Stefan Pape
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Film Review: ‘Rebellion’
★★★★☆ Following on from this year’s Academy Awards comes Mathieu Kassovitz’s Rebellion (L’ordre et la morale, 2011), a film certainly reminiscent of nominees Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, complete with themes of terrorism and and shot in a pensive, Bigelow-like way. Kassovitz takes on the lead role of Philippe Legorjus, a hostage negotiator who’s dispatched…
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Film Review: ‘Good Vibrations’
★★★☆☆ Have you ever wondered what you might come up with if you dared to blend 1980’s thriller The Long Good Friday with High Fidelity (2000)? You probably haven’t, but rest assured that Good Vibrations (2012) would almost certainly be the result. Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Cherrybomb) bring us a biopic of Terri…
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Film Review: ‘Welcome to the Punch’
★★★☆☆ A degree of pressure has been placed upon director Eran Creevy, as his eagerly awaited second feature follows on from his BAFTA-nominated debut, Shifty (2008). Creevy now returns with a grander budget and bigger cast for Welcome to the Punch (2013), a cat and mouse tale with a twist which follows detective Max Lewinsky…
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Film Review: ‘Sleep Tight’
★★★★☆ From the man who co-directed the first two entries in the [Rec] horror franchise, Spanish filmmaker Jaume Balagueró now tries his hand at something a little less frightening – yet equally as disturbing – as we enter the deranged world of César (Luis Tosar) in Sleep Tight (Mientras duermes, 2011). Working as an apartment block concierge,…
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Interview: Benh Zeitlin, ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’
One of the most pleasant surprises to be found in UK cinemas last year was arguably Benh Zeitlin’s superb Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Having received wide critical acclaim across the world, such sentiments have since been echoed by the Academy, as the film received an impressive four Oscar nominations – including Best Director…
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Film Review: ‘Parental Guidance’
★★☆☆☆ Andy Fickman is one of those filmmakers who seems to have built a career for himself churning out mediocre movies every year or so, and this time around his latest gaffe comes in the form of Parental Guidance (2012), a film about two grandparents (played by Billy Crystal and Bette Midler) whose old school…
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Film Review: ‘Boxing Day’
★★★★☆ Danny Huston taking the lead role in a Bernard Rose adaptation of a Leo Tolstoy novel has become something of a familiarity, following on previous projects Ivansxtc (2000) and The Kreutzer Sonata (2008). The pair reunite once more for Boxing Day (2012), based on Tolstoy’s Master and Man, as we follow a ruthless proprietor…
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BFI Uncut Season: ‘The Killing of Sister George’ review
★★★☆☆ Screening as part of November’s BFI Uncut Season at London’s Southbank, The Killing of Sister George (1968) follows the turbulent relationship that takes place between same sex lovers June Buckridge (Beryl Reid) and Childie (Susannah York), while the former is battling against her character being written out of a fictional television soap opera. American director…
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BFI London Film Festival 2012: ‘Room 237’ review
★★★★☆ Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve seen Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. A hauntingly, intense horror with stunning cinematography and a career defining performance by Jack Nicholson. But is this 1980 classic actually Kubrick’s admittance to directing the fake moon landing? Or is it born from his obsession with the holocaust? Or perhaps it’s…
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Film Review: ‘The Campaign’
★★★☆☆ As Republican candidate Mitt Romney continues to dominate press headlines for all of the wrong reasons, it seems like very pertinent timing for Jay Roach’s latest effort The Campaign (2012) to be released here in the UK, with Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell squaring up for a comical parody of the American electoral process.…