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Film Review: ‘Insidious’
★★★☆☆ Having been billed as the new Paranormal Activity (2008), I went to see Inisidious (2011) with perhaps undue expectation. Was I disappointed? In a way, yes: it’s no way near as clever nor innovative, but it certainly delivers the necessary abundance of ‘jumps’ and tension-filled over-the-shoulder tracking shots to be credited as an effective…
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ICA: ‘Sparrow’
A man gets dressed in his bedroom; a bird flies in; he catches it and sets it loose again, only for it to return; the room is silent; the man smiles; a flute flurries over the top. Is Sparrow (2008) really a Johnnie To film? Yes – and the Exiled (2006) director is kicking it…
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Udine Far East Film Festival 2011: ‘The Lost Bladesman’
★★★★☆ The opening night of the 13th Udine Far East Film Festival showcased the latest in a long line of Chinese pseudo-historical blockbusters, the European premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s The Lost Bladesman (2011), starring Donnie Yen. Beautiful images in soft hues, powerful ear splitting sound effects and soaring music announce this epic martial…
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Film Review: ‘Scream 4’
★★★☆☆ As belated as it is unexpected, considering the loose end-tying finale of the flat third instalment in the franchise, Scream 4 (2011) (or Scre4m in some circles) comes eleven years after the previous and apparently final chapter in the post-modern slasher trilogy, reuniting screenwriter Kevin Williamson with self-made master of suspense Wes Craven for…
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DVD Review: ‘Ink’
★★★☆☆ After ten minutes of viewing Ink (2009), you may feel the overwhelming compulsion to rip the disc from your DVD player and break it into a hundred shiny pieces. You will have been appalled by the ham acting, disgusted by the shaky camera work and cheap digital cinematography and the dialogue will have caused…
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ICA: ‘Eraserhead’
This week the ICA hosted a special screening of a genuine masterpiece of cult, avant garde cinema. Ever since its release thirty four years ago, David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) has remained a defining moment in the world of experimental cinema and, in my view, remains Lynch’s crowning achievement.As one of surrealist cinema’s finest exponents, David…
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DVD Releases: ‘Abel’
Those familiar with the name Diego Luna will most likely associate him with his breakthrough performance as Tenoch Iturbide, in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También (2001). Having recently appeared alongside Sean Penn in Milk (2008) Luna is now plying his trade as director, with his debut feature Abel (2010) receiving critical acclaim in abundance.Part…
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DVD Review: ‘Confessions’
★★★★☆ Tetsuya Nakashima’s Confessions (2010) is a powerful exploration and dissection of what we understand about ourselves as human beings and the fine line between our civility and the reality of our innate primal behaviour. By juxtaposing the bewildering and inconsequential age of adolescence with the reality of adulthood, Nakashima provides a fierce arena, within…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Coraline’
Henry Selick’s Coraline (2009) is finally an example of how 3D doesn’t have to be solely about exploiting the ideas of spectacle. Being very much an anti-3D spectator, it would understandably take something fairly special to convince this writer that such a film can hold greater merit than just being another tediously plotted, CGI-laden piece…
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DVD Releases: ‘The Tourist’
With a film of such critical acclaim as 2006’s The Lives of Others under his belt, it is absolutely unfathomable as to how Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has managed to create a film so desperately pathetic and unforgivably cringe-inducing as The Tourist (2010). Set in and around the glamorous and visually resplendent city of Venice,…
EIFF 2026
