With a talented trio of Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers and an introduction of Woody Allen, it’s a genuine surprise that What’s New, Pussycat? tanks this badly and this quickly. The 1965 piece pools together an impressive cast of comedy greats and acting legends, yet everyone involved comes off as, at the very least, […]
Reviews
A Fistful of Dynamite: You Say You Want a Revolution? (Review)
Once upon a time in Paris (on March 22nd, 1968 to be exact) a number of far-left groups comprising of students and artists gathered together to occupy the administration building of Paris Nanterre University to protest against class discrimination and political bureaucracy. The police were subsequently called and the protesters […]
The African Queen: A thrilling ride down a shallow river (Review)
John Huston has swiftly become a fascination of mine. His directing style and visibility in some of cinema’s finest and best-remembered projects has elevated him to a status that kept his direction relevant for the forty years of his career and forty more after he’s passed away. His work on […]
The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) When a Kung-Fu Movie isn’t a “Kung Fu Movie”
Dragon Inn is one of the greatest martial arts films of all time, and it’s follow up from King Hu, A Touch of Zen – one of the genre’s greatest epics. The problem is, how do you follow a film as acclaimed as A Touch of Zen when critics love […]
Moonrise Kingdom: Revel in the artificiality! (Review)
Wes Anderson’s films always have a sense of existing outside of time, in an indefinably old-fashioned present. It makes a perverse sort of sense, then, that when he finally made one set in the 1960s it stood out for not having the Kinks and the Rolling Stones on the soundtrack. […]
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On: A visceral indictment of war (Review)
Picture this. You’re one of a few surviving members of a World War Two Garrison stationed in New Guinea. It’s Japan in the late ‘80s, and you’ve gotten out bed after a horrific nightmare from the trauma of the war. Guilt, shame, and horror fester your mind: you’ve done something […]
A Good Woman is Hard to Find (2019): But Well Worth Seeking Out (Review)
In a supermarket on a sink estate in Belfast, a young single mother named Sarah is performing the weekly shop with her two small children. In her hand is a shopping list with all the necessities required for the family. However, when they reach the tills, Sarah is mortified to […]
And Soon the Darkness (1970): the horror of language barriers? (Review)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Two young English girls, Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice) have gone on a biking holiday to France, and not the parts of France you’d normally holiday, this is the back end of beyond with nothing for miles but fields and […]
Fright (1971): Suburban 1970s Horror, British Style (Review)
Every Bank Holiday, every Christmas break, you’ll be painfully aware of Peter Collinson’s most successful film as a director – the Italian Job. Like William Girdler (Grizzly, The Manitou), he died way too young and left behind a fascinating body of work far more compelling than that which he is […]
Angel Heart: Dark Intrigue and Sinister Seduction (Review)
It’s a lonely place for someone like me over on Letterboxd just now. Whilst the bulk of the community celebrate the Halloween season with the Hooptober Horror Film Challenge I, never much of a joiner-inner, continue to watch whatever takes my fancy. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a good […]