DVD Review: ‘Total Recall’ (2012)
★★☆☆☆ Remaking a film is always a tricky proposition, yet this was the task undertaken by Len Wiseman with Total Recall (2012), reinventing the...
★★★☆☆ Set 45,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens were making incursions into the lands of the Neanderthals, Andrew Cumming’s horror thriller The Origin depicts a small tribe coming up against a malefic entity in unknown and inhospitable environs.
Returning for its 26th edition and with 2021’s Covid restrictions largely a thing of the past, Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) this year crowned Hilmar Oddsson’s Icelandic dark comedy Driving Mum as the 2022 Grand Prix winner, with the Best Director award going to Ahmad Bahrami for thriller The Wastetown.
The head of this year’s Venice jury Julianne Moore awarded the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, to Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, her profile of artist Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler family. It’s a brilliant, committed piece of activist cinema.
★★★☆☆ Celebrated British director Joanna Hogg is back on the Venice Lido with The Eternal Daughter, a film shot in secret in lockdown and starring The Souvenir’s Tilda Swinton in dual roles as a mother and daughter heading to a hotel in the countryside for a much-needed birthday vacation.
★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
The Sarajevo Film Festival has a history of resilience, so it was hardly surprising to see it come back stronger than ever after two years of Covid restrictions. Founded in 1995, the festival is now the leading industry event in south-east Europe, showcasing the very best films from across the Balkan peninsula.
★★☆☆☆ Remaking a film is always a tricky proposition, yet this was the task undertaken by Len Wiseman with Total Recall (2012), reinventing the...
★★★★☆ After successful screenings at last year’s Sundance, the 2012 Edinburgh International Film Festival and Film4 FrightFest, British director Jon Wright’s low budget sci-fi creature...
★★★☆☆ The renowned Roger Sargent – music photographer at the NME and cult indie band The Libertines’ official photographer and friend – directs The...
★★★★★ In what is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring cinematic works of the past twelve months, British director Peter Strickland’s sophomore feature Berberian...
Yes, it’s that time of year again when critics and regular cinemagoers alike frantically put together their lists of the best cinematic produce of...
★★☆☆☆ Stephen Dorff stars – somewhat bizarrely – as an Israeli fighter pilot who through an unfortunate mechanical malfunction finds himself stranded in Beirut...
★★☆☆☆ Much like Ang Lee’s Life of Pi (2012), Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (2012) is another Booker prize-winning novel that has been dubbed unfilmable....
★★★★☆ Following its world premiere at this year’s Sundance and substantial positive feedback after its Film4 FrightFest outing, Jon Wright’s slick and entertaining Irish...
★★☆☆☆ Andy Fickman is one of those filmmakers who seems to have built a career for himself churning out mediocre movies every year or...
★★★★☆ Danny Huston taking the lead role in a Bernard Rose adaptation of a Leo Tolstoy novel has become something of a familiarity, following...