The music industry is full of holy grail moments. A significant, chance meeting that launches a band that goes on to change the world, a landmark album, a legendary gig or the promise of what might have been. It doesn’t matter what band, singer or record label you worship, all […]
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.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) From the Exorcist to long-suffering housewife, Ellen Burstyn’s incredible Charismatic Lead (Review)
Ellen Burstyn was riding high off the back of The Exorcist and looking for a prospective project to make with Warner Brothers when Robert Getchell’s script for what was to become Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore fell into her lap. It was the early 1970s and feminism was beginning to […]
Who’s That Knocking At My Door (1968) Right from the off, Scorsese proved himself to be very special (Review)
Who’s That Knocking At My Door, Martin Scorsese’s black and white debut feature film from 1968, originally started out life as his NYU graduation project some three years earlier. Aged just 23, armed with a minuscule budget and relying on numerous favours, Scorsese took to the familiar streets of his […]
Through the Wall (2017) Hasidic Judaism Rom-Com still falls into Rom-Com Traps (Review)
“I have a hall. I have a dress. The apartment is almost ready. It’s a small task for God to find me a groom by the end of Hanukkah” So says Michal, the kooky heroine of writer/director Rama Burshtein’s Through the Wall (alternatively known as Laavor Et Hakir in its […]
The Olive Tree (2016) Spanish Social Realism and the history of our homelands (Review)
The Olive Tree (or El Olivo as it’s known in its native Spanish) is director Icíar Bollaín’s third collaboration with the writer and long-term screenwriting partner of Ken Loach, Paul Laverty. It is an aesthetically beautiful, heartfelt and spiritual film that explores the notions of hope, tradition, history and economic […]
The Unknown Girl (2016) Soap Opera Drama framed as documentary-style Belgian Social Realism (Review)
The Unknown Girl is the latest film from the Belgian Dardenne brothers, those purveyors of social realism who achieved critical and commercial acclaim most recently for their 2014 film Two Days, One Night, which starred Marion Cotillard as Sandra, a young woman who, following an absence from work due to […]
Someday My Prince Will Come (2005) / Philip and His Seven Wives (2006): Two Films by Marc Isaacs
This welcome Second Run DVD release comprises two early films from the excellent British documentary filmmaker Marc Isaacs entitled Someday My Prince Will Come (2005) and Philip and His Seven Wives (2006). On the first inspection, they could be considered strange bedfellows with very little shared between each film other […]
I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016) Max Powers stands out in a study of small-town evil (Review)
Based on a 2009 ‘Young Adult’ novel by Dan Wells (the first in a trilogy I believe) I Am Not a Serial Killer is a British/Irish co-production set and shot in the chilly Midwestern state of Minnesota. It is directed by Billy O’Brien and stars the seventeen-year-old Max Records, Laura […]
Napoleon (1927) a staggering and audacious work of art (Review)
If you like your cinema to be of the passionate spectacle variety, then the BFI’s new digitally restored version of Abel Gance’s 1927 5½ hour epic Napoleon is definitely for you. It may be ninety years old, but there is still a vibrancy that makes Gance’s masterpiece weather the tides […]
Kes (1969) Despite approaching its 50th anniversary, it has barely dated a day (Review)
It may have only been his second feature, but Ken Loach’s 1969 film Kes remains one of the veteran director’s most distinctive and fondly recalled works. Perhaps this is the case because the signature working style we now associate with Loach was arguably first set here. Gone are some of […]