We live in an age where swathes of journalists get laid off at the drop of a hat, and where the idea of writing for a living seems more fantastic with every passing day. Writers get used to practicing a kind of stoic optimism: with no (monetary) reward or any […]
Reviews
Iceman: The Time Traveller (2018) Bewildering Blockbusters And The Cost Of Globalisation (Review)
This is not what those fearing Hollywood being usurped by China had in mind. Iceman the time traveller – the new Blockbuster starring Simon Yam & Donnie Yen – is inept on almost every conceivable level, much to the point where it would be all too easy to tear this […]
Opera (1987) Argento Is No Ordinary Horror Director And [This] No Ordinary Horror Film (Review)
![Opera (1987) Argento Is No Ordinary Horror Director And [This] No Ordinary Horror Film (Review)](https://i0.wp.com/thegeekshow.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/opera-horror-movie-dario-argento.png?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1)
Cult Films have quickly made a name for themselves in the home release market as Italian cinema specialists – but very much at the Fellini/De Sica end of that country’s output, which on the surface makes them a strange choice to reissue Dario Argento’s brutal horror Opera on Blu-Ray. Those […]
Josie (2018): … To Be Bad You Have To Recognise That You’re Bad (Review)
As my colleague Rob Simpson keeps having to point out, a film doesn’t need likeable characters to be good. It doesn’t even need smart characters. There’s a whole subgenre of noir fiction from Jim Thompson through to the Coen brothers which takes knuckle-dragging characters doing repellent things and alchemises them into […]
Texas Adios (1966) A glimpse of the Spaghetti Westerns yet to come (Review)
Say one thing for Texas Adios, the 1966 spaghetti Western reissued on Blu-Ray by Arrow Video; it doesn’t hang around. A friend of mine likes to needle me by describing Westerns as a genre where you spend eighty minutes waiting for one action scene, but Texas Adios’s first action scene […]
Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy (1991-93) The Birth of Jet Li’s Super Stardom (Review)
The 1990s was a tumultuous time for Hong Kong Martial Arts cinema. Its favourite son, Jackie Chan, was too big to fail as such he was doing whatever he wanted on Golden Harvest’s payroll, Sammo Hung was closer to a director than the action star that made his name, Yuen […]
De Niro & De Palma: The Early Films (1968-70)(Review)
The world is very aware of who Robert De Niro is, he is held by many to be one of the greatest actors of his (very good) generation, if not all time. Brian De Palma is a bit more of a complicated character much to the point where you can […]
Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1989) the highest of high camp comedy-horror (Review)
In 1989, Cassandra Peterson was nominated for a Razzie for worst actress for her role as Elvira in this goofball horror comedy. The fact that she lost out to Liza Minelli (who was actually nominated for 2 worst actress Razzies that year), is some kind of crooked justice. Whilst it’s […]
The Early Films of Olivier Assayas (1986 & 1989)(Review)
In 2007 Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni died on the same day, prompting a lot of critics to wonder who would take their place in culture. For a while I wondered this as well; who would make work like Persona or The Passenger for our era, creating new stories and […]
A Raisin In The Sun (1961) a call to arms for the downtrodden, hardworking majority (Review)
With a screenplay by the original playwright (Lorraine Hansberry), and featuring Sidney Poitier, a debut from Louis Gossett Jr, and a powerful cast of African-American performers, A Raisin In The Sun provides us with a kitchen-sink drama for the Civil Rights movement. Set in Chicago, and based on Hansberry’s 1959 […]