DVD Review: Drunken Master
★★★★☆ Amongst the Rush Hours and the Spies Next Door of his latter-day career, it’s easy to forget that Jackie Chan was once the...
Film Reviews & More
Most Recent. In Christopher Machell.
3 May 2024
Film Review: Challengers
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
24 April 2024
Film Review: Abigail
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
17 April 2024
Film Review: Civil War
★★★★☆ In Alex Garland’s Civil War, a group of journalists embark on a road trip to interview the US President amidst a second American Civil War, while exploring media’s dehumanizing relationship with violence.
Christopher Machell
DVD Review: O.J.: Made in America
★★★★★ The trial of O.J. Simpson for the brutal murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman – the most televised in history – is...
DVD Review: Melody
★★★☆☆ Nostalgia is a powerful agent in cinema, no more so than in Waris Hussein’s 1971 warm depiction of puppy love and school-daze larks,...
Criterion Review: Solaris
★★★★★ Originally billed as the Soviet 2001: A Space Odyssey, Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 masterpiece Solaris is a subtly different beast to Kubrick’s balletic space...
Film Review: Graduation
★★★★★ The Romania of director Cristian Mungiu’s terse, difficult Graduation is one weighed down by endemic corruption, systemic unfairness and economic defeat. Romeo (Adrian...
Film Review: Fear Eats the Soul
★★★★★ It’s surely the sheer, unvarnished humanity on display in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s celebrated Ali: Fear Eats the Soul that’s the film’s greatest success....
DVD Review: Pieces
★★★☆☆ The audacious tagline for Pieces‘ grisly poster – “It’s exactly what you think it is” – isn’t kidding: Juan Piquer Simon’s 1982 splatterfest...
Criterion Review: Lone Wolf and Cub
★★★★☆ Adapted from the long-running successful Manga series, the Lone Wolf and Cub films represent the very best in the chanbara genre. This Criterion...
