IFFR 2015: Stinking Heaven review
★★★★☆ Writer and director Nathan Silver again seeks to explore the dynamics of communal living just as he did in Exit Elena (2012) to Uncertain […]
Film Review: ‘Trash’
★★★★☆ Stephen Daldry‘s latest feature film, set among the garbage heaps of Rio de Janeiro, belongs to its youthful, non-professional cast. Trash (2014) opens with […]
Film Review: ‘Tales of the Grim Sleeper’
★★★★☆ The opening moments of Nick Broomfield’s Oscar long-listed documentary, Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014), call to mind the narrative inspiration for recent podcast, […]
Film Review: ‘Son of a Gun’
★★☆☆☆ Julius Avery’s debut feature Son of a Gun (2014) starts promisingly in a maximum security prison where young JR (rising star Brenton Thwaites) has […]
Film Review: ‘Pelo Malo’
★★★☆☆ Winner of multiple awards on the 2013 festival circuit including the Golden Seashell in San Sebastian, Mariana Rondón’s Pelo Malo (2013) distorts your typical […]
Film Review: ‘I Am Yours’
★★★☆☆ Expectations and desires are not coming together very easily in Iram Haq’s feature-length debut film, I Am Yours (2013). It is Haq’s second outing […]
Film Review: ‘Big Hero 6’
★★★☆☆ Comic book adaptations are fast becoming a staple element in the diet of blockbuster cinemagoers and, despite already owning Marvel, Disney have now decided […]
Film Review: Au Revoir Les Enfants
★★★★★ William Faulkner once made the sage point that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Louis Malle’s Golden Lion winner Au Revoir […]
DVD Review: ‘Wish I Was Here’
★★★☆☆ Zach Braff’s second feature, Wish I Was Here (2014), was famously – or perhaps infamously – financed partially through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Braff’s […]
DVD Review: ‘What We Did on Our Holiday’
★★★★☆ The debut feature from BBC veterans Andy Hamilton and Guy Jerkin, What We Did on Our Holiday is one of 2014’s most big-hearted, surprising […]
Blu-ray Review: ‘Thief’
★★★★☆ Fuelled by a pulsing synth soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, and rife with colourful dialogue and Chicago locals, Michael Man’s masterful thriller Thief (1981) convincingly […]
DVD Review: ‘Stage Fright’
★★★★☆ There’s an eerily effective collision of genres happening in Stage Fright (2014). Horror, comedy and musical are all at play and, under the masterful […]
Blu-ray Review: ‘Shoah’
★★★★★ Claude Lanzmann’s monumental Holocaust documentary Shoah (1985) took 12 years to make. Compiling over 350 hours of footage, including interviews with individuals in 14 […]
DVD Review: ‘Kinetta’
★★★☆☆ The search for meaning can be a futile task in a world obsessed with imagined realities; especially when the line between fact and fiction […]
DVD Review: ‘Jimi: All Is by My Side’
★★★☆☆ Breaking the mould and making fresh material out of things that have been around for decades is, arguably, one of Jimi Hendrix’s most enduring […]
DVD Review: ‘Honeymoon’
★★☆☆☆ First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes your wife’s possession by something rather insidious during your honeymoon at a secluded cabin in the […]
DVD Review: ‘Greatful Dead’
★★★☆☆ Eiji Uchida’s Greatful Dead (2013) combines several genres with an extremely compelling outcome. Black humour and mild farce combine to provide the tone and […]
Blu-ray Review: ‘Ganja & Hess’
★★★☆☆ The inspiration for Spike Lee’s upcoming Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), Bill Gunn’s 1973 vampire-but-not-quite film Ganja & Hess is being re-released by […]