Communion is an upcoming film from director Greg Hall and the assortment of miscreants at Broke But Making Films, which is being financed through Sponsume Crowdfunding.  The film sounds awesome; a priest, having lost his faith, sets out on a road trip as some kind of vigilante, with a female Mexican punk sidekick in tow.

Greg & Co are looking to raise £15,000 in the next few weeks with several investment packages ranging from £5 to £100.   What's more, you'll get something for your money (apart from the satisfaction of supporting what is in all likeliness is going to be a wicked movie).  Depending on how much you invest, you could be the recipient of a DVD, tickets to the premier or the opportunity to be an extra in the film.

Could Communion turn out to be a shoddy amateur monstrosity like Tales from the Quadead Zone?  Unlikely, Greg has previous form; he's already helmed a few award winning pictures.  I was impressed by his debut effort, The Plague, an energetic slice of social realism set in a London housing estate; a film that was produced on a shoestring budget of around £3,500.  Having recently watched his latest short film, Bruised, a character study of a bare knuckle boxer, it is clear he has developed his skills as a director.  It is a slicker affair but still has the unshakable bite of an angry pitbull.  I'm looking forward to seeing Communion develop as a project, and even more excited about eventually seeing the film.  In the meantime, I guess I'll have to make do with catching up with his other two feature films, Kapital and SSDD: Same Shit Different Day.

Recently I've been a little disappointed with my taste in films.  I'm (reasonably) adventurous when it comes to my viewing habits, after all if you only watch the kind of films you think you're going to like; you're going to miss out on some great stuff.  I normally steer clear of romantic comedies but one of my favourite films of last year was Crazy, Stupid, Love, something that was really worth giving a whirl. 

So it was in this spirit of open-mindedness that I went to a viewing of Your Sister's Sister.  It looked like the kind of pretentious guff that often pisses me off.  From the movie poster, I was expecting a trio of kooky, navel gazing twats.  Which is kind of what I got, although I didn't expect to enjoy their company quite so much for the 90 minutes I shared with them.  Okay, so it wasn't the best film I've seen lately but it was genuinely engaging, if a little baggy towards the end.  Worth a look when it hits cinemas on June 29th, especially if arty, indie romances are your thing.

However, the film that really got me questioning my taste was Sex and the City 2.  I watched the first Sex and the City movie at the cinema, and being only one of a handful of reluctant men in the screening, it was an unusual movie going experience.  The women in the audience clearly loved every second of it.  It was hilarious witnessing every gasp, cackle and lecherous yell.  A very mediocre, if admittedly enjoyable, film was elevated to one my most memorable cinematic outings.

I was a little apprehensive about watching Sex and the City 2, despite my enjoyment of the first film.  After all, I was watching it on DVD with my girlfriend, rather than in a packed auditorium surrounded by crazed females, also it seemed to have been considered by critics and fans alike as far inferior.  How wrong they all are; Sex and the City 2 is brilliant!  It's a rare treat these days to have a film that is unintentionally funny and has so little awareness of how ridiculous it is, the most obvious companion piece being 2008's Rambo.  It's unbelievably crass and laughable in so many ways; I just don't know where to start.  Actually, yes I do; the unapologetic worship of wealth is truly nauseating.  Not only that, but there's not even the slightest attempt to assimilate the numerous instances of product placement into the alleged plot.  Outside of the Third Reich, the four women at the centre of the film are truly the worst people imaginable.  They just swan around in their opulent, vacuous lives, blissfully unaware that their wretched existence is only possible if others go without.

But we shouldn't forget that all the girls do have problems of their own to contend with.  Yes, Carrie has to deal with the distress of being given a massive flatscreen television as a gift, rather than a piece of jewellery.  Good job she has another apartment to go to when she just needs a little time to look at shoes and reflect on what a terrible life she has.  Charlotte is really in a pickle, despite having a live in nanny, occasionally she is left for small amounts of time with the children on her own; the poor dear just can't cope and when some mucky handprints land on a vintage skirt she has to cower in a walk-in larder sobbing.  Later in the film Charlotte and Miranda raise their cocktails in salute to the mothers who somehow manage without hired 'help'.  Miranda herself is being undervalued at work, something a lot of women can relate to I imagine.  Most however do not have the luxury of quitting their job on a whim without taking a knock to their lifestyle.  Samantha is going through the menopause; luckily she has enough pills and products to apparently circumvent it.  It just seems that these poor souls need a break...

When it became apparent they were all off on a holiday to the United Arab Emirates, I knew the true beauty of the movie was yet to show itself.  The arrogant disregard and mockery of an entire country's (admittedly rubbish) religious and cultural values is shocking, yet hilarious.  Scumbalina hit the nail on the head when she said it was basically Team America: World Police, but much funnier despite the lack of knowing.  Following several troublesome instances with the conservative authorities, one scene sees a flesh baring Samantha scrabbling around the pavement trying to pick up condoms that have fallen out of her handbag, whilst a crowd of disapproving men look on.  In a punk rock gesture she ends up waving the condoms in their faces whilst sticking her fingers up and shouting about how much she loves fucking.  Before she can be taken away in handcuffs, the girls are whisked away by a mysterious woman in a burka.  They are lead into a room full of other women in burkas.  But wait a minute, the drab black cloth is removed to reveal the colourful highlights from that year's fashion collections; women are the same all the world round after all!  Go sisters, shed your shackles of oppression - you have nothing to gain but this year's designer goods.

Much like Rambo, Sex and the City 2 is not content with just being horribly inappropriate and generally vile, it has to try and impart a serious message.  This just makes the whole thing even more amusing.  There is a lot of pseudo feminist banter and I suppose on a very superficial level, it delivers.  After all these are more or less confident, strong, independent successful characters.  I just feel women are being sold a little short here.  One scene that made me laugh out loud was when Carrie met up with an old flame and he complimented her by telling her that she wasn't like other women (thank God!), as if she had somekind of three dimensional personality.  Come on, however self obsessed you are, there must be more to life than cocktails, clothes and accessories.

I suppose Sex and the City 2 can be chalked up as a guilty pleasure, perhaps a little like pulling the wings off flies, or punching children.

I recently watched Equinox as a blind viewing, I think Harry K may have copied it for me, or perhaps I downloaded it from Cinemageddon.  Either way, I was quite excited to discover it was a schlocky, camp monster movie, like a more fucked up version of the Ray Harryhausen movies I loved as a kid.  I don't know if I was not in the right mood, or perhaps it is one of those movies you need to see with some buddies and a few beers, but I found it a little boring, despite it ticking a lot of the right boxes.  It had awesome monsters, ridiculously wooden acting, a creepy old guy in a cave distributing demonic tomes (along with his own personal stylophone soundtrack) and a sex offending park ranger/magician with huge eyebrows.  As I said before, it's sadly not as good as it sounds.  Most interestingly though, is that it almost certainly influenced Sam Raimi & co when they came to make The Evil Dead.  Aside from the many visual and plot similarities, it just feels like a kindred entity.  Both were fresh, experimental independent low budget films that punched above their weight with top notch special effects, and both have achieved a lasting cult appreciation.  Equinox received the Criterion treatment in 2006, with two restored versions (as if one were not enough!) of the film released on DVD.

I'm not a huge Russ Meyer fan, so I approached The Seven Minutes with a fair amount of apprehension; I was expecting something titillatingly kitsch but ultimately boring.  Early on I was pleased to find myself engaged with the conspiratorial obscenity trial storyline and was also just enjoying the seventies campness of it all.  I was particularly happy when a young Tom Selleck appeared onscreen as the head of the publishing house (fuck you Magnum, PI!).  Okay, I don't want to over sell this, it's not a great film by any strech of the imagination, but the frequent attempts by corrupt politicians and officials to quash any investigation and the absurd trial itself, means it more or less carries its two hour running time without becoming too dull.  It's far closer to a conventional drama than your typical Russ Meyer effort, which as far as I'm concerned isn't a bad thing.  That said, the occassional flashes of Meyer trademark salacious and surreal camera angles (and the obligatory cast of huge breasted women) increases the oddity factor, whilst reminding you who's at the helm.  At the end of the film there's a satisfying monologue on the merits of freedom of expression, just incase you hadn't already picked up on the theme that the film had been hammering home the whole while.   Stick it to the man!

Ill Manors first popped up on my radar when Harry K emailed me a link to the excellent Ill Manors music video, which alongside Paul Knight's article Thatcher's Grandchildren, provided some of the most relevant commentary on last year's riots.  I've seen the trailer for Ill Manors and it looks great.  If it can harness just a fraction of the energy and social criticism of the Ill Manors music video, then it'll certainly not disappoint.  It hits cinema screens tomorrow, 6th June.

People are always referring to films that are so bad they're good, which is a promise that usually results in disappointment.  Ultramarines is not so bad it's good, it's so bad it's fascinating.

For those not familiar with the world of Warhammer 40,000, a table based role playing game, the Ultramarines are a chapter of the Space Marines, whose alleged purpose is to 'defend mankind'.  The film is just terrible.  However, once I got past the dreadful CGI animation and simplistic plot, I realised that my main grievance with the film was political.  The 'heroes' of the film are exaggerated depictions of a masculine ideal (there are no women in the film, and if I recall correctly, no mention of any either) who celebrate war and struggle.   The Ultramarines serve a totalitarian state, with unswerving loyalty to their Emperor.  When you throw in all the dubious Nazi iconography (eagles, skulls, Iron Crosses, etc.) it seems the filmmakers have, if unwittingly, created a pseudo fascist movie.

I mentioned some of my criticisms of the film to Harry K, who quite reasonably suggested that it was a little rich of me to unpick films on moral grounds considering my affection for everything wretched, after all one of my favourite films is Ilsa She Wolf of the SS, something I think we can all agree is morally bankrupt.  I'm probably getting my knickers in a twist, I expect Ultramarines is actually perfectly harmless fun (well I say fun, did I mention before that it's dogshit?).  In addition, I'm fairly confident that the filmakers weren't trying to make any political statement, I saw it at a screening where they talked in depth about the film's creation, and questionable content aside, it was clear that their motivation was to simply represent the Warhammer 40K world with an authenticity that would please fans. 

Regardless of whether this is likely to corrupt the morals (like they need corrupting) of your average 13 year old boy, who is presumably the target demographic, is ultimately neither here nor there, the film corrupts your will to live, which is surely more dangerous.