Sydney Pollack’s 1974 neo-noir The Yakuza is one of those films that leaves you wondering what the hell was wrong with the cinema-going public and film critics of the day. Performing poorly at the box office and receiving (at best) mixed reviews, this east-meets-west thriller failed to cash in on […]
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.
Dunkirk (1958) A poignant and near peerless World War II Movie (Review)
As a child obsessed with war, I well remember watching Dunkirk, Leslie (father of Barry) Norman’s 1958 film that depicted the events of May-June 1940, when the besieged soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were stranded on the coast of France, and the combined efforts of the Royal Navy and […]
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger (2016) Intentionally Incohesive Portrait of a Simple Man seeking Nourishment (Review)
When it comes to John Berger, I seem to have inadvertently become The Geek Show’s go to guy. I previously reviewed Taskafa, Stories of the Street, a 2013 documentary film from Andrea Luka Zimmerman which used Berger as a narrator, reading excerpts from his own novel King. But I have to […]
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) One of the most important and influential British films of the 1980s (Review)
I’ve long since said that if you want to know what life in 1980s Britain was like, what it felt like, looked like and sounded like, then there is really only two films to check out: one of them is Alan Clarke’s Rita, Sue and Bob Too and the other […]
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) a brightly colourful, carefree and sexy production (Review)
I have to level with you. I am besotted with Sophia Loren. She has to be one of the ultimate, if not the ultimate, goddesses of the screen. Frankly, in my eyes she is perfection. And whenever I watch a film with Sophia Loren I always find myself thinking: ‘God, […]
Aquarius (2016) Sonia Braga towers over this bloated love affair with the home space (Review)
What I will say about Aquarius, the latest film from Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho is that it is an absorbing, detailed and considerate character study of its female protagonist – and more, that protagonist happens to be a woman in her mid-sixties. There really isn’t enough major roles or stories […]
Graduation (2016) a cinematically damning indictment of Romanian society in three well-versed acts (Review)
Despite some questionable actions, it’s hard not to feel sorry for Adrian Titieni’s Dr Romeo Aldea in award-winning director Cristian Mungiu’s film Graduation (or Bacalaureat as it is known in its native Romania); weighed down by middle age and with only his good reputation to comfort him and measure his success by, […]
Destiny (DER MÜDE TOD)(1921) The Pathway to Fritz Lang’s Landmark Achievements (Review)
In what is already unarguably an eclectic and impressive body of work, Fritz Lang’s 1921 silent epic Destiny (or Der müde Tod as it is known in its native tongue) ranks as one of the legendary filmmaker’s stranger productions. Written by his wife, Thea von Harbou, Destiny tells the story of […]
Taskafa, Stories of the Street/Estate, a Reverie: Two Films by Andrea Luka Zimmerman
This DVD from Second Run features two wonderfully satisfying and symbiotic documentary features from filmmaker and creative artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Taskafa, Stories of the Street from 2013, and Estate, a Reverie from 2015. On initial inspection you may think there is very little thematically in common between Taskafa, an […]
Letter to Brezhnev (1985) A tough, rough and influential British Rom-Com (Review)
Call me a sentimental old northerner, but the opening to Letter to Brezhnev remains one of my favourite moments of celluloid. Whilst budgetary constraints mean that it may not be as epic as it clearly wants to be, it nevertheless understands that Liverpool is a British city to be mythologised; […]