There are many things you need to check before making a movie; cast availability, contracts, and filming permits. “The consent of a Leftist commune” is not usually one of them, but then there aren’t many filming environments quite like post-war Germany. Rudolf Thome’s Red Sun, newly released on Blu-Ray by […]
Werner Herzog
Rimini (2022): looking for the shaft of light in Ulrich Seidl’s sensibilities (Review)
There are countless horror movies that exploit the particular uncanniness of a holiday resort in winter, but none of them have featured a monster quite like Richie Bravo. The anti-hero of Ulrich Seidl’s latest film, Rimini, he’s a hulking, middle-aged lounge singer of limitless appetites and venality. After singing another […]
The Assistant – Cinema Eclectica Podcast 262
Cinema Eclectica is back for another round-up of the latest streaming titles, this week taking in America and Romania via Japan. First up, Rob lauds Julia Garner’s performance in #MeToo drama The Assistant, then Graham is off to Tokyo with frequent flier Werner Herzog for his haunting new film Family […]
Curling: grips in ways a standard Hollywood thriller can’t manage (Review)
So do Second Run have some kind of insider knowledge, or…? Their first all-new release of 2020 (after a welcome Blu-Ray upgrade for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) is Denis Côté’s Curling, a spare, paranoid film about self-isolation, home-schooling and precarious minimum-wage jobs. A rare chance for British audiences […]
Denis Lavant’s Live Action CV – Cinema Eclectica 223
Limousines! Kylie! CGI rubber dragon sex! It can only be Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors” getting the Eclectica treatment from Aidan, Sarah and Graham. Deep thoughts will be had about religion, cinema and literature. Less-deep thoughts will be had about Denis Lavant’s old chap. Elsewhere, there are new releases to be […]
Mark Isaacs: Five Films, One Filmmaker (2001-2017)(Review)
Second Run dropped a bombshell of a box set dedicated to the films of Marc Isaacs, a British documentary filmmaker known for creating closed-off, intimate films with a cast of many memorable and sometimes eccentric personalities. It doesn’t matter if his contributors are small-time BNP supporters, nobody street sweepers, or […]
Cinema Eclectica 91 – Smackhead School Reunion
All hail our new Lizard Overlord! On this week’s episode we have a rather eventful Trailerwatch and Question of the Week, and Off The Shelf includes “Two Women” starring Sophia Loren, Werner Herzog’s volcanic documentary “Into the Inferno”, and European depress-’em-up “Aloys”. This week’s Feature Presentation is “Nocturnal Animals”. Tune […]
In Defence Of – Invincible
Director: Werner Herzog Content: Film Studio: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion Synopsis: Zishe Breitbart moves to Berlin to seek his fortune as a strongman, and comes under the management of the hypnotist and fraudulent mystic Hanussen. But this is 1932, and the Jewish Breitbart is increasingly disturbed when he realises what Germany’s […]
Cinema Eclectica 88 – Anti-Social Surrealism
This week Rob gets traded for an older production version (for purely technical reasons of course). We look at Andrzej Zulawski’s baffling final film “Cosmos”, notorious video nasty “The Burning” and F.W. Murnau’s “The Grand Duke’s Finances”. Our Feature Presentation doubled up and mutated a second Werner Herzog-shaped head in […]
Joshua Oppenheimer: Early Work (1995-2003) It’s hard to imagine any limit to his imagination (Review)
For most filmgoers, Joshua Oppenheimer emerged fully-formed out of nowhere with his landmark 2012 documentary The Act of Killing. A horrifyingly intimate portrait of elderly death squad leaders in Indonesia, it fused fearless journalism with surreal, fantastical black comedy – a mix which earned the film the support of Werner […]