TheRetroCritic

An early-ish Hayao Miyazaki effort, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind  followed The Castle Of Cagliostro and was based on one of his own mangas and, although it was produced pre-Studio Ghibli, it opened the door for more classic anime features from the legendary director. The film is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure in which a princess called Nausicaa, who flies around in a weird little portable surf glider... thing and has a special bond with nature, becomes Earth's saviour in the middle of a potentially devastating conflict. Her people are taken over by the Tolmekian kingdom who are planning to use some weapon to destroy all the mutated giant insects in the land. Nausicaa, whose father is killed in the struggle, sets out to stop this disaster since pissing off the insects would only result in yet another global disaster. The last of which was caused, you've guessed it, by Man's greedy bullshit. As you can tell, this plot's all pretty environment-themed, whic

Well, it's Halloween, so what better to review but a film by the master of Italian horror himself? Yes, I'm talking about Dario Argento, of course. Armed with an army of flies, a gloriously inappropriate rock opera soundtrack and buckets of shattered glass and blood, Phenomena (also known as "Creepers" ) is certainly one of those must-watch silly horror flicks. Troll 2 gets all the love these days but Phenomena, though it's made somewhat more pertinently (visually at least), is a completely entertaining oddity that's well worth seeing for any fan of trashy/arty horror. A young Jennifer Connelly leads a mostly lost cast and actually does a decent job considering her lines are about as silly as they come. Donald Pleasence, however, doesn't seem too sure about why he's having to interact with an ape almost every scene he's in while spouting out convenient bags of quirky exposition. Everyone else is mostly rubbish and, as such, help provide ton