DVD/Blu-Ray Review
DVD Review: Mysterious Object at Noon
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is easily the most renowned director working today in Thailand’s independent cinema. Operating outside of the studio system, he’s achieved his greatest successes with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Tropical Malady. However, his first feature was the little known Mysterious Object at Noon. An experimental documentary, he employs the …
DVD Review: The Zero Boys
The ’80s was the decade where action films first came to the fore. Whilst Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee may have pioneered the first Asian invasion of martial arts films, it was the likes of Sly Stallone, Arnie and Chuck Norris who made the genre big business in America. Whilst The Zero Boys may be …
DVD Review: The Ninth Configuration
A quick look at William Blatty’s writing credits will give you an idea of what to expect from his first film, The Ninth Configuration. Blatty is best known for his screenplay of The Exorcist which he adapted from his novel of the same name (he also directed The Exorcist III). Again, for The Ninth Gate, …
DVD Review: Miss Hokusai
There are a lot of people who view Manga with disdain and prejudice. However, the art-form, whether it be in the medium of comic, TV show or film, is highly regarded in its native Japan. Many series make the transition to live action films and there’s almost a self-contained industry. Based on the comic Sarusuberi …
DVD Review: Three Days of the Condor (Masters of Cinema)
Sidney Pollock was a strange American director for his time. Whilst he came through at the same time as many of the new American film-makers in the 1970s, his output and outlook were very much traditional. Unlike some of his peers including Robert Altman, Sam Peckinpah, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola, he’s not a …
DVD Review: Heartless
Vampires are big business, just look at how much money the ridiculously bad Twilight saga has made. There’s a whole section of literature dedicated to the sub-genre and young adult fiction is chock-full of blood-sucking teens. The same can be said about TV. The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Being Human, Penny Dreadful and The Originals …
DVD Review: Chronic
When Tim Roth burst onto the scene in the early 1990s with a string of impressive performances he announced himself as one of the most exciting young British actors. Great roles in Robert Altman’s Vincent & Theo, Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are …
DVD Review: Jeruzalem
Innovations in technology, significantly driving down costs and allowing the entire post-production process to be carried out in your living room, have opened the gates of film-making up to a whole new group of people who would be otherwise excluded. With handheld technology becoming smaller and cheaper, a whole new generation have access to the …
DVD Review: Sunset Song
The translation of great works of literature to the big screen has rarely been a smooth one. Shakespeare has probably turned in his grave more often than any, but there are very few ‘great’ texts which have remained unscathed. For Terence Davies the task of adapting Sunset Song was even more daunting. Lewis Grassic Gibson’s …
Blu-ray Review: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection
Rainer Werner Fassbinder will be an unfamiliar name to many but the German director was highly prolific, completing forty film in a career spanning just 15 years. He was possibly the most important figure in German New Wave cinema and his early death in 1982 deprived the world of a huge talent and a highly …