Anton Bitel Movie Reviews & Previews

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Anton Bitel

Agrees with the Tomatometer 75% of the time.

Biography:: Dr Anton Bitel was born in Australia in 1970, and has lived in the UK since 1989. Now a father of twins, occasional academic and full-time caffeine junkie, he compensates for a general sense of disgruntlement by moping about in darkened cinemas watching other people's joys and sorrows. He seeks elusive thrills from all genres (even romantic comedy), but tends to prefer anything extreme, odd, miserable or tawdry. He is at home with horror, 'arthouse', the avant garde and Oriental cinema. Anton currently freelances for Film4, musicOMH (where he is a staff writer), Eye for Film, Film International and Little White Lies, and was for three years one of the principal contributors to the now semi-defunct Movie Gazette.
Favorites:: Eraserhead Brazil Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring Apocalypse Now The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) M. Houlot's Holiday Ichi the Killer Last Year in Marienbad Batman (1966) Synecdoche, New York
Publications:: Daily Mirror [UK] , Eye for Film , Film International , Film4 , Little White Lies , Movie Gazette , MovieScope , musicOMH.com , Sight and Sound
Critics' Group:: London Film Critics Circle, Online Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 1725
Total QuickRatings:: 1

Location:: Oxford, UK

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 1725

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
	60%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" ...merely wants us to accept Reacher wholesale as an old-fashioned avatar of Eighties maverickdom, and to recruit us to a potential franchise of Reacher's investigative overreaching." — Eye for Film Posted Dec 25, 2012
	51%	The Man With the Iron Fists (2012)	" an affectionate recreation of Shaw Brothers kung fu, but for all its inventive weaponry & varied fighting methods, its heady m�l�e of sex & gore, its grand gestures and nostalgic stylings, it is also entirely lacking in any real substance of its own." — Little White Lies Posted Dec 6, 2012
	33%	Life Just Is ()	" Writer/director Alex Barrett's feature debut settles for rites-of-passage ensemble drama in a Bergman mould, but its stilted, awkward dialogue hardly improves upon the audible lines of the film-within-a-film critiqued in that opening scene. " — Little White Lies Posted Dec 6, 2012
	——	Dwae-ji-ui wang (The King of Pigs) ()	" relentlessly depressing but compelling & complex, The King of Pigs bears witness to a hidden legacy of oppression, violence & despair from which there can be no easy escape, & which reflects the hierarchies that continue to stratify Korean society. " — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 30, 2012
	——	Pa-dak pa-dak (Padak) ()	" an allegory of both thinking outside the box and changing the prevalent ecosystem within, Padak is undoubtedly harrowing and may well put younger viewers off eating fish for life" — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 30, 2012
	60%	Deranged (2012)	" virus thriller Deranged (Yeon-ga-si) tries hard to break free of its Contagion shackles by giving its infection a truly bizarre origin & symptomatology... [but] ends up being both preposterously silly and numbingly repetitive." — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 30, 2012
	——	The Grand Heist (Baramgwa Hamjje Sarajida) ()	" The Grand Heist maintains its tone of madcap rambunctiousness, while allowing its thieves to be, or at least to become, true Korean patriots with a grand political cause and an East-meets-West sensibility (the latter shared with the film itself)." — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 30, 2012
	86%	The Thieves (2012)	" it's all very slickly realised... but the sheer number of mood swings, double crosses and narrative twists eventually becomes exhausting, while making it impossible to engage with the protean players or to care much who eventually comes up diamonds." — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 30, 2012
	——	Masquerade (2012)	" a somewhat sentimental tale of royal intrigue and romance; a crash course on the claustrophobic, often bizarre details of courtly life; and a showcase for the acting talents of Korean superstar Lee Byung-hun, in dual roles. " — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 30, 2012
3/5	86%	Ninja Scroll (1996)	" It may be a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing - but all that demon-whupping sure is fun." — Little White Lies Posted Nov 22, 2012
	85%	End of Watch (2012)	" visual vibrancy always trumps verisimilitude - shakicam's reality effects are repeatedly problematised by the question of which character is filming what at any given time, especially when the answer, at least sometimes, would appear to be 'no one'." — Little White Lies Posted Nov 22, 2012
	100%	Ninja Scroll (1995)	" There is so much going on here, that the film's total lack of subtext - or, more generously, its pure escapism - only sinks in afterwards. It may be a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing - but all that demon-whupping sure is fun." — Little White Lies Posted Nov 22, 2012
	——	Mul-go-gi (A Fish) ()	" although A Fish starts off as something like a noirish detective story, by the end it has become a mystery in the ancient sense of that word, bridging, through religious practice, the ineffable divide between life and death. " — Eye for Film Posted Nov 20, 2012
	——	Sono yoru no samurai (The Samurai That Night) ()	" Akahori may start off riding the familiar road of vengeance, but his narrative takes so many unexpected and bizarre detours that by the close, the revenge motif has become completely decentred, giving way to a quirky study of lost souls." — Eye for Film Posted Nov 18, 2012
	——	Zavtra (Tomorrow) ()	" background context is missing from Gryazev's film which, in focusing so myopically on the group's acts of clownish larceny and vandalism, makes it very difficult to sympathise with them, or to understand their cause." — Eye for Film Posted Nov 18, 2012
	39%	Zombi 2 (1980)	" [the remaster] looks a whole lot better than the bootlegged version lost down the back of the sofa in the video nasty era, but apart from its iconic zombie-vs.-shark sequence, it has little to offer today's audience beyond nostalgia for its own sake" — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 15, 2012
	48%	The Tall Man (2012)	" for all this thriller's tautness, its true horror emerges from the uncomfortable ethical questions that it poses - and leaves us to answer for ourselves in the dark. " — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 15, 2012
	——	The Helpers (2013)	" motel-set torture shocker The Helpers goes efficiently enough through the routines it borrows from Psycho, Vacancy, Wrong Turn and Saw, without ever really finding its own voice." — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 15, 2012
	——	Gallowwalker ()	" a bold folly, mixing genres and colour palettes with all the desultory visual flair of a Jodorowsky film, but with none of the Chilean director's intelligence or depth of ideas. So it's Shallowwalkers really..." — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 15, 2012
	42%	Bait (2012)	" Carp all you like at how subtext, plausibility and sense have been sacrificed to this film's high concept, but all the stereoscopic slaughter is irresistibly appealing." — Sight and Sound Posted Nov 15, 2012
	81%	Excision (2012)	" charting the horrors of adolescent alienation... writer/director Richard Bates Jr. is the exciting new face of disturbing, demented psychodrama." — MovieScope Posted Nov 2, 2012
4/5	81%	Excision (2012)	" This disturbing, demented psychodrama cuts to the heart of teen growing pains." — Little White Lies Posted Nov 1, 2012
	33%	Black Rock (2013)	" despite the occasional mismatch between the human drama and more genre-bound concerns, for the most part Black Rock is a tense, atmospheric and engaging affair, with an existential edge." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 29, 2012
	——	My Amityville Horror ()	" My Amityville Horror maintains a path somewhere between faith & agnosticism, adding manipulatively spooky music to underscore Daniel's tales, yet presenting a polyphony of irreconcilable perspectives from others without deciding between them for us." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 24, 2012
	——	The Comedian ()	" It is an understated message for a diffident, aimless generation - and an impressive first film from a director happy to daze rather than amaze." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 23, 2012
	——	The Wall ()	" The Wall, having started with a premise both irrational and limiting, discovers within these minimalist narrative confines all manner of larger verities about our place in the universe. " — Eye for Film Posted Oct 23, 2012
	37%	Psycho (1998)	" a true labour of love, an homage in such deliriously infatuated thrall to its inspiration that it seems more arthouse folly than studio cashcow - or, to cite the psychiatrist near the end of Psycho, "these were crimes of passion, not profit."" — Little White Lies Posted Oct 22, 2012
	97%	Psycho (1960)	" Watching Psycho today we are all, like Marion in the shower, vainly trying to recover lost innocence too late." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 22, 2012
	——	Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1992)	" Here, normality is relative, while batshit comes on tap... No matter that the humour is uneven when there is so much jaw-dropping insanity to spare." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 22, 2012
	67%	Basket Case 2 (1990)	" Belial is settling down and growing up - but unfortunately his domestication is also the film's. For all the creature effects and gore on offer here - not to mention bad acting and risible dialogue - Basket Case 2 feels cosily tame. " — Eye for Film Posted Oct 22, 2012
	——	Crocodile ()	" Crocodile remains a shocking depiction of day-to-day struggles in a dog-eat-dog world. It also comes with one of those hauntingly beautiful endings for which Kim has since become rightly famous." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 19, 2012
	44%	Bereavement (2011)	" while Bereavement is certainly a slasher, it is also a film about how monsters are made, in which every character, hero and villain alike, is figured as tragic prey to genes and circumstance." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 19, 2012
	52%	Grassroots (2012)	" Grassroots is so in love with its titular spirit that an underlying note of cynicism is never fully embraced... With results at the ballot so close to the line, though, one might reasonably expect a bit of a mixed message to emerge." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 14, 2012
	96%	Sister (2012)	" well-observed... but feels more like an overextended short than the full-blown Dardennes-style feature to which it aspires. Still, this is a film with a strong sense of place, and some very compelling performances from the two leads. " — Eye for Film Posted Oct 14, 2012
	——	Blood ()	" at times over-elliptical or underwritten, but for the most part this is an intense study of family loyalties and legacies, unearthing the haunting wages of conscience in an unusual (and well-used) littoral landscape." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 13, 2012
	85%	The Master (2012)	" in prompting us to retrace a complex nexus of fluid, unresolved themes, and to reconstruct from all this narrative flotsam and jetsam something relevant to who we are today in another era of instability, The Master makes wake-watchers of us all." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 12, 2012
4/5	50%	Pusher (2012)	" A tragic myth of our times, worth retelling and thrillingly retold." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 11, 2012
3/5	48%	Hit & Run (2012)	" This whipsmart postmodern rom-com caper rides a fine line between road - and date - movie." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 11, 2012
3/5	43%	Hotel Transylvania (2012)	" Castle horror versus theme-park tourism. No real winners." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 11, 2012
	——	Ernest & C�lestine ()	" small-town prejudice and the fear of otherness are roundly exposed for their absurdity, but the sensitivity of the artistic disposition and even the importance of good dental care are also sensibly celebrated." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 6, 2012
	71%	Reality (2013)	" it is a strictly one-note parable. Sure, there is glitzy distraction in DP Marco Onorato's magnificently choreographed long takes, but this aping of Fellini's baroque grandeur forgets to add any of the Italian master's complexity. " — Eye for Film Posted Oct 6, 2012
	89%	Some Guy Who Kills People (2012)	" Cutesy & slight, but also at times very funny, Some Guy Who Kills People sees its director advancing in leaps & bounds from his previous feature Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, while scaling monstrous mayhem and murder back down to a very human level." — Little White Lies Posted Oct 4, 2012
	——	Our Children ()	" Underlying this bizarre domestic dynamic is a post-colonialist drama... but those four dead children might better have come unheralded, with Murielle a surprise Medea rather than a pre-destined anti-heroine enacting a mere fait accompli." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 4, 2012
	——	Doomsday Book (2012)	" sandwiching Kim Ji-woon's serious and savoury speculative fiction between Yim Pil-sung's two altogether more absurdist slices of Armageddon, these three stories are concerned as much with renewal as with destruction. " — Eye for Film Posted Oct 3, 2012
	——	De jueves a domingo (Thursday Till Sunday) ()	" while Sotomayor is to be commended for the extreme subtlety and understated naturalism of her feature debut, these same qualities ensure that the road is, like so many family trips, long, uneventful and a not a little tedious..." — Eye for Film Posted Oct 3, 2012
	——	Save Your Legs ()	" follows a group of middle-aged yet boyish outsiders on a tour of India - but instead of hitting this material for six, it gets caught on the sticky wicket of its cross-cultural caricatures, lowbrow non-laughs, uninvolving arcs and go-nowhere themes." — Eye for Film Posted Sep 30, 2012
	50%	Here and There (2013)	" a slow, meandering film which tries to get viewers moving to the village's seasonal rhythms, but instead riffs far too long on a repetitive beat. " — Eye for Film Posted Sep 28, 2012
	90%	Holy Motors (2012)	" By turns bizarre, moving, funny and melancholic, HOLY MOTORS is a meditation on movies, mutability and mortality, in which all the world is a screen, and we are each of us merely players. " — Film4 Posted Sep 28, 2012
	68%	Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)	" in a curious inversion of romantic norms, there will be obstacles aplenty in the way of this couple's blissful split" — Eye for Film Posted Sep 25, 2012

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