FIlm Review
Film Review: School Life
There are two kinds of people. Those who loved their schooldays and those who hated just about every moment. To a large extent, your experience probably depended on the school you attended. However, modern schooling seems more to do with SATs, GCSE results, school league tables and ticking boxes than being places of learning. Schools …
LFF Review: AlphaGo
If you were a boy growing up in Europe in the late 1970s or early 1980s, there’s a good chance that at some stage you played chess. However, if you were born in Japan, China or Korea, it’s likely that Go was the game for you. Compared to Go, chess Is like playing snakes and …
LFF Review: David Stratton: A Cinematic Life
In my humble opinion, Australian cinema is one of the most singular, gritty and strangely self-deprecating the world has to offer. Whilst in many ways it’s all so familiar, there’s a certain brutality and dark humour which sets it apart from their British or American counterparts. Films like The Castle, Wake in Fright, Mad Max, …
LFF Review: Ava
Even though the central characters of most coming-of-age films may not start out as nice or good, they almost always eventually end-up that way. Whatever life has thrown at them, they have an unerring capacity to come out the other end and embark on a hopeful future. Not so the case in Léa Mysius’ ridiculously …
Film Review: Poor Agnes
Historically, the horror genre has been unkind to women. They’ve been routinely painted as the victim or a damsel in distress in need of rescue. There have been huge strides forward made over the previous decade, and finally we’re seeing some kind of breakthrough in terms of female writers, director and feminism creeping into genre …
LFF Review: Liyana
Whether consciously or not an author’s own life experiences have a habit of creeping into their work. Heroes and villains often spring from our memories, dreams and imaginations. Early Childhood relationships can have a huge influence on what we do with our lives. Things might look grim in 2017 but it’s easy to forget how …
LFF Review: Bad Genius
The pressure to perform well at school has always been intense. However, in Asia they take it to another level. Good exam results can mean the difference between a high-flying career and being stuck in lowly bureaucratic job. Failure can lead to suicide or ostracization. The education sector is a multi-billion-dollar industry with fierce competition …
LFF Review: Jailbreak
With the emergence of the kung-fu of Bruce Lee and subsequently Jackie Chan, martial arts cinema gained a huge worldwide audience. The wuxia of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took matters into the realms of fantasy and sparked a whole new wave of interest. It was again grounded in the brutal and breathtaking Ong Bak, with …
LFF Review: Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse
There are many who still sniff at horror cinema and persist on trying to diminish it. Over the last couple of years, the odious term post-horror has seeped into popular culture. This expression has been used to describe films such as Get Out, Split, It Comes at Night and The Witch, which allows praise to …
LFF Review: Ex-Libris – The New York Public Library
Libraries have played pivotal roles within societies dating all the way back to the ancient Greeks, ancient Egyptians and even the Sumerians. In more modern times, they’ve been a vital public resource, allowing everyone the access to knowledge, information and betterment. However, with pressures growing on public funding and austerity kicking-in around the world, they’ve …