★★★★☆ Adapting Christopher Priest’s novel concerning duelling magicians in Victorian London into 2006’s The Prestige not only allowed Chris Nolan to make his first British-set film since The Following (1998) but gave he and his brother Jonathan the chance to return to the kind of non-linear storytelling that made Memento Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ When it was announced that Christopher Nolan would reboot the Batman franchise with Batman Begins back in 2005, many were fearful. This trepidation was not unwarranted after the gaudy mess that was Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin (1997), yet Nolan abandoned the camp style of previous endeavours, opting instead Continue Reading
★★★★☆ 2002’s Insomnia, Christopher Nolan’s follow up to his breakout hit Memento (2000), was at first glance a far less ambitious genre piece. Whereas Memento was noted for its radical narrative innovation with a largely unknown cast, Insomnia was a remake of a Norwegian film from 1997 and starred Hollywood legend Continue Reading
★★★★☆ With the unwelcome 2012 remake of Total Recall weeks away, StudioCanal have shrewdly decided that now is the time to rerelease the original. Before the glittering, videogame CGI which will populate Len Wiseman’s effort, there was the clunky, analogue, retro-future vision from late 1980s/early 90s staple Paul Verhoeven, a Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ With the title Mozart’s Sister (2010), audiences could be forgiven for thinking that they are in for a historical biopic about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life through the eyes of his sister. Instead, René Féret’s problematic and historically questionable feature is a feminist examination of the difficulties of being a Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ You wait years for a schlocky, tongue-in-cheek, sci-fiction B-movie about Nazis and then two come along at once. Landing on DVD only weeks after Timo Vuorensola’s Finnish pastiche Iron Sky (2012), comes Stephen Amis’ The 25th Reich (2012). Unlike Iron Sky however, this film doesn’t boast a killer one Continue Reading