Film reviews and more
★★★★☆ The American Academy recently awarded genre-hopping director Ang Lee the Best Director prize for Life of Pi (2012), and it was well-deserved; Yann Martel’s prize-winning novel, long-thought unfilmable, has been brought to life superbly in a visual masterpiece that […]
★★☆☆☆ With second film The Oranges (2011), Julian Farino is still a far way off securing any form of distinctive directorial style, his latest a simplistic story of small-town outrage. Nina Ostroff (Leighton Meester) returns home and is quickly introduced […]
★★★☆☆ The third feature from French director Gilles Legrand, You Will Be My Son (Tu seras mon fils, 2011) sees the inimitable Niels Arestrup take the role of Paul de Marseul, a successful winemaker in Saint-Emilion, Bordeaux. With ample support […]
★★★☆☆ Spooky, cavernous castles; rolling, all-engulfing perma-mist; a deranged, deformed aristocrat impaling all the serfs to ease his crippling ennui…Giallo master Mario Bava’s camp schlockfest has more classic Gothic tropes than you can shake a Brontë sister at. Here given […]
★☆☆☆☆ It was perhaps foolish to think that Bait (2012) might recall the raw menace of Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) or Joe Dante’s B-movie classic Piranha (1978). But Kimble Rendall’s toothless horror is nothing of anything really: an underwater travesty […]
★★★☆☆ Having, for one reason or another, missed out on the opportunity of a UK theatrical run, British writer-director Candida Brady’s 2012 human waste exposé Trashed makes its way onto DVD this week courtesy of the piece’s producers, Blenheim Films. […]
★★★★☆ Premièring towards the end of last year’s Cannes Film Festival when the majority of critics had long left the sun and splendour of the Croisette, indie filmmaker Jeff Nichols’ highly anticipated Mud (2012), his follow-up to 2011’s Take Shelter, […]
★★★★☆ Newly positioned as one of this year’s most anticipated American documentaries following rave reviews at Sundance, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish (2013) makes its way to the festival’s London incarnation this week ahead of a late July theatrical release. Cowperthwaite’s slight […]
★★★☆☆ With The Lords of Salem (2012), musician-turned-director Rob Zombie demonstrates uncharacteristic restraint with a patchy but infrequently inspired picture. After his two entries in the Halloween franchise were drastically re-edited by the Weinsteins, his latest endeavour is the first […]
★★☆☆☆ Considering the subject matter of The ABCs of Death (2012), the new compilation horror from producers Ant Timpson and Tim League, it was always going to be – to some degree, at least – controversial. With segments by directors […]
★★★★☆ Winner of the Palme d’Or prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, American photographer and filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg’s seldom-seen odd couple dramedy Scarecrow receives a welcome publicity boost this week thanks to a limited Park Circus theatrical rerelease. Starring […]
★★★★☆ Featuring prime cuts from the BFI’s extensive National Archive and a typically soul-stirring soundtrack from acclaimed Brighton collective British Sea Power, director Penny Woolcock’s lyrical visual collage From the Sea to the Land Beyond (2012) gets a live screening […]