District 9 director Neill Blomkamp returns to cinemas this month with his eagerly awaited follow-up, Elysium (2013). Set in 2159, in a future dystopia where the wealthy live on man-made space station Elysium and the rest of humanity inhabit a […]
★★★★☆ American director Darren Aronofsky has long probed minds caught in the vice-like grip of obsession; from the entropic addiction of Requiem for a Dream (2000) to the compulsive performers of The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010). His own […]
★★★★☆ At long last, the Mad Max trilogy finds a welcome home on Blu-ray via a decent transfer that retains the grain of the original film prints. This hugely popular series was able transcend its Antipodean setting to because a […]
★☆☆☆☆ Respected seventies auteur Brian De Palma returns from the creative wilderness (his last feature was the 2007 Iraq War drama Redacted) with Passion (2012), a remake of 2010 French thriller Love Crime. Unfortunately, despite a sense of the director […]
Starring Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams, Passion (2012) sees American director Brian De Palma return to his favourite stomping ground of the overblown psychosexual thriller, a sub-genre which he made his own with such schlocky delights as Body Double, Dressed […]
Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas’ fourth film, Post Tenebras Lux (2012), has been described by some as his masterpiece. It’s a bracingly intelligent and formally daring picture; a confrontational, yet moving work of subversive autobiography which is open to many interpretations. […]
★★★★☆ Centring on one long, hot summer in the lives of two Bratislavan youths as they fall in and out of love, The Sun in a Net (1963) is a sensual, intimate tale of young romance and family dysfunction, set […]
★★★★☆ Dror Moreh’s Oscar-nominated debut is one of the best documentaries to emerge so far this year. Presenting a troubling vision of Israeli counter-terrorism, The Gatekeepers (2013) excels in its political rigour and clear-eyed pessimism. It’s a deceptively simple set […]
