★★★★☆ “Our scenario begins with the arrival. Your arrival. Welcome to our planet.” These words form the basis of Michael Madsen’s The Visit (2015); a tantalising reminder that humanity continues to send signals out into space and await a reply. For a film built completely on the discussion of hypothetical Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ In Al Gore’s 2006 sobering documentary An Inconvenient Truth the man who “used to be the next President of the United States” relied heavily on charts, infographics and statistics to shock viewers into a collective sense of responsibility when tackling global warming. In the wake of her best-selling book Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ A cursory Google search for ‘Charlie Hebdo’ reveals that the satirical magazine continues to fly dangerously close to the sun. Less than a week since the Sinai plane crash, a cartoon equating debris falling from the wrecked fuselage with the continuation of Russia’s bombing of ISIS has sparked a Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Czech filmmaker Helena Trestíková is one of the leading exponents of what she refers to as “time collecting” cinema. It is the kind of thoughtful, ruminatory documentary that explores a story over a protracted period, its the non-fiction answer to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014), made famous by Michael Apted’s Continue Reading
★★★★☆ “Up to Lexington, 125 / Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive.” Lou Reed’s words I’m Waiting For the Man by The Velvet Underground are how many will have been introduced to the notorious corner joining 125th and Lexington Ave. Where that song told of an outsider’s trip Continue Reading