Incoming: Snowden
From three-time Oscar-winner, Oliver Stone, Snowden is a riveting personal look at one of the most polarising figures of the 21st century, the man responsible for what has been described as the most far-reaching security breach in U.S. intelligence history. Snowden is out in cinemas from Friday.
Film Review: The Black Hen
There are many casualties of war but it’s often civilians who withstand the worst of the hardships and atrocities. For children growing-up amidst conflict it can be scary, puzzling and (more worryingly) seem normal. Some of the greatest war films have conveyed the horrors through the eyes of a child. It has produced profoundly powerful …
Incoming: The Birth of a Nation
Set against the antebellum South, The Birth of a Nation follows Nat Turner (Nate Parker), a literate slave and preacher, whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer), accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. As he witnesses countless atrocities – against himself and his fellow slaves – Nat orchestrates an …
Blu-Ray Review: Lords of Dogtown
In 2001 Stacy Peralta made the documentary Dogtown and the Z-Boys. It was a very personal film for Peralta as he was one of the leading lights of the Zephyr skateboarding team. A team which took the sport of skateboarding by storm, against the backdrop of the poverty of ‘Dogtown’. Taking their influences from surfing …
DVD Review: Three Wishes For Cinderella
One of the universal things all cultures hare, regardless of where we are in the world, is the love of fairy tales. It’s a subject entrenched in Disney films such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Beauty and the Beat. Or in writing, the works of The Brothers Grimm and Hans …
Blu-ray Review: Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World
There are few people in the world today like Werner Herzog, let alone film directors. Whilst he made his name with early films such as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Fitzcarraldo, it has been documentary film-making which he returns to again and again. It’s also a medium where he …
Incoming: Sully
On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed the “Miracle on the Hudson” when Captain “Sully” Sullenberger glided his disabled plane onto the frigid waters of the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 aboard. However, even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, …
Film Review: The Dreamed Ones
The relationship between film and literature has always been a rather fraught one. It’s very rare for a film to live up to the book it’s based on, let alone surpass it. Non-fiction probably fares best, but novels often get a rough ride. Adapting the written word to the big screen is a tricky business. …
Incoming: Moana
Three thousand years ago, the greatest sailors in the world voyaged across the vast Pacific, discovering the many islands of Oceania. But then, for a millennium, their voyages stopped, and no one knows why… Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Moana is about an adventurous teenager who, with help from demigod Maui sails out on a daring …
Incoming: Chi-Raq
Chi-Raq is a modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes. After the murder of a Child by a stray bullet, a group of women led by a gang leader’s beautiful young girlfriend Lysistrata organize against the ongoing violence in Chicago’s South Side creating a movement that challenges the nature of race, …