DVD Review: Le Pont du Nord (Masters of Cinema)
Outside of mother/daughter relationships you seldom find two female leads in mainstream cinema. This thankfully seems to be changing, albeit far too slowly, with Paul Feig leading the way in actually giving female actresses good starring roles. ‘World’ and independent cinema has generally been more liberal, but there are few double acts as convincing as …
Incoming: Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the story of a young woman, Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) who moves from small town Ireland to Brooklyn, NY where, unlike home, she has the opportunity for work and for a future – and love, in the form of Italian-American Tony (Emory Cohen). When a family tragedy brings her back to Ireland, she finds …
DVD Review: Technotise: Edit & I
Ever since Akira became a huge hit, futuristic sci-fi animation has proved popular both in Japan and in the West. There have been some great examples of forward thinking and invention including Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Cowboy Bebop, Avalon and particularly Ghost in the Shell. Whilst most films come out of East Asia, there …
DVD Review: Best of Enemies
It is difficult to believe now but the advent of television was once believed as a huge step forward for the intellectual good of a country. This was particularly the case in America. In 1968 two heavyweight intellectuals were hired by the struggling ABC network to front their coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions. …
Film Review: The Closer We Get
The best documentaries are often those where the director has a personal connection to the subject matter. This link tends to lead towards a much greater emotional connection between the director and the subject, but also for the audience. This is indeed the case in Karen Guthrie’s The Closer We Get. It’s a very personal …
Incoming: Black Souls
Based on real events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, BLACK SOULS (ANIME NERE) is a tale of violence begetting violence and complex morality inherited by each generation in rural, ancient Calabria, a real-life mafia (‘Ndrangheta) seat in Southern Italy. The Carbone family consists of three brothers, Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) who are …
DVD Review: Outlander Season 1
With the advent of online streaming services there’s been a whole new market for new TV shows. Netflix is probably the best known in the UK but Amazon Prime has also made a big splash in the market. One of its most successful forays has been Outlander, which is an adaptation of the first book …
Incoming: Fresh Dressed
With funky, fat-laced Adidas, Kangol hats, and Cazal shades, a totally original look was born—Fresh—and it came from the black and brown side of town where another cultural force was revving up in the streets to take the world by storm. Hip-hop, and its aspirational relationship to fashion, would become such a force on the …
DVD Review: The Nightmare
Have you ever experienced real horror? That’s what a taxi driver said to me. It was in the wee hours after a horror film festival. As he told me about his cousin, an Afghan chief, I expected it to be my last night on earth. It wasn’t (obviously). Real life can often be much more …
Incoming: Taxi To Tehran
A taxi driver is driving through the vibrant streets of Tehran. Diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his car, transforms the car into a mobile film studio, …