Independent film used to mean something, but with the rise of the internet, this has shifted 180 to the point where young filmmakers need to carve out their own niche in order to stand out from the staggering mass of people acting under the indie film umbrella. Joshua Mond along […]
Rob Simpson
Chief Editor
Host of the Uncut Network. With a love of movies kicked off by Hong Kong Action and Claymation Monsters, Rob has forever been cradled in the bosom of Cinema. Rob has his hands in many a pie, including no budget film making. Filthy
Uzumasa Limelight (2014) A Wistful, one-of-a-kind Samurai Movie (Review)
Few genres associated closely with a nation have lasted as long as the samurai has for Japan, most follow the path of the Western in that they had a golden era with occasional post-boom pockets. The latest film to be released on Third Window Films, Uzumasa Limelight, concerns itself with […]
Rams (2015) Grímur Hákonarson emerges onto the front page of world cinema (Review)
Winner of the 2015 ‘Un Certain regard’ strand at Cannes and a film of intriguing realism is Rams. Grímur Hákonarson’s critically acclaimed film is the story of a rural Icelandic sheep farming community ravaged by the fatal, degenerative disease Scrapie. The film opens with Brothers Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi […]
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) One of the Ultimate Anti-Gangster Movies (Review)
Cinema has long been entrenched in mythologising the career criminal. Far from reality, these archetypes have evolved into marketable heroes. Perhaps the grim reality of these lives has become more prominent in the last decade or so, but back in the 1970s, such sombre realism was a scarce commodity. Enter […]
The Ninja Trilogy (1981-1984) High Camp of the 80s Ninja Craze (Review)
Cannon films where rarely more iconic than when they produced the Ninja Trilogy. In 2016, films that pay homage to the richness of the Eighties, or the type of genre silliness that ensued, seek to exploit that which came before through the lens of irony. While blaxploitation, producers like Corman […]
Escape from the Liberty Cinema (1990) intoxicatingly rebellious riff on the Purple Rose of Cairo (Review)
Second Run are one of the more remarkable labels operating in the UK, focusing on forgotten and obscure Eastern European films during the past decade. There is one concurrent theme common in many of the titles they pluck from obscurity, their political awareness. The by-product of this is a dual-pronged […]
Just Jim (2015) Just another low-key actor/director project, only with a surrealist edge (Review)
Many actors take the leap from in front of the camera to behind it, while more common for established names who want to try something new or complete a passion project they’ve been sat on for years – there has been a swelling of young actors adding themselves to that […]
Day of the Outlaw (1959) The entire history of the Western in a three-act structure (Review)
Westerns and Martial Arts cinema have a remarkable amount in common, for one they remake each other constantly; also, their kinship is important due to them being genre’s that are hard to penetrate for the uninitiated. Both are stuck in a quagmire of form, they are both the definition of […]
Best Films of 2015
It’s that time of the year again, we bid adieu to the past 12 months by looking at the best films to hit cinema screens.
The Reflecting Skin (1990) Even with a few wrinkles, this is an anti-vampire masterpiece (Review)
Poet, Author and Film Maker Philip Ridley made his directorial debut in 1990 with this 1950 set American Prairie Horror. Thanks to the pulpy novels read his Dad the young Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) believes his secretive neighbour, Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan), to be a Vampire; that belief isn’t helped […]