Ben Nicholson
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Bakumatsu Taiyô-den’
★★★★☆ When Western cinephiles cast their eye down Kinema Junpō’s top 100 Japanese films of the 20th century, they may be surprised to find themselves unfamiliar with the film placed at number five. The hundred-or-so critics polled for the list selected Yûzô Kawashima’s 1957 comedy Bakumatsu Taiyô-den (The Sun Legend in the Last Days of…
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Film Review: ‘F*ck for Forest’
★★★☆☆ Some of the most entertaining documentaries utilise humorous subject matter that audiences can titter at, before revealing a more affecting interior. This is certainly the plan with F*ck for Forest (2012), the centrepiece screening of the 11th annual Polish Film Festival, Kinoteka. The sophomore feature of director Michal Marczak, the film chronicles the exploits…
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DocHouse Presents: Bad Weather review
★★★☆☆ DocHouse kicked off their April programme with the tale of a small, isolated community in Village at the End of the World (2012). A fitting follow-up has been selected in the form of Giovanni Giommi’s Bad Weather (2011), which trades the harsh environs of North Greenland for the warmer and wetter Bay of Bengal.…
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DVD Review: ‘She Monkeys’
★★★★☆ To caption Lisa Aschan’s debut feature She Monkeys (Apflickorna, 2011) as a tale of burgeoning sapphic desire amidst the intense world of equestrian vaulting is by no means erroneous. Originally produced as part of the Swedish Film Institute’s ‘Rookie Project’, it went on to receive high praise on the festival circuit. After reaching British…
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DVD Review: ‘The Heist’
★★☆☆☆ Crime capers have long been a staple element of the cinematic diet and often lent additional frivolity by charging a group amateurs with pulling of required larceny. That is very much the case in the unimaginatively titled comedy The Heist (2009) helmed by the director of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) and The…
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DVD Review: ’12 in a Box’
★★★☆☆ With a love of Ealing comedies worn proudly on its sleeve, British caper 12 in a Box (2007) arrives on DVD this week following a limited theatrical run back in March. Although it’s taken a little longer than anticipated to reach the stage of public consumption since its completion, John McKenzie’s farce comes with…
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DVD Review: ‘Polish Cinema Classics Volume II’
★★★★★ March saw the 11th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival take place across the UK – highlight being was a trio of rereleased masterpieces. Those films have now been pulled together for Second Run’s Polish Cinema Classics Volume II. The collection consists of Andrzej Wajda’s The Promised Land (Ziemia obiecana, 1975), Wojciech Marczewski’s Escape from the ‘Liberty’…
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DVD Review: ‘Thale’
★★★☆☆ An opening shot of a cassette-recorder playing and the screams of a woman give an instant suggestion that Aleksander Nordaas’ sophomore feature, Thale (2012), will be venturing into the territory of torture porn. Much like fellow Norwegian creature-feature Trollhunter (Trolljegeren, 2010), however, it subverts its immediate genre trappings to give audiences something a little…
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Under the Radar: ‘Coming Forth by Day’ review
★★★★☆ The assured feature debut of Egyptian-born director Hala Lotfy, Coming Forth by Day (Al-khoroug lel-nahar, 2012) follows a meandering 24 hours in the life of a thirty-something Cairo inhabitant. Following a world premiere at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (where it scooped an award), Lotfy’s film made its European bow at the 63rd Berlinale…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Dracula’
★★★★☆ Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Bram Stoker’s eponymous vampire has always been considered a staple element of a Hammer Horror diet. His most striking appearance as the blood-sucker is still, to this day, the inaugural one; in Terence Fisher’s Dracula (1958). Although Lee went on to reprise the role in a slew of commercially successful…