FIlm Review
Film Review: Dogs
Smuggling has existed for as long as anyone has tried to regulate trade or travel. Traditionally it has been a way for self-styled entrepreneurs to avoid paying tax or customs fees on commodities and luxuries, but it covers a whole manner of illicit activities. People trafficking has become increasingly prevalent nowadays but dates back to …
Film Review: The Collini Case
World War II, in the European arena at least, ended with the unconditional surrender of Germany on 8 May 1945. Whilst the fighting may have ended, the ramifications and recriminations rumbled on for decades to come. Whilst the Nuremberg Trials followed and prosecuted the most notable surviving members of the Nazi Party, many escaped this …
Film Review: Ninjababy
We live in a patriarchal society where women’s roles have been reduced and restricted for centuries and more. Today, in many traditional countries their ‘job’ is basically to be an obedient daughter, mother and wife. Forced to cater to their husband’s every wish. Often little better than a slave. Even in more progressive nations, women …
Film Review: Yakuza Princess
In the real world your life chances are influenced, to a large degree, by who your parents are and where you’re born. It’s not so straightforward in the movies. We want our heroes or heroines to be normal. Just like us. Their destiny not shaped by their privilege but instead self-determined by their actions. However, …
Film Review: Souad
Like most men, I was simply unaware of the sheer magnitude of the issues faced by girls and women on a daily basis. The #METOO movement has opened many eyes and shown a lot of men up for what they really are, but it’s questionable how much difference it has made to daily lives in …
Film Review: Jazz on a Summer’s Day
To put it kindly, concert films can be hit or miss. More often than not they’re no more than a couple of cameras and just band and crowd shots. Made on the cheap to try and turn a quick profit. However, things are definitely getting better and there have always been examples that bucked this …
Film Review: No Man of God
As disturbing as it might well be, serial killers seem to occupy a position of fascination within a sizable minority of the US population. Infamy breeds idolisation, often spawning a succession of magazines, books, TV programmes, films and an innate desire to know ‘why’. Ted Bundy is undoubtedly one of the most famous. He eventually …
Film Review – Kipchoge: The Last Milestone
As homo sapiens we seem motivated to incessantly push the limits of our own bodies. There’s a relentless desire to run faster or for longer, jump higher or further, throw harder or with more accuracy. What would have originally been necessitated by our needs as hunter gatherers to eat or survive is now replaced by …
Film Review: 499
In the early sixteenth century, the event known as the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire took place with the invasion of (today’s) Mexico by the Southern European nation. Over a period of two years, the Spanish created a coalition of the Aztec’s enemies and waged war on the Mexica of Tenochtitlan (and their allies), …
Film Review: Demonic
If there’s a Heaven then there must be a Hell. That’s the deal. Good has to be balanced out by evil. This was a central tenet of most ancient religions. Demons or devils have always played an important part of that. The Catholic Church has long believed in their existence. Indeed, the New Testament is …