bearing his name and he’s emblematic of that whole counterculture. This film serves as a fairly comprehensive and I believe fair biography of him. There are no huge twists and it’s essentially the same kind of story we’ve seen in other top tier athletes. Still the scenes of him skating are jaw-dropping to watch and the forthrightness of Hawk’s responses to the interviewer’s questions marks this as one of the better films of the genre.

I’d bet many people including myself added this to their list of films to watch after the events of last year. This is considered one of the most highly acclaimed Ukrainian films of all time and was made during the USSR era. In many ways this feels more like a documentary than a film as its plot is barebones and very straightforward. The real delight is in how vividly it captures village life in the Carpathian Mountains that is its setting, complete with their costumes, music, dances, customs and more. I also found it notable how dark it is as a story of a typical man’s life which I’d attribute to the character of the Russian psyche.

Every country has their own historical epics so I’m very pleased to have watched this one about the African kingdom of Dahomey focusing on the all-woman warrior unit known as the Agojie. Colonialist westerners who encountered them called them the Dahomey Amazons but of course the Amazons were mythological while the Agojie were real. This film more or less conforms to the standard tropes of the genre except that more emphasis is laid on the general of the unit rather than the king and of course their all-female nature. I think the film could benefit from being a little shorter and in many ways it’s too bog standard. Still it’s a fine exemplar of its genre and I do love its African focus.