Reviews
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Love + Anarchism’
★★★★☆ With Arrow Video’s recent Blu-ray release of the Love + Anarchism trilogy – a trio of films comprised of Eros + Massacre (1969), Heroic Purgatory (1970) and Coup d’Etat (1973) – younger generations are reintroduced to the stunning works by Japanese New Wave director Kijû Yoshida. A body of work that is simultaneously provocative and…
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DVD Review: ‘Legend of Barney Thomson’
★★☆☆☆ Robert Carlyle exhibits little flair in his dispensable directorial debut The Legend of Barney Thomson (2015). With a crack-shot cast and well captured locations in and around Glasgow, the film passes by easily enough but is a lightweight affair never aspiring to more than poking fun and raising the odd smile. Any – and…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Closely Observed Trains’
★★★★★ La petite mort is inextricably entwined with the grand one in Jiří Menzel’s wonderful Closely Observed Trains (1966). A bittersweet and funny coming-of-age tale, it doubles as an allegorical quest for a nation’s cojones amidst the milieu of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Freudian readings of narrative and mise en scène are lustily encouraged as the challenge…
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Film Review: ‘Warriors’
★★★★☆ Perhaps more so than any other popular medium, sport is an effective means of bringing about social change. Cricket might not be at the top of that list for some but a group of young men from Kenya had other ideas. With a story as enchanting, life-affirming and soulful as it is unusual, first…
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Film Review: ‘Tell Spring Not to Come’
★★★★☆ Saeed Taji Farouky has carved out something of a reputation for directing and producing documentaries that are visually arresting and pack a punch. Tunnel Trade (2007), about Gaza’s illegal underground smuggling economy, was nominated for a Rory Peck Award, while The Runner (2013), about an activist and athlete from Western Sahara, garnered high praise…
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Film Review: ‘Tangerine’
★★★★☆ An acerbically funny yet emotionally engaging film about friendship and the surprising alliances that arise in marginalised America, Sean Baker’s Tangerine (2015) is a riotously entertaining portrait of life on the streets of LA. Baker has cultivated something of a reputation for telling conventional stories about unconventional characters, from an illegal Chinese immigrant struggling…
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Film Review: ‘Steve Jobs’
★★★★☆ Since its announcement, press interest surrounding the latest film about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has been dominated by its writer Aaron Sorkin, who has dutifully offers a rich and textured screenplay. Contrastingly, its director Danny Boyle provides only the lightest of touches, with this refreshing biopic largely absent of his typical stylistic devices. There’s…
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Film Review: ‘The Lady in the Van’
★★★☆☆ British director Nicholas Hytner returns to the work of playwright Alan Bennett for new film The Lady in the Van (2015), an adaptation of Bennett’s hit West End play of the same name. that Hytner also directed for the stage. Reprising her role from the original 1999 theatrical production, as well as the 2009…
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Film Review: ‘The Hallow’
★★★☆☆ Horror cinema is forever walking a terrifying tightrope between internal anguish and external torment. This endless battle rages in the both the creeps and conventions of Corin Hardy’s directorial The Hallow (2015). The music video director has made an assured first step into the realm of feature films but, much like his protagonists, he’s…
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Film Review: ‘The Fear of 13’
★★★★☆ An irrational fear of the number thirteen is not a concept that many will be familiar with. Unlucky or not, the word in of itself held no particular meaning for convicted murderer Nick but is representative of the process of learning, self-education and personal enlightenment he achieved through a voracious appetite for books while…