Reviews
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DVD Review: ‘The Panic in Needle Park’
★★★☆☆ Dramas confronting the issue of heroin abuse are a particularly difficult challenge for filmmakers. The balance between creating an image of stark, unflinching reality and simply settling for cheap shock tactics is, indeed, a fine one. Jerry Schatzberg’s The Panic in Needle Park (1971) – starring a fresh-faced Al Pacino – certainly falls into…
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DVD Review: ‘Bobby Fischer Against the World’
★★★☆☆ “A must for all chess enthusiasts” – not really a great selling slogan – permit me to rephrase. Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011) is a must for all enthusiasts of brilliant documentaries. Liz Garbus, the film’s acclaimed director, has scoped her masterful documentary eye on the now unrecognised face of Bobby Fischer, a…
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DVD Review: ’13 Assassins’
★★★★☆ From Takashi Miike – the twisted genius behind cult J-horrors Audition (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001) – comes 13 Assassins (2010), a traditionalist yet bloody take on the samurai action adventure film which was rightly nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. Released to near-unanimous critical acclaim back in…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘The Dead’ review
★★☆☆☆ Howard J. Ford’s The Dead (2010) – starring Rob Freeman and Prince David Oseia – takes the zombie film to the vast and parched continent of Africa, treading new territory in an attempt to breathe new life into a tired and worn out genre. When the last evacuation flight out of war-torn Africa crashes…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Kill List’ review
★★★★★ With Kill List (2011), Ben Wheatley (director of the critically acclaimed Down Terrace [2009]) has created this year’s most horrendously violent and bizarrely surreal film by simply amalgamating the generic conventions of a hitman thriller with the eerie iconography of occult horrors such as The Wickerman (1973).Jay (Neil Maskell) hasn’t worked in eight months,…
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Film Review: ‘Attenberg’
★★☆☆☆ It’s somewhat remarkable that a film so concerned with garnering a sense of intrigue and off-the-wall quirkiness as Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg (2010) could end up being so unremarkable.With sex and death at the heart of proceedings, the story focuses upon the Attenberg’s withdrawn and awkward protagonist Marina, and her close but unusual friendship…
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Film Review: ‘The Art of Getting By’
★★★☆☆ Gavin Wiesen’s The Art of Getting By (2011) is a coming-of-age rom-com starring Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts. The film follows George (Highmore), a teenage misanthrope who has never done a day’s work in his life. George is bright, but fails to see why he should bother with school, homework or any other form…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Fright Night’ review
★★★☆☆ Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night (2011) follows the recent Hollywood fascination for re-imaginings with this remake of Tom Holland’s original 1985 cult favourite. Starring Colin Farrell as a libidinous vampire, David Tennant (best know to UK audiences as the former Doctor Who) and Anton Yelchin, this stereoscopic reboot attempts to add a little more bite…
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DVD Review: ‘Hatchet II’
★★☆☆☆ Finally seeing the light of day in its full uncut glory – Adam Green’s Hatchet II (2010) is released on DVD two years after the original movie tore up the slasher-horror scene. Set minutes after the first film ends, Hatchet II carries on the mythology of Victor Crowley – the monstrous being that wanders…
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DVD Review: ‘House of Boys’
★★☆☆☆ Jean-Claude Schlim’s House of Boys (2009) is centred around a gay cabaret club of the same name, home to a colourful array of camp characters who sing for their supper on a nightly basis. Frank (Layke Anderson) stumbles across his personal hedonistic haven after escaping his oppressive home life and running away to Amsterdam…
