Film Review: Still
Say what you want about British independent films and TV, we’ve got some great actors, directors and technical professionals. Still, could have easily sunk into sub-par soap opera, but instead great direction and some brilliant acting performances make it unusual, yet compelling viewing. The clever trick writer and director Simon Blake manages to pull off …
Film Review – Phoenix
The main events of World War II have been extensively documented, but unless you were there at the time it’s hard to understate the fallout following the end of the war, which carried on for decades. Much of the finger-pointing and animosity centred around collaboration. The lowest moment in human history, The Holocaust, claimed the …
Film Review: Heaven Adores You
Unassuming. It’s probably the best word to describe Elliott Smith. Whilst his music continues to entrance anew generation of music fans ten years on since his tragic death, the man himself always shunned the limelight. In terms of a celebrity presence there was no ego, but when it came to music it was a different …
DVD Review: The Sleeping Room
British horror is a difficult beast, with low budgets and tired tropes often overly prevalent. In John Shackleton’s debut feature he tries to do something slightly different, and whilst it sadly doesn’t work as a whole, it’s a great first attempt under such financial constraints. Still affected by the death of her mother, Blue (Leila …
DVD Review: The Long Good Friday
The Long Good Friday in many ways marked the end of an era for a certain style of film making. The ’70s was a bumper period for gritty cinema on both sides of the Atlantic. The French Connection, Deliverance, Mean Streets, The Conversation, Taxi Driver and The Godfather Part 2 all setting theatres alight with …
Incoming: Girlhood
Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of 3 free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom. Girlhood is …
DVD – Exodus: Gods and Kings
You can’t beat a good Biblical Epic. There are the classics such as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur along with the more recent unrelenting Passion of Christ and the unfairly derided Noah. Ridley Scott, who directed the latter, is not stranger to epics; with both Gladiator and the criminally underrated Kingdom of Heaven to his …
Film Review: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead
Before getting entangled with hairy-footed hobbits, Peter Jackson began his impressive film making odyssey knee-deep in gore with the brilliant Bad Taste and Braindead. There’s a certain Antipodean sense of humour, that ranges from dark to black as night,which gives their horror movies a very different feel. In Kiah Roache-Turner debut outing, Wyrmwood: Road of …
Incoming: Unfriended
Ushering in a new era of horror, Unfriended unfolds over a teenager’s computer screen as she and her friends are stalked by an unseen figure who seeks vengeance for a shaming video that led a vicious bully to kill herself a year earlier. https://youtu.be/UywxsSesdJE Unfriended is out in cinemas on Friday.
Film Review: Darkest Day
Many of us have dreamed of making our own film, but very few of us have the motivation or desire to just get on and do it. That is precisely what Dan Rickard did, taking a short unfinished student project and persistent. Ten years later, it eventually morphed and grew into a full feature length …