Reviews
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Film Review: ‘Doctor Zhivago’
★★★★☆ As part of their ongoing Love season and to celebrate 50 years since the film’s release, the BFI have undergone a 4K digital restoration of David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago (1965) – a romance told in the grandest terms, where the tale of passion between two desperate lovers is almost as devastating as its history…
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Film Review: Carol
★★★★☆ In the opening scene of Todd Haynes’ Carol (2015), Cate Blanchett’s eponymous character places a hand on the shoulder of Rooney Mara’s Therese as they apparently bid goodbye to one another. The narrative subsequently tracks back to the pair’s first meeting before following their relationship chronologically. When, just under two hours later, the action…
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Film Review: ‘Bridge of Spies’
★★★★★ Cold War espionage-thriller Bridge of Spies (2015) is ‘inspired by true events’, which allows legendary Hollywood director Steven Spielberg a welcome and well-used degree of artistic license. In an eerily quiet opening sequence a quarter worth far more than 25 cents appears, affixed to the underside of a park bench. Wading through the murky…
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Film Review: ‘Black Mass’
★★★☆☆ Scott Cooper’s real-life crime drama Black Mass (2015) is constantly trying to escape the looming shadow of past gangster cinema triumphs. It all too readily falls into the comfortable tropes of the genre whilst failing to provide a comprehensive and engaging biopic of one of Boston’s most notorious mob bosses. When it bowed at…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Wake Up and Kill’
★★★★☆ Following hot on the heels of the Blu-ray release of Requiescant (1967) comes director Carlo Lizzani’s Wake Up and Kill (1966), based on the true story of infamous jewel thief Luciano Lutring. Dripping in late-1960s Italian cool, Wake Up and Kill prefigures the grimy American crime cinema of the 1970s, feeling like a grubbier,…
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DVD Review: ‘Southpaw’
★★☆☆☆ When the first image for Antoine Fuqua’s Southpaw (2015) was released online of a muscle-bound Jake Gyllenhaal audiences became very excited. The anticipation was in part due to the Gyllenhaal’s remarkable performance as the ghoulish Louis Bloom in Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014). The physical transformation from the wraith-like Bloom to Southpaw‘s central protagonist Billy…
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DVD Review: ‘Inside Out’
★★★★☆ Pixar have knocked it out of the park with new film Inside Out (2015), which premièred at Cannes earlier this year. Directors Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen have crafted a cerebral comedy, loaded with smart, witty humour and a great deal of meta-emotional intelligence. The story opens with the birth of Riley. At…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Blood Rage’
★★★☆☆ John Grissmer’s teen slasher Blood Rage (1987), newly released on Blu-ray, is at once utterly dreadful and irresistibly brilliant. Arrow Video has gone all out with this release, offering three distinct versions – the theatrical release, renamed as Nightmare at Shadow Woods, the harder home video release and a new composite cut of the…
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DVD Review: All My Good Countrymen
★★★★☆ It was the early 1950s when Vojtěch Jasný began penning the screenplay for the his most celebrated work, though it seemed unlikely to see the light of day due to its provocative politics. The corruption and failure that slowly infects a small village throughout the narrative is not one attributed to personal greed or…
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DVD Review: 3½ Minutes, Ten Bullets
★★★★☆ A day after Thanksgiving 2012, now known to many as Black Friday, four teenagers stopped at the Gate Gas Station in Jacksonville, Florida to buy some cigarettes and gum. They were playing their music loudly and looking forward to a night cruising around and doing what teenagers do. When Michael Dunn, who had parked…