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DVD Review: ‘The Hammer and Tongs Collection’
★★★☆☆ Anyone with even a passing interest in the world of film and music videos will no doubt be familiar with the work of director/producer duo Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, a.k.a. Hammer and Tongs. Whether this be as a result of their more recent feature films such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…
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DVD Releases: ‘Toy Story 3’
Fifteen years after the release of the groundbreaking Toy Story (1995) and eleven years after the release of the arguably superior Toy Story 2 (1999), Pixar returned to cinemas this year with the final instalment to the Toy Story trilogy.Director of both prequels, John Lasseter, handed the reigns to first time director Lee Unkrich, who…
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Curzon Screentalks: ‘Peeping Tom’ 50th Anniversary rerelease
“The only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer”, wrote Derek Hill in his review for The Tribune after seeing Michael Powell’s 1960 psychological thriller, Peeping Tom. A vicious and petulant outburst to say the least, it is perhaps the…
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Theatrical Releases: ‘Mammoth’
After producing a string of super low budget features in his native Sweden, Mammoth (2010) is the first multi-national picture by acclaimed writer-director Lukas Moodysson, and “multi-national” really is the adjective of choice.Mammoth is structured around the New York-based Vidales family: the father, Leo (Gael Garcia Bernal), an internet game designer; the mother, Ellen (Michelle…
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Theatrical Releases: ‘Chico and Rita’
Refreshingly cast in eye-popping animation of a more traditional, “pre-digimation” variety, Chico and Rita (2010) softly commences on a steamy night in Havana in 1948. Born out of a close collaboration between Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba and celebrated Spanish artist Javier Mariscal, this visually distinctive feature details a classical story of love, loss, fame and…
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Film Review: ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’
★★★★★ This year’s winner of the coveted Palme d’Or Prize, the magical-realist Thai oddity Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), was one of the most unforeseen, yet unanimously welcomed Cannes Film Festival award winners of all time. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s magnum opus has perhaps been best summarised, by US magazine Variety, as “apparitions,…
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Film Review: ‘Dream Home’
★★★★☆ With such a delightfully intriguing premise, it’s no wonder Pang Ho-Cheung’s slasher film Dream Home (2010) has garnered such playful taglines as “A view to a kill”, “Don’t try this at home” and “What would do, if someone blocked your view?”. But don’t let cheesy puns or rhyming couplets put you off what is otherwise…
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Film Review: Aftershock
★★★☆☆ Aftershock, China’s first official IMAX movie, might attract praise or criticism for many different reasons, but it’s certainly not the kind of film to leave viewers indifferent. Based on the events of the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, Hebei province, Xiaogang Feng’s film follows the aftermath of a shattering natural disaster. Mother of two Yuan Ni…
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DVD Releases: ‘A Town Called Panic’
Anyone who has seen the ongoing series of mad-cap Cravendale adverts, featuring an ensemble cast of miniature plasticine figurines ranging from farmyard animals to pirates and farmers (Cue maniacal howls of “MILK, MILK!”) should find themselves at home with the latest effort from Belgian stop-frame animators ‘Pic Pic André’ – AKA directing duo Stephané Aubier…
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DVD Releases: ‘How to Train Your Dragon’
Where have all the orphans gone? In the grand tradition of children’s literature (and therefore, children’s films – now more than ever, it is inconceivable that there could be one without the other), the first obstacle any writer needs to vault over, sidestep or obliterate is the matter of the parents.By its very nature, the…
EIFF 2026