The Hong Kong film industry of the late 90s and early Noughties was a shadow of the business that had become the definition of “Action Cinema” for the global market. From Jackie Chan to Bruce Lee, it had become synonymous with some of the wildest and most daring movies the […]
Movies & Documentaries
Chantal Akerman Collection Vol 1(1967-1978) Temporal Boundaries and Liminal Spaces
When it comes to cineastes, the name of Chantal Akerman carries a lot of weight and respect. Despite this, however, up until this month, I had never seen a single film of hers. So, when the BFI announced a limited five-Blu-ray boxset release of fourteen landmark films from her first […]
Escape from the 21st Century (2024): everything, everywhere, even more than that (Review)
Do you think, when he went into the vocal booth for the first Kung Fu Panda film, Jack Black knew he was changing film history forever? Probably – it seems like the sort of thing he’d say to psych himself up. But even he probably couldn’t have guessed that the […]
Nomad (1982) & My Heart is that Eternal Rose (1989): Breathtaking Films from the Hong Kong New Wave
New year, same me. I’m back in the trusted hands of Radiance Films, who defined my 2024 with new discoveries and new obsessions. With their latest double disc release of Nomad and My Heart is That Eternal Rose, Radiance have thrust me into the Hong Kong New Wave to discover […]
Golem (1979) “Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?”
Released to Blu-ray by Second Run this week, Golem was the astonishing debut of Polish sci-fi auteur Piotr Szulkin. Based on the eponymous mythical clay-made creature of Jewish folklore and, specifically, Austrian author Gustav Meyrink’s 1915 novel Der Golem, the film stars Marek Walczewski and Krystyna Janda, Szulkin’s high school […]
Let’s Go Karaoke! (Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025)
Last year, the man who invented the earliest prototype of the karaoke machine passed away. Shigeichi Negishi never patented his Sparko Box, content instead to feel “a lot of pride in seeing his idea evolve into a culture of having fun through song around the world.” And certainly, karaoke’s joy […]
The Cat (1988) An Impressive Heist Thriller From 80s Germany (Review)
Coming to Blu-ray this week is Die Katze aka The Cat, an extremely impressive, tense heist thriller from 1988 starring Götz George as a criminal mastermind who, from a hotel room across the street, not only orchestrates a bank robbery conducted by two colleagues but also monitors the police’s investigation, […]
The Monkey (2025) A morbid, laugh-through-the-pain psycho-comedy
There is no one else in the business making movies as a substitute for therapy quite like Osgood Perkins. While he delighted summer audiences with a dark trip into serial killer mayhem with last year’s most profitable independent movie (Longlegs), it was importantly wrapped up in personal issues and concerns […]
A Latecomer To Emilia Perez (2024): What’s All The Fuss About?
My sudden interest in the Oscars has not necessarily come from a fascination about the ceremony itself, which is always a deeply cringe-worthy affair that has to pad out time between each award and acceptance speech with bizarre jokes and banal platitudes. The only reason I’ve been interested the last couple […]
The Gift (2000) Sam Raimi’s Southern Gothic is worth Unearthing
Being a Sam Raimi fan in the 1990s was a frustrating experience. His Evil Dead trilogy became more of a cult favourite with every passing year, yet his other work stubbornly failed to connect with the wider audience it deserved. To fans, he was a born entertainer with a limitless […]