Patrick Gamble
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Film Review: ‘Nightcrawler’
★★★☆☆ The inaugural directorial effort of The Bourne Legacy (2012) screenwriter Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler (2014) is a nocturnal exploration of media sensationalism and the individualistic entrepreneurialism that is so often perceived as an attainable escape route from social inequality. Boasting a noteworthy performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, Gilroy’s debut finds itself lost in an inescapable maze…
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Film Review: ‘The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman’
★★☆☆☆ Opening with an blurry-eyed, ethereal exposition that treats the audience to a brief taste of the film’s tragic climax, Fredrik Bond’s The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (2013) is a contemporary fairytale that imbues its tripped-out, quasi-romantic thriller with a hefty touch of the supernatural. In the immediate aftermath of the tragic death of…
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Film Review: ‘Girlhood’
★★★★★ In his barbed review of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014) Armond White stated the film celebrated the “emblematic figure” of white patriarchy. Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood (2014) could easily be the antithesis to Linklater’s expansive coming-of-age drama. An intimate and tender portrait of a young black girl realising the finite boundaries of her ambition whilst growing…
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London 2014: ‘The World of Kanako’ review
★★☆☆☆ Tetsuya Nakashima’s icy drama Confessions (2010) took the hyper-stylised aesthetics of his early work Kamikaze Girls (2004) and Memories of Matsuko (2006) and refined their energy and exuberance into a tightly wound revenge drama. His latest, The World of Kanako (2014), releases the clutch, utilising a repulsive former detective as its protagonists in an…
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DVD Review: ‘Edge of Tomorrow’
★★★★☆ Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need is Kill, Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow (2014) is a rare beast: an actioner with an abundance of charm and wit. Contorting the classic hero’s journey of redemption and sacrifice into a high concept allegory for how history has a tendency to repeat itself, the film sees…
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London 2014: ‘Free Fall’ review
★★★☆☆ György Pálfi’s wilfully sardonic Free Fall (2014) is an inflammatory anthology of satirical vignettes all set within the same Budapest housing block. A jovial take on contemporary Hungarian society, Pálfi’s latest places the former Soviet satellite state within a hall or mirrors, with each dovetailed yarn a revealing portrait of contemporary Hungary warped and…
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Film Review: ‘Hard to Be a God’
★★★★☆ Engaging with a near-three-hour sci-fi set entirely within the bedraggled medieval milieu of a distant planet is a daunting proposition, especially one forged under the singular direction of renowned Russian filmmaker Aleksei German. Hard to Be a God (2013) is a cinematic behemoth, an unshakable monochrome nightmare of squelching bodily discharges that inhabits a…
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Film Review: ‘Life After Beth’
★★☆☆☆ Of all the monsters that lurk amongst the shadows zombies have somehow prevailed, enduring where other ghouls have fallen, and in the process ambling and groaning their way through a myriad of cultural, political and economic anxieties. Jeff Baena’s Life After Beth (2014) is another, in a long line of contemporary zombie films attempting…
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DVD Review: ‘The Wind Rises’
★★★★☆ A celebration of craftsmanship and the creative process, legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki’s mooted swansong, The Wind Rises (2013), examines the delineation between truth and beauty, questioning whether you can separate cause and effect when it comes to the work of an artist. Unlike much of Ghibli’s oeuvre, The Wind Rises inhabits the adult world,…
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Film Review: ‘I Origins’
★★☆☆☆ With sophomore feature I Origins (2014), American independent director Mike Cahill once again utilises the theoretical landscape of the science fiction genre to analyse the human condition. Similar in style and tone to his high-concept, low-budget debut Another Earth (2011), this science-versus-faith puzzler looks to expand upon the established maxim that “eyes are the…