Blu-ray Review: Vengeance Trials
Roared on by the success of Sergio Leonne in Hollywood, a host of Italian directors followed is his wake; making a raft of Spaghetti Westerns during the 1960s. Whilst similar in many ways to their American cousins these films revelled in turning genre cliches and tropes on their head. Instead of the likes of John …
Film Review: All the Streets are Silent
Culture, counter-culture and music do no operate in vacuums. While there are people who like to place things in nice neat boxes, in reality life is messy. New York in the 1980s and early 1990s was a city full of crime, poverty and myriad social issues. Places like downtown Manhattan haven’t always been the preserve …
Blu-Ray Review: Mirror
Andrei Tarkovsky is without doubt the greatest Russian filmmaker of all time. He’s certainly the first name that comes to mind when discussing the movies of the Motherland. Despite making less than ten films in a career which spanned three decades, he left an indelible mark on the history of world cinema. Whilst the likes …
Film Review: Kandisha
Much of the genre landscape is unfairly dominated by films from North America, and to a lesser degree Britain and Australasia. This can largely be attributed to language and where the money is to finance filmmaking. Despite this, one of the most interesting movements in modern horror cinema has been that of the French new …
Blu-ray Review: Wild Search
For decades now, Chow Yun-fat has been one of the most familiar faces in Hong Kong cinema. He started out in low-budget movies during the 1970s but first made his name in John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow a decade later. Also starring in the sequel and City on Fire, The Killer and Hard Boiled. Whilst …
Film Review: Nowhere Special
For centuries, adoption has been a taboo subject in the UK and Ireland. It has been something patriarchal societies did to women, often against their will, when they gave birth out of wedlock. A device used by rich men to hide away their ‘little accidents’. Today, the stigma may have subsided but it hasn’t disappeared, …
Film Review: Deerskin
There are few, if any, filmmakers working anywhere in the world today who have the inventiveness or singularity of vision of Quentin Dupieux. In a career which spans two decades (so far) the Frenchman has made a number of unlikely gems. His breakthrough came with Rubber, a film about a serial-killing tyre. He has gone …
Film Review: Two of Us
Most of the conversations surrounding gender, sexuality and relationship issues revolve around their impact on younger people. Generally, most Western societies seem to be getting more tolerant and accepting of diversity and inclusion, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this filters up to older generations. If you’ve been brought up to believe certain things you might …
Film Review: Landfall
Nestled in the east of the Great Antilles, Puerto Rico is both a Caribbean Island and easily the biggest of the unincorporated territories of the United States. In many ways this gives it something of an identity crisis. Traditional culture and ways of living collide with an influx of rich investors who are tempted to …
Film Review: Dachra
Africa is a continent which has been raped, pillaged and ravaged by colonialism. The arguments for empire usually point to the benefits it brings for those under its yoke. The Romans, for instance, introduced a number of innovations which made England undoubtedly better. However, the main export from Europe seems to be the imposition of …