Jamil Dehlavi’s The Blood of Hussain is an allegorical tale of revolt against tyranny and oppression in 1970s Pakistan. It takes place during the annual mourning procession for Hussain, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, who was slain for his refusal to recognise Yazid ibn Muawiya, the Umayyad Caliph, as his leader […]
Movies & Documentaries
Invention for Destruction (1958) One of the finest pop-up books in cinema history (Review)
I’m not one to watch films more than once – outside of personal favourites – and I am even less inclined to recommend a film and for you to watch it twice, but for Second Run’s latest, Invention for Destruction (the fabulous world of Jules Verne), it is an absolute […]
Project A (1983) & Project A II (1987) Jackie Chan, the Cinephile (Review)
One of the pleasures of watching Eureka’s ongoing series of Jackie Chan Blu-Rays is the case history they offer in the construction of a superstar persona. Early on in his career Jackie Chan was billed as the heir apparent to Bruce Lee, and inasmuch as he completed the process Lee […]
Gas Food Lodging (1992) a quintessential 2018 indie movie made in 1992 (Review)
There’s a certain sadness that comes from living in a place that’s meant to be driven through. Allison Anders’s Gas Food Lodging, reissued on Blu-Ray by Arrow Academy, starts with Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk as sisters Trudi and Shade, sat in the New Mexico diner where their mother Nora works. […]
Hitler’s Hollywood (2017) Modern History and it’s cinema’s darkest days (Review)
What do you think of when you think of Nazi-era German cinema? Leni Riefenstahl filling the screen with crowds cheering Hitler, or the explicitly anti-Semitic likes of Jud Süß and The Eternal Jew? Perhaps you think of Quentin Tarantino’s literal and figurative massacre of the industry in Inglourious Basterds, and […]
Il Postino (1994) tragedies and small miracles in the Mediterranean (Review)
Making of’s are a unique beast, most are a means for a fan to interact with the film and experience what it must’ve been like to be on set, feature-length interviews have the same effect. In my experience, there have been few that have changed the way you view a film. […]
If Beale Street Could Talk – London Film Festival 2018
“I am equally moved by that moment in Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train when the young Japanese couple arrive in the train station in Memphis only to encounter what appears to be a homeless black man, a drifter, but who turns to them and speaks in Japanese. The interaction takes only a moment, […]
A Prayer Before Dawn (2017) a brutal show of a young actor’s anonymity (Review)
When Liverpudlian Billy Moore travelled to Thailand in 2005 it was with a making view to a fresh start away from the life of crime that had led him to various prison sentences and a crippling drug addiction. Initially, it seemed to work. By day he secured jobs that ranged from […]
Daisies (1966) A High-Punk, High-Art, High-Feminist one of a Kind (Review)
Everything is Terrible in Bikinis – Alt-Rebellion as a Means of Disrupting the Patriarchy Daisies is an appropriate film for the exciting realm of Cinema Eclectica. It is a 1960s Czech avante-garde film about two bored girls who decide that, as the world has been spoiled, that they too will […]
Roma to Peterloo – London Film Festival 2018
In Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, two of the main characters are briefly caught in the middle of Mexico City during a massacre. The event is not named, the perpetrators barely identified except for one specific, named (fictional) character, who we have seen in a few earlier scenes. It is brief and […]