Film
Film Review: Weathering with You
Outside of Asia, anime is often discounted as being childish or considered something less than live-action films. It’s not always taken seriously, and when it does get coverage is regularly sidelined into a specialist category. This prejudice is vastly unfair. It’s a genre which comes in many shapes and sizes but directors such as Makoto …
Blu-Ray Review: Hanagatami
Film-making is a strange vocation. Unlike music, where your first album is often the culmination of a lifetimes’ work, directors can make film after film before bringing their pet project to fruition. It can become an obsession, which consumes and sometimes defeats. More often than not the end result is a disappointment. Terry Gilliam’s attempt …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review: King Rocker
There’s often no rhyme or reason why one band makes it whilst another never quite takes off. So many factors are at play but it can come down to nothing more than just blind luck or being in the right place at the right time; which can trump all the hard work in the world. …
Sheffield Doc/Fest Review: Me and the Cult Leader
On 20 March 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo, a doomsday cult, orchestrated five coordinated attacks on the Tokyo Metro. During rush hour they released Sarin gas on three different lines, killing twelve and severely injuring many more. The perpetrators, including the leader Shoko Asahara, were executed, but the group is still operational; albeit under …
Film Review: A White, White Day
Icelandic cinema is enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment. Whilst its golden age was perhaps the turn of the century (101 Reykjavik, Nói albinói, Stormy Weather), the likes of Rams, Of Horses and Men, Woman at War and The County have garnered critical acclaim and wowed audiences around the world. Although Grímur Hákonarson …
Film Review: The Booksellers
Some people argue that in life there are two kinds of people. Those who love books, to whom reading is a part of life. And then there are those who are probably not worth knowing. Personally, I’m a traditionalist. I need to feel the pages and have no interest whatsoever of reading from a screen. …
Blu-Ray Review: Force 10 from Navarone
Whilst things might be slowly changing, Hollywood has been a boys’ club for a very long time. This has been reflected in the cinema it has produced, where’s there’s often a hefty dollop of bromance. Bringing a group of men together to undertake some sort of mission is a regular plot device. Whether that’s the …
Film Review: On the Record
You’ve probably never heard of Drew Dixon. She was an A&R Executive at Def Jam Recordings and Vice President at Arista Records during the 1990s, working with the likes of Lauryn Hill, Method Man, Pharrell Williams and Aretha Franklin. Her lack of recognition is because she had no choice but to curtail her career after …
Film Review: Fanny Lye Deliver’d
After Charles I lost his head, England, and the rest of ‘the Commonwealth’ for that matter, was thrown into turmoil. Whilst Cromwell’s New Model Army was exercising their puritanical zeal in the name of the Lord, something else was stirring in our fair lands. These strange and dangerous times are captured magnificently in Thomas Clay’s …
Film Review: Anne at 13,000 Ft
Sure, it helps, but you don’t need a huge budget to make a good film. What you do need is someone who knows what they’re doing behind the camera, and intelligent and well-written script, some very cute editing and an actor who can carry the production. Thankfully, Kazik Radwanski’s new film has all of these …