Today Cinema Strikes Back is introducing a new feature. Between us, we watch a lot of movies - a lot more than we have time to review in full. So from now on, in addition to our usual full-length reviews, we will be running a regular weekly column of capsule reviews. Expect everything from the latest DVD releases, to older films that may have caught our fancy, to the latest festival toppers.

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Human Nature
Dir. Michel Gondry (France/USA 2001)
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 4 stars (below average)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

After last year’s release of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep, I decided to go back and finally watch his debut feature film, Human Nature - something I had been avoiding for years. As a fan of Gondry’s wonderfully inventive music videos, I was excited when I learned that Gondry was finally coming to the big screen, with a film produced by Spike Jonze and scripted by Charlie Kaufman no less. However, after the critical and commercial drubbing the film took, I was not in such a hurry. Now, having seen it for myself, I can finally say – conventional wisdom was right.

Not to say that Human Nature is utterly worthless. The plot, such as it is, mixes together an anal-retentive scientist (Tim Robbins), a hirsute naturalist (Patricia Arquette), and a Wild Child raised in the forest as an ape (Rhys Ifans), and focuses on their collective efforts to corral, alter and restore human nature. The outline of a clever premise is present, as are some interesting ruminations on the nature of humanity and its relation to the natural world. However, on every other basic level - plot, acting, and dialogue - it is a failure. Even as piece of visual art, Gondry’s specialty, the film is largely a drab and mediocre effort, certainly light years behind Eternal Sunshine of the Human Soul (aside from the clever depictions of silverware-using mice).

From an acting perspective, much of the fault falls on Arquette, who proves once again that she simply cannot act worth a damn. Perhaps she was cast because she was the only “name” actress willing to run around in the woods naked with fake hair glued to her bountiful chest, but she turns what should have been one of the most sympathetic and colorful characters in the film into a dull, whiny mess. Miranda Otto gamely tries to save the film by hamming it up a slutty petit gamin lab assistant with the hots for Tim Robbins, but even her entertaining performance can’t save this mess. Ultimately, though, the fault falls on Gondry and Kaufman, whose weak script and uninspired choreography doom Human Nature.

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Dracula: Prince of Darkness
Dir. Terence Fisher (UK 1966)
Rating: 2 out of 4 stars (average)
Capsule Review by: Charlie Prince

Dracula: Prince of Darkness is the third in the series of Hammer Dracula movies, and starts with a flashback to Dracula (played by Christopher Lee) being staked through the heart in the first film in the series (but that’s not all). The film is interesting in that, like its predecessor, it shows Dracula to be more like a wild, blood-thirsty animal than a dignified, suave Bela Lugosi type - I don’t think Christopher Lee (who played) Dracula, spoke a word in the role, he just hissed at people! There are definitely a lot of goofy plot developments (i.e. “Well sure, everyone warned us to stay away from this castle, and a riderless carriage brought us here, and the servant just told us the master is dead, but I’m a man of science and this food is dandy, so let’s enjoy ourselves”), but it’s worthwhile nonetheless because of the new twist on the Dracula myth and the fun gruff characters (especially a fat local Friar who calls the local countryfolk a bunch of hicks, Dracula’s nearly-comatose servant, and the Hammer studio version of Renfield - he does eat bugs in this iteration). A new way to kill a vampire? Running water can drown him. Those Hammer folks have no respect for tradition!

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Deadlier Than The Male
Dir. Ralph Thomas (UK 1966)
Rating: 2 ½ out of 4 stars (above average)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

Deadlier Than the Male is a cute bit of eurospy fluff. Richard Johnson plays famous investigator Bulldog Drummond, who finds himself hot on the tail of a pair of deadly female assassins (played by eurocult starlets Elke Sommer and Sylvia Koscina) who dispatch their prey with an assortment of paralyzing toxins, spearguns, and my personal favorite, bullet-firing cigars. Aside from the distaff element, nothing about the hijinks really stands out, aside from a life-size mechanical chess game played against the film’s villain with fatal results, and Bulldog trying to find a bomb hidden on a girl wearing only a bikini. Nevertheless, a high camp value, along with some pleasant shots of swinging London and the islands, make this one an amusing time-waster. You could do a lot worse.