Clash of the Titans

Last night I was watching the movie Theorem on DVD. It's an Italian film from 1968, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and basically involves a wealthy family in Milan who are visited by a mysterious stranger (played by Terence Stamp) who proceeds to seduce every member of the household one by one, and then abruptly leaves, resulting in each member of the family reacting in bizarre and extreme ways. It's a pretty interesting, and very strange film, which is very much a product of it's time, but still pretty watchable.

Following that I watched Three... Extremes on DVD. It's basically an anthology film of three short horror films from three of Asia's most celbrated horror film directors. From Hong Kong comes "Dumplings", directed by Fruit Chan, about an ageing actress who is happy to pay anything for some of Aunt Mei's youth-restoring dumplings, which do however have a shocking secret ingredient. From Korea there's "Cut", directed by Park Chan-wook, in which a successful film director and his painist wife are imprisoned by an insane movie extra and forced to play a gruesome and sadistic game. From Japan comes "Box", directed by Takashi Miike, about a successful young novelist who is haunted by dreams and visions concerning the death of her sister. It's a fun movie and there is plenty to entertain fans of Asian horror. They are all very impressive in their own right, especially "Box" which is actually quite a beautiful film with amazing images.

Today I went out and bought my groceries for the week. After that I went up to the cinema and saw Clash of the Titans in 3D. The film is a remake of the 1981 movie based on Greek Mythology. In Ancient Greece, Perseus (played by Sam Worthington) has to embark on a dangerous journey in order to save the city of Argos from the revenge of the Gods and their pet monster, the fearsome Kraken. It's an entertaining enough movie with some impressive monsters, even if at times it's more like going from one battle scene to another, and it never really takes advantage of being in 3D (which apparently was a last-minute decision imposed on the production after the success of Avatar). Also the computer generated monsters lack the charm of the Ray Harryhausen model creatures from the 1981 version. However, it does lack the annoying robot owl from the original, and it has Gemma Arterton who is cute.