Blu-Ray Review: Caltiki: The Immortal Monster
The 1950s was a boomtime for science fiction and horror cinemas. In the aftermath of the Second World War and in the nuclear shadow, there was a new generation with an appetite for escapism. Films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Thing from Another Planet packed out …
Incoming: City of Tiny Lights
Tommy Akhtar (Riz Ahmed): cricket fan, devoted son and deadbeat private eye. He has an office above a suburban cab firm, a taste for cigarettes and booze and a finely tuned moral compass well hidden behind a sharp line in cynicism. Tommy walks in one morning to find high-class prostitute Melody (Cush Jumbo) seeking his …
Blu-Ray Review: The Innocent (L’Innocente)
After a couple of misfires, Luchino Visconti returned to familiar territory for his final film. Whilst The Innocent (L’innocente) may not reach the heights of The Leopard, Death in Venice or Le Notti Bianche, it’s contains all the elements which make his one of the greatest Italian directors of his era. Over a period of …
Blu-Ray Review: Swiss Army Man
The role of sound design is an often a neglected or overlooked area of cinema, but it can make or break a film. In genre cinema, it’s imperative in terms of building tension and maximising scares. In war films, and Saving Private Ryan is one of the best examples of this, it can really draw …
Incoming: I Am Not A Negro
Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and with unprecedented access to James Baldwin’s original work, award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck (Murder in Pacot, Moloch Tropical, Sometimes in April, Lumumba), has completed the cinematic version of the book Baldwin never wrote – a radical narration about race in America that tracks the lives and assassinations of Baldwin’s friends, …
Film Review: Neruda
Described by Gabriel García Márquez as the “the greatest poet of the 20th century”, Pablo Neruda was a figurehead for Communism in Chile. Born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, Neruda was also a politician and diplomat. Towards the end of his life he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but during the late 1940s …
Incoming: Going in Style
Oscar winners Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin team up as lifelong buddies Willie, Joe and Al, who decide to buck retirement and step off the straight-and-narrow for the first time in their lives when their pension fund becomes a corporate casualty, in director Zach Braff’s comedy Going in Style. Going in Style is …
Blu-Ray Review: Alice
Woody Allen films tend to be grounded in reality, but occasionally dally and linger with elements of fantasy. His formula normal revolves around a combination comedy, romance and drama. Occasionally, he lets loose. Most memorably in Sleeper and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Unlike most of his …
Film Review: Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?
AIDS decimated gay communities in Europe and America during the 1980s and 1990s. Today, it’s estimated that over 36 million people around the world are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Whilst, the majority are based in Sub-Saharan Africa, it continues to have a global pandemic. There have been several powerful documentaries on the disease, including How …
Incoming: Graduation
Cannes Best Director winner Cristian Mungiu returns with a powerful and universal study about the imprecision of parenthood, the relativity of truth and the ambiguity of compromise. Graduation is out in cinemas from today.