TravelWise is a video drama produced for Key Stage 2 and 3 schoolchildren by Essex County Council in the year 2000. Across four short episodes, we witness a soap opera style drama play out involving families and neighbours living in a suburban street. This would then be followed up by […]
Mark Cunliffe
Senior Contributor Mark's first cinematic experience was watching the Cannon and Ball vehicle, The Boys in Blue. He hasn't looked back since. Hailing from St Helens, he is an occasional contributor to Arrow DVD, writing booklet inlay essays on a variety of titles, including Children of Men and The Great Escape. He is a reviewer with IndieMDB and has also written a chapter for Ste Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence's book, Scarred For Life Vol II. Other sites he has written for include We Are Cult, Horrified, and America's left-leaning news outlet ZNetwork. Publications he has written articles for include Stat Magazine and the fanzine Undefined Boundary: The Journal of Psychick Albion. He is also a regular contributor to the Geek Show's podcasts, including Pop Screen and the Uncut series, and he can be found on Letterboxd.
Preview: The Black Rock (2026) Impressive Micro-Budget WWII Drama
Regular readers will be familiar with my championing of local filmmaking talent here on Merseyside, from Michael J. Long’s Baby Brother (recently out on wide release to great acclaim), to several films by Jack McLoughlin (who’ll soon be making his television debut with Channel 5’s revival of Play for Today). […]
Boorman and the Devil (Imagine Film Fest 2025): Exorcising a Much-Maligned Sequel
From 30th October to the 9th November, Imagine Film Festival invites you to reconsider John Boorman’s much maligned horror sequel to 1973’s record-breaking success The Exorcist – the ill-fated film Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). William Friedkin, who directed the original, held nothing back in his verdict of Boorman’s film, […]
The Florida Project (2017): Reality in the Shadow of a Fantasy
Released on 4K UHD/Blu-ray (limited and standard edition) by Second Sight comes The Florida Project, the 2017 film from Sean Baker – the winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture (Anora). Starring Brooklynn Kimberly Prince, Bria Vinaite, and Willem Dafoe, the film has been described […]
Malpertuis (1971) Dreamlike atmospherics and wilful obscurity
Based on Jean Ray’s 1943 novel of the same name and coming to Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance on 13th October, Malpertuis is a bizarre Belgian odyssey from director Harry Kümel. The film had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972, before subsequently fading from view into cinematic oblivion, […]
Iron Ladies (2025) The Women of the Working Class
Released in selected cinemas from 10th October, Iron Ladies is the latest documentary feature from Daniel Draper – the Liverpudlian filmmaker behind such films as Almost Liverpool 8, Manifesto, and last year’s Liverpool Story. As a storyteller, Draper’s chief passions are left wing politics and tight-knit community, and in Iron […]
Time Travel is Dangerous (2024) “My God, it’s full of stars!”
Arriving on digital platforms from 29th September is Time Travel is Dangerous, Chris Reading’s sci-fi comic mockumentary which enjoyed great success at the Austin Film Festival last year and a limited theatrical run here in the UK earlier this year. Written by Reading with producers Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare and Hillary Shakespeare, […]
Outside the Blue Box: The Last Detective (2003)
Peter Davison arguably defied being typecast as the Doctor more than most of the actors who took on the role. By fluke or canny strategy, Davison managed to quickly and cleanly shed all vestiges of the Time Lord, ensuring that he maintained a long and varied career after leaving the […]
Harvest (2024): A Nightmarish Look at the Past, or a Prescient Look at the Future?
Based on a novel by Jim Crace, Harvest marks the English-language debut of Athina Rachel Tsangari. It was released to UK cinemas in July of this year and is currently available to stream on Mubi. The film is a curious, absorbing tale, set over seven hallucinatory days, in a village with no name, in an […]
Shoeshine (1946) Innocence Lost in the Remnants of World War II Rome
Released with a brand new 4K digital restoration by Criterion to Blu-ray and UHD this week, Shoeshine is a 1946 neorealist drama from Vittorio De Sica that has often been hailed as the Italian filmmaker’s first masterpiece and became the first film to win the Academy Award for Best International […]