Adam Lowes

★★☆☆☆ Ostensibly, Black Rock (2012) appears to present a gritty thriller via a noticeably female perspective. Directed by actress Katie Aselton (from a script via husband Mark Duplass) she is also one of the three main actresses whose characters form the flesh and bones of the narrative. Sadly, these potentially intriguing components fail in delivering…

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★★☆☆☆ Unlike the majority of previous films to have resurfaced via the esteemed Arrow Video label, the years haven’t been particularly kind to 1982’s The Last American Virgin – a grandiose title which suggests some kind of a smutty coming-of-age epic, but in reality only manages to deliver the grubby goods sporadically. Brought to the…

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★★★☆☆ A bona fide box office hit (after a whopping $238 million domestic gross), Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious 6 (2013) is the latest entry in the successful franchise, available now on DVD and Blu-ray. While it doesn’t quite reach the same giddy, goofy heights as its Rio-set predecessor, there’s still much to enjoy here…

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★★★★☆ In UK cinemas this week having made a splash at both Sundance and Cannes, David Lowery’s romantic crime yarn Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013) is pretty much deserving of the all accolades bestowed upon it. It’s a familiarly-told tale, captured in a perpetual magic-hour haze, with a genuine feeling of passion and longing running…

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★★★★☆ Once in a while, a thoroughly decent feature will inexplicably slip through the distribution net and find itself unceremoniously dumped onto home video with little promotion or fanfare. Artificial Paradises (not to be confused with the 2011 Mexican feature of the same name) is one of those films. It doesn’t help that it’s being…

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★★★☆☆ With the beauty of hindsight, J.J. Abrams’ sequel to his own barnstorming 2009 Star Trek reboot had a lot to live up to. Having failed to muster the requisite warp speed to really shine in a summer populated by similarly bloated genre efforts, there’s still much to enjoy in Into Darkness (2013), even if…

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★★★★☆ In Love Is All You Need (Den skaldede frisør, 2012), a Mediterranean locale plays hosts to the upcoming nuptials of a good-looking, twentysomething couple, whilst Pierce Brosnan crops up as the father of one of the young lovers. Rest assured – this isn’t some kind of cynical, cash-grabbing Mamma Mia! (2008) continuation, but instead…

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★★★★☆ Though you’d be forgiven for initially thinking that ‘Travis Bickle: The Post-College Life’ was playing out in front of you (with a healthy dose of Gaspar Noé thrown in), Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer (2012) soon settles into a unique and riveting psychological thriller. Simon (Brady Corbet) is a college graduate backpacking around Europe and…

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★☆☆☆☆ The ubiquitous name of Eli Roth adorns the top of this film’s title with a ‘presented by’ credit. The director has managed to carve out a lucrative career producing a number of low-budget genre works, some of which have made a sizeable dent at the box office. Aftershock (2012), a collaboration with Chilean filmmaker…

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★★★★☆ 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 world-wide phenomenon, making a huge star of Mel Gibson and setting the blueprint for subsequent…

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