60-second cinema

8 out of 10 This is a film about a man who has a stroke and gets 'shut-up' syndrome and literally spends the rest of the film 'shut-up', a bit like being inside a diving bell, where no one can hear you, hence the reference to the butterfly in the film title. But take heart, its not a bleak as it sounds as although the film is in french and subtitled (some blatantly wrongly I may add), the film does actually convey a sense of hope as the man attempts to struggle to entertain himself with his memory's of his pre-knackered life and with his visions and dreams, some of which I have to admit to being a little disappointed in. But, being recently diagnosed with a similarly disabilitating disease, with which I struggle to move my left toe, I can relate to what he was going through. I would however probably have had more imaginative flights of fancy, probably involving lions, motorbikes and knockers and stuff. Unbelievably, during is period of 'shut-upedness',...

2 out of 10 About as formulaic a horror film as you can get. Start with a scene of some people being killed in some woods, then put some annoying teenagers into the same woods, lost and wait from them to get kicked in. The teenagers are also joined by a bloke, who gets lost trying to take a short cut, who then bumps into a toothless simpleton at a garage that has no phone, in the middle of nowhere in outback Virginia. Said, simpleton then tells the man to watch out and tells him to nick off back to your fancy house with pillows, hot water, noise discs and walls. The bloke then takes the wrong turn and crashes into the annoying teenagers and the whole lot of them then set about on a rather poor adventure. Isn't it about time, horror films started using more than just teenagers in peril as their basis. Surely, a family getting chopped up, chinned or simply buggered, would be more scary, than more stupid buggers of varying levels of annoyance, which as in most films of this type, c...

7 out of 10 Hitler, eh, he was crackers, wasn't he, or was he? This film sets about trying to get the bottom of this question, detailing the last few hours of his life in his bunker in Berlin as the red army approached. The film, some would say rather controversially, answers the question early on with his pie fight with Himler coming as the starting credits fade. What follows is a romp through the final desperate hours of a ridiculous regime as they all, but their leader, seem to have grasped the fact that they’re buggered. The film has many memorable and chilling scenes, such as Dr Goebbels’ wife killing her own children rather than letting them fall into Communist hands. And the bit where Hitler’s dog is given cyanide for a laugh, with some superb acting by the dog. Anyway, if you’re interested in the madness of what went on in that bunker in Hitler’s last hours, this is for you. I would, however, also recommend Das Bunker und Laughs for a ve...