Venice 2013: ‘Why Don’t You Play in Hell?’ review
★★★★☆ Sion Sono returns to the Lido this year with Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (2013), a deliriously silly homage to cinematic violence....
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ Sion Sono returns to the Lido this year with Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (2013), a deliriously silly homage to cinematic violence....
★☆☆☆☆ Numerous derelict cinemas litter the opening of Paul Schrader’s now-infamous The Canyons (2013), screening out of competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival;...
★★☆☆☆ Canadian auteur Bruce LaBruce opened the Venice Days sidebar of the Biennale’s 70th incarnation with Gerontophilia (2013), a romantic comedy (of sorts) following...
With the rise of the encroaching Toronto, the domestic competition offered by Rome and a hugely successful Cannes this year, the 70th Venice Film...
★★★★☆ On 24 February, 2010, experienced SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by a male orca called Tilikum during a live show. Initially, the...
★★★☆☆ Not to be confused with the 1996 Stallone film, Daylight (2013) is something of a team effort, boasting a trio of directors –...
Starring Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams, Passion (2012) sees American director Brian De Palma return to his favourite stomping ground of the overblown psychosexual...
★★☆☆☆ Following on from a long tradition of portmanteau horror films from the classic Dead of Night (1945) to the more recent V/H/S films,...