Film Review: Four Games in Fall
Whatever happens in love, war and politics, sport has always been held up to the highest scrutiny. The Olympic Games, with its origins dating back to ancient Greece, is the ultimate in sporting achievement. Its ethos focuses on the importance of taking part and competing over actually winning. This attitude seems more than a little …
Film Review: Jiu Jitsu
To say that Nicolas Cage is prolific would be a profound understatement. Since 2015 he has starred in well over twenty films. It’s almost impossible to keep up. As you’d expect with these kinds of numbers, the quality control isn’t exactly great. The once Oscar-winning actor has garnered a reputation for making bad films. More …
Film Review: Hunter Hunter
Whilst the USA’s love affair with guns is well documented, less is made of the popularity of hunting in North America. Whilst you expect it from their southern cousins, this practice, hobby or sport is still very popular in Canada; with over one million people heading into nature every year. This could be due to …
FilmFestival Cottbus Review: 18 kHz
It’s hard to quantify just how vast and varied the USSR was as a union. Spanning well over 200 million kilometres and encompassing at least 130 different spoken languages, it encompassed a wealth of different cultures and peoples. It has been difficult for some nations to escape culturally and socially from their former mistress. Take …
Film Review: Skylines
There can’t be many people who thought after watching The Brother Strause’s Skyline in 2000 that it would be the first instalment of one of the best sci-fi trilogies of the 21st century. It was an inauspicious opening, but when co-writer and producer Liam O’Donnell made the surprisingly good sequel Beyond Skyline in 2017, things …
Film Review: Beasts Clawing at Straws
There’s no country which makes thrillers quite like those produced in South Korea. Whilst the plots themselves might often sound fairly straightforward; the journey rarely is. The land of the morning calm has produced some of the best and most iconic examples of the genre this century, whilst still retaining a cult edge. The likes …
Film Review: Dreamland
Following the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, America was thrown into a decade of high unemployment, deflation and widespread poverty. This period came to be known as the Great Depression and spread across much of the developed and developing world. Growing up during this time was hard, to say the least. Opportunities were scarce …
Blu-Ray Review: Devil in a Blue Dress
Since the late 1980s, Denzel Washington has proven time and time again that he’s one of the best American actors working in cinema today. In 1987, he received his first Academy Award nomination for Cry Freedom, following it up a couple of years later with a win for Glory. He has subsequently gone on to …
Film Review: Archenemy
Over the past couple of decades, superhero films have become big business. The biggest business in town. This is largely, if not wholly, down to Marvel and the Marvel Comic Universe. Since the release of Iron Man in 2008, and the acquisition of the studio by Disney, it has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Each film …
Xmas Horror Nights – Red Screening
Imagine, you’ve waited months to see a film at the cinema just to have it spoiled by inconsiderate people during the screening. Audience members talking, playing with their phones or getting up and down all the time. To have an experience ruined and be frequently ‘pulled out’ of the moment. Understandably, it might well make …