There are not many films set in Luxembourg. But films about a cadaverous hitman who gets a sudden attack of conscience and sets out to rescue an innocent teenage girl from her fate as a vampire’s child bride…set in Luxembourg? Well, they’re even rarer. Welcome to Dreamland. Bruce McDonald, the […]
Reviews
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 […]
Nights of Cabiria: Tragedy shall never defeat Hope (Review)
The Navigator: still hugely impressive today (Review)
Eureka’s first box set of Blu-Ray Buster Keaton reissues, released in 2017, featured Steamboat Bill Jr., Sherlock Jr. and The General, the latter being the film that, more than any other, his contemporary auteur reputation rests on. The General was a critical and commercial flop on release; The Navigator, which […]
The White Sheik – The humble beginnings of an Italian Titan (Review)
I wonder what audiences thought to themselves after the initial release of The White Sheik. Perhaps they thought this “Fellini” guy would fizzle out and make a handful of comedy films here and there. His first solo directing venture, The White Sheik marks Fellini’s early foray into the genre of comedy. The Italian […]
The French Lieutenant’s Woman: Parallel Lives, Parallel Loves (Review)
Antonio Gaudí (1984): pure cinema explores pure imagination (review)
Hiroshi Teshigahara, the first Asian filmmaker to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar, is today best remembered for his quartet of collaborations with the novelist Kōbō Abe: Pitfall, The Face of Another, The Ruined Map and Woman in the Dunes, the latter of which got the Academy’s attention. Criterion […]