★★★★☆ Mistaken for Strangers (2013) is a rockumentary like no other: a behind-the-scenes expose of indie rock darlings The National from the perspective of Tom Berninger, the younger brother of the band’s lead vocalist, Matt. Tom previously only had a couple of zero-budget horrors under his belt (including a film Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Nathan Silver has been gradually nurturing a reputation as a director with a deft eye for detail and an astonishing ability for documenting the seemingly insignificant anxieties of modern life. Edinburgh Film Festival select Uncertain Terms (2014) is his most compelling and accomplished film to date, a small but Continue Reading
★★★★★ A stunning, visionary example of dystopian science fiction cinema at its very best, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer (2013) – based in the French graphic novel – is a blockbuster of gargantuan proportions. Starring a cavalcade of well-known faces including Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans and Song Kang-ho, this Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Six directors presenting six separate encounters from four Southeast Asian countries, Letters from the South (2013) explores the fluid relationship between the Chinese diaspora and their homeland. Shot across Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar, this fascinating anthology depicts the crisis of identity that accompanies international migration. China has a Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Teenage rebellion in the sundrenched plains of Texas is the subject of Kat Candler’s Hellion (2014), an ultimately unremarkable drama starring Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, with a breakout performance by 14-year-old Josh Wiggins. Wiggins plays Jacob, the rough-and-tumble adolescent seen at the beginning of the film smashing up cars Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ As the old proverb goes, “The best answer to anger is silence”. In Saodat Ismailova’s sensory meditation on the realities of womanhood, we become so densely enriched in layers of audible indignation that it’s hard not to feel suffocated by the silence. An ethnographical exploration of rural Tajikistan and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Before the gloomy portent of The Deer Hunter (1978) and the majesty of Heaven’s Gate (1980), Michael Cimino’s debut, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), initially appears to be an uncharacteristically modest affair. It’s a melancholic work of revisionist Americana concealed beneath a handsome retrograde exterior. Though his name would later Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Five months, one week and three days; that’s how long the battle of Stalingrad lasted. One of the bloodiest battles of WWII, the heavy losses incurred by the Wehrmacht made it one of the pivotal points of the conflict. In Fedor Bondarchuk’s Stalingrad (2013), the epic scale of the Continue Reading
★★★★☆ The debut feature from Stephen Brown, The Sea (2013) is a compassionate rendering of John Banville’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel. After losing his wife Anna (Sinéad Cusack) to cancer, Max Morden (Ciarán Hinds) returns to the Irish seaside town where he spent summers as a child. He stays at Continue Reading
★★★★☆ “I’m gonna finish my fuckin’ symphony.” That powerful phrase comes up as Kathleen Hanna recalls a musician friend’s defiant reaction to a hideous assault in college. It’s also a perfect encapsulation of the spirit of The Punk Singer (2013), Sini Anderson’s scrappy, vital documentary on Hanna, the fiery frontwoman Continue Reading