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Alibi Film Club: ‘Total Recall’
The route from movie hero to Governor of California appears to be a seamless one. If you’ve the character and moral integrity of Detective John Kimble (Kindergarten Cop [1990]) and the paternalistic qualities of Howard Langston (Jingle All the Way [1996]), then the path from movie stardom to high profile politician seems almost inevitable.If all of those…
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DVD Releases: ‘Easy A’
Emma Stone is destined for greatness. In 2011 we will have the pleasure of catching Ms. Stone alongside Steve Carell in Glenn Ficarra’s Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) before stepping back in time to 1960’s Mississippi for The Help (2011). However, it’s in 2012 that Stone will be catapulted into the stratosphere when she gets up close and…
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DVD Releases: ‘The Hunter’
With The Hunter (2010), director Rafi Pitts continues to spearhead the self-proclaimed ‘Iranian New Wave’ with another masterfully executed poetic-realist work that inhabits the same multifaceted Iran presented in Pitt’s previous feature It’s Winter (2006), albeit with a leaner, harsher approach to character and narrative.Pitt writes, directs and takes the eponymous role of Ali, an…
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DVD Review: ‘The Flying Scotsman’
★★★★☆ Last year, Optimum Releasing’s remastered versions of The Railway Children (1970), Breathless (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960) were released as part of their continuing efforts to preserve a vast catalogue of classic titles. Castleton Knight’s The Flying Scotsman (1929) is the latest feature to receive extensive digital restoration and is now available to own…
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DVD Releases: ‘Damned by Dawn’
If you want to make a horror movie, start with a good idea from which to develop your script – something which is uncanny, creepy, or downright terrifying (added points if this something is rumoured to have happened in real life). Brett Anstey’s Dawned by Dawn (2009) has a very good central idea to start with:…
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DVD Review: ‘Cuckoo’
★★☆☆☆ Richard E. Grant stars in Cuckoo (2010), a dull, one-note psychological thriller from Richard Bracewell, whose marginally superior debut The Gigolos (2006) was a similarly throwaway medley of over-obvious stylistic debt and self conscious construction. Cuckoo concerns the supposed mental disintegration of Polly (Laura Fraser), a talented student under Grant’s leery Professor Greengrass. Landing an…
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DVD Releases: ‘Brighton Rock’ (1947)
The British gangster genre is not one which I have ever afforded much time. Whilst Hollywood has led the way in regards to gangster movies with classics such as The Godfather Trilogy, Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995), the UK has conjured up Guy Ritchie – a director of such dire ineptitude as to have single-handedly…
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Film Review: ‘Bedevilled’
★★★☆☆ Chul-soo Yang’s Bedevilled (2010) is a slow burning South Korean psychological thriller that hits hard at the end, which is the reason why it wouldn’t be categorised as a film for the faint hearted. In fact, it is somewhat difficult to categorise it in a genre altogether. It would probably be wrong to call…
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DVD Releases: ‘Cyrus’
Charming, witty, and quintessentially quirky, Cyrus (2010) is a slice of well-worked comedy from plucky lo-fi indie brothers, Jay and Mark Duplass. John C. Reilly plays John, a divorced down-and-out schlub who meanders through life alone and somewhat desperate. Upon the persistent demands from his ex-wife/best-friend (Catherine Keener) to shape-up and move on with his life…
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DVD Review: ‘Leap Year’
★☆☆☆☆ A depiction of intense loneliness and psychosexual torture, Michael Rowe’s minimalist debut feature Leap Year (Año bisiesto, 2010) raises many a difficult question with regards to its seemingly complex gender politics. It follows the life of Laura, played with vulnerable perfection by Monica Del Carmen, a lonely freelance journalist who lives alone in a small Mexican apartment.…
EIFF 2026