Film
Film Review: Landfall
Nestled in the east of the Great Antilles, Puerto Rico is both a Caribbean Island and easily the biggest of the unincorporated territories of the United States. In many ways this gives it something of an identity crisis. Traditional culture and ways of living collide with an influx of rich investors who are tempted to …
Film Review: Dachra
Africa is a continent which has been raped, pillaged and ravaged by colonialism. The arguments for empire usually point to the benefits it brings for those under its yoke. The Romans, for instance, introduced a number of innovations which made England undoubtedly better. However, the main export from Europe seems to be the imposition of …
Blu-Ray Review: Adoption
On the face of it, communism doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal breeding ground for feminism to flourish. Whilst everyone was theoretically equal in the USSR, many rich old white men were more equal than other. The narrative pushed by the authorities was that of the heroic Marxist worker, dedicating their life to making the …
Film Review: High Ground
The term ‘western’ conjures up stories of cowboys and ‘Indians’ from the wild west of frontier America. However, it’s a genre of film which has captured the imagination of directors around the world, most notably in Italy. In Australia, makers of ‘meat pie’ (or kangaroo) westerns have taken the tropes and cliches of the genre …
Film Review: King Otto
On even years (usually), the normally boring summer period for football fans is enlivened by the prospect of an international competition. Whilst it’s no World Cup, the EUROs (or European Football Championships) tend to produce the bigger shocks and on more than one occasion we’ve seen a winner that could not have been predicted. This …
Film Review: Bad Hair
Regardless of how multicultural western societies claim to be, when it comes to Afro-textured hair there’s usually a need for specialist and expert treatment. You can’t just walk into any old salon and be guaranteed the service you require. This isn’t just the case when it comes to cutting and styling, weaving and relaxing. The …
Film Review: Witch Hunt
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a witch hunt is ‘a campaign directed against a person or group holding views considered unorthodox or a threat to society’. The phrase was first made famous by George Orwell but (obviously) harks back to the time of witch trials. Whilst wiccans might not find themselves the (sole) recipients …
Film Review: Last Man Standing
Nick Broomfield has been making documentaries for over five decades now. His style and idiosyncratic ways of working have been highly influential on many other filmmakers. The English filmmaker’s most high-profile documentaries have been about musicians. Kurt and Courtney caused controversy and was pulled from Sundance but it’s Biggie and Tupac which probably generated the …
Film Review – WITCH: We Intend to Cause Havoc
It’s not something you’d probably ever think about but in most of the English-speaking Western world we’re very myopic when it comes to the range of music we listen to. It’s almost all in our (main) native tongue and the vast majority comes from North America, Australasia, Britain or Ireland. It’s very rare to hear …
Blu-Ray Review: Harry Birrell Presents Films of Love & War
Whilst documentaries come in all shapes and sizes, it’s often the personal and intimate ones which carry the most resonance. Whilst focussing on a seemingly obscure or niche figure, film-makers conflate their experiences with that of many others. How their lives are a microcosm of a bigger picture. Harry Birrell Presents Films of Love and …