As a child of the ‘90s, it’s great to see the media icons of my youth returning to the spotlight. After comebacks from Jeff Goldblum and Janet Jackson, it’s Ötzi the Iceman’s turn. His hollow eyes and emaciated frame were inescapable in 1991, when his five-thousand-year-old corpse was found in […]
Reviews
Salvador (1986) Fear & Loathing in Central America (Review)
Between 1980 and 1992, El Salvador was ravaged by a civil war between left-wing guerrilla groups and a right-wing military administration supported by the US government of the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan. Fearful that left-wing prominence would ensure the spread of Communism into North America, Reaganite foreign policy sanctioned […]
Revenge (2017): a haunting subversion of rape-revenge tropes (Review)
Jen has gone with her very wealthy boyfriend, Richard, to his isolated retreat in the wilderness where they can enjoy a couple of days away from others – particularly his wife. On the second day there, Richard’s two friends Stan and Dimitri turn up; they are a day early for […]
Bad Samaritan (2018) and the sin of being entertaining (Review)
With the democratisation of filmmaking and the move to digital distribution, something refreshing is happening with American cinema. There has been a slow crawl away from New York and Los Angeles and out into ‘real America’. Dean Devlin in his follow up to Geostorm, Bad Samaritan sets events in Portland, Oregon. […]
I Vitelloni (1953) Early Fellini with glimmers of his magic touch (Review)
Federico Fellini’s second solo feature, I Vitelloni, is set in an Italian seaside town and delves into the lifestyles of five young men all at separate crossroads. However, and I will say this right off the bat, I Vitelloni isn’t a character study – the film studies Italian society through […]
How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2018) less “Croydon, 1977” and more “Instagram, 1977” (Review)
“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Thus said Johnny Rotten in January, 1978 at the conclusion of the Sex Pistols’ one and only US tour. A weary, wounded rhetorical question that served as the condemnation from within of the punk movement. Three days later and the band were no more. […]
Cold War (2018) Feels like Hollywood pre-code, unapologetically entertaining (Review)
He’s a musician, or maybe a musicologist, lightly burdened by Marcello Mastroianni-style ennui, touring post-war Poland, barely introduced in an opening montage as one of two government-appointed scouts listening to a series of home-grown Polish folk music talent. Maybe he’s holding some auditions, maybe he’s learning their traditions. We see […]
Police Story 1 & 2 (1985) Simply put, the Best Action Movie Ever Made (Review)
Let’s be honest, what is there really left to say about Police Story? It’s one of the icons of Hong Kong action, it launched a 7 movie spanning franchise, it was pivotal in making Jackie Chan one of the most beloved faces in world cinema, and above all that, it […]
Separate Tables (1963) sophisticated fun save for some inadvertent unpleasantness
One of the main extras on the BFI’s new dual-format reissue of Separate Tables is an archive commentary by director Delbert Mann, who died in 2007. Mann is still probably best known for his Oscar-winning 1955 debut Marty, but he’d worked extensively in television beforehand. Back then the medium was […]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) a must for period drama fans, an easy skip for everyone else (Review)
Based on the bestselling 2008 novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society stars Lily James as Juliet Ashton, a free-spirited young woman in immediate post-war London who seems to have the world at her feet, thanks to her penning a bestselling book […]