It’s the 1993 January sales, and Sheila, a bank clerk living in a Thames Valley town, needs a new dress for a date. She visits the local department store, where the persuasive shop assistant Miss Luckmoore sells her a red dress. It’s the only one of its kind ever made, […]
Movies & Documentaries
Cold Pursuit: A film that’s hard to warm to (Review)
When Cold Pursuit was released earlier this year you could hear the critics snickering up their sleeves (well, you could if you drowned out the furore that surrounded certain comments made by its leading man, Liam Neeson, during an interview promoting the film) at what they perceived to be the […]
Under Fire (1983) the exception to the white saviour row? (Review)
It’s perhaps interesting to watch Under Fire in the week that British charity Comic Relief has announced its plan to cut back on celebrity appeals in the wake of what has become known as the ‘white saviour’ row, promising (rightfully in my view) to “give voices to people” who actually […]
Terror of Hallow’s Eve (2019) passionate creature feature featuring a soulless epilogue (Review)
I don’t understand the 1980s. Sure, the ’80s and horror were very good to one another, many a classic and new voice climbed out of that decade. However, the films of that decade didn’t stylise themselves with kitschiness in mind, that’s merely the way that things were back then. Now, […]
Nightfall (1956): An Unsung Noir by one of the Great Unsung Directors (Review)
Jacques Tourneur is the kind of director that has been consigned to the history books, the RKO-man was well known for his many low-budget horror films (including the pre-Romero, I walked with a Zombie), he also did many noirs, westerns and epics. Filmmakers just aren’t allowed that level of liberation, […]
Level 16 (2019) how and how not to do low-budget Sci-Fi (Review)
Over the years, low budget movies have changed exponentially. In 2019, independent filmmakers are getting an awful lot more bang for their buck. Look at 1970s low budget film, for example, as excellent as those genre films could be, some elements of their production lacked. The audio was either weak […]
The Woman In The Window: A great Noir that puts one foot wrong (Review)
Fritz Lang needs no introduction. For my money, he was a giant of cinema, on par with Alfred Hitchcock for that matter. And you needn’t look far for proof, the Weimar Republic era of Lang’s work is perhaps one of the finest runs in a director’s career, from Destiny to […]
How I Won the War: much more than just Beatles trivia (Review)
Louis Malle’s advice for directors trying to make films overseas was to start with a genre piece; he’d began his American career with the tough social drama Pretty Baby, and he later wondered if he should have instead done something in a less realist register, where people would forgive the […]
The World is Yours: Scarface via Drunken Hell Holiday islands (Review)
Farès is a small-time drug dealer in France, with little enthusiasm to continue. He’s been trying to become a legitimate businessman, with the idea of setting up a company exporting freeze pops to North Africa. His chance has finally come, and he’s saved up 80,000 Euros for the opportunity… 80,000 […]
The Big Clock: Charles Laughton powered noir (Review)
A good extra can take your appreciation of a movie to a whole new level. On Arrow Academy’s newly issued [the] Big Clock, Simon Callow has done just that with his video appreciation of Charles Laughton’s performance as the despotic magazine magnate, Janoth. Callow goes on to say that this […]