FIlm Review
Film Review: Rubble Kings
“In 1979 a cult classic called “The Warriors” shook the world with its depiction of New York City as a gang infested concrete jungle. Nine years earlier the real story was far worse.” The opening of Shan Nicholson’s documentary, Rubble Kings, sets the scene for his investigation into the rise of gang culture in the …
Film Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
In a world full of seemingly pointless money-making sequels and reboots, it’s refreshing to see original films being made like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Skilfully adapted from her own debut novel by Jesse Andrews, it scooped the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award (US Drama) at Sundance. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon works a litle cinematic …
Film Review: How To Change The World
A whole movement is much more than one person or organisation. In 1971, when a group of friends decided to sail out to protest against nuclear testing in Alaska they unwittingly started something that would snowball into one of the largest modern activist movements. What Bob Hunter and a small group of like-minded people began …
Film Review: Closed Curtain
Jafar Panahi is undoubtedly the most persistent and resourceful director working in film today. Despite being banned for 20 from making films by the Iranian authorities, Panahi still finds a way to keep on working. In 2011 he made This Is Not a Film under house arrest on an Iphone which was smuggled out of …
Film Review: The Second Mother
Class barriers are present and thriving all over the world, but they’re often unspoken. The rich employ nannies to bring up their children whilst those employed to care for the progeny of others often have to leave their own offspring. Normally the justification behind this is money, but as Anna Muylaert’s new film A Second …
Film Review: Buttercup Bill
Intriguingly described as a psycho-sexual drama, Buttercup Bill is certainly a brave first feature from directors Remy Bennett and Emilie Richard-Froozan. Eschewing a linear narrative, it’s a brooding, sweaty and intimate portrait of a lifelong friendship with deeper undertones. We learn little about Pernilla (Bennett) and Patrick (Evan Louison) as individuals. Instead, the film focuses …
Film Review: The Dance of Reality
23 years is a long time to wait for a film, but then again Alejandro Jodorowsky is no ordinary director. Very few filmmakers have a unique vision, style, individualism and cult following which inspires someone to make a documentary about one of their aborted projects (as Frank Pavich does in Jodorowsky’s Dune). With surrealist masterpieces …
Film Review: The Forgotten Kingdom
Sometimes films just need to breathe. In a world where modern cinema is cluttered with special effects and cynicism, Andrew Mudge’s The Forgotten Kingdom is a breath of fresh air. On a personal level, I’ve always been fascinated by the country of Lesotho; a little island in the sea of South Africa. I’ve never seen …
Film Review: The Treatment
Scandinavian noir might have been the hottest import over the last decade, but before Stieg Larsson changed the face of modern crime dramas, Mo Hayder has writing dark psychological British crime fiction. The Treatment (De Behandeling) is an adaptation of her second book of the same name, and one of seven novels featuring the same …
Film Review: The Confessions of Thomas Quick
Sometimes it’s impossible to believe a story or know who’s actually telling the truth. A story can be so unbelievable or unfeasible that every narrator seems unreliable and ‘the facts’ just don’t sit right. This is the main flaw in Brian Hill’s new film, The Confessions of Thomas Quick. Whilst it’s clearly an important story …