Let’s aim our tranquillisers squarely at the elephant in the room, first: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a terrible title. It was a bad name for the Pulitzer-winning play by Paul Zindel, on which it is based, and then became a worse one for a movie. […]
Reviews
They Came To A City (1944) Dearden and JB Priestley meet for an unwieldy thought experiment (Review)
I’m not really a big fan of overtly political works since they can force an idea upon the viewer. Other times a film or television series that is based on politics but isn’t political is something that I could get behind. So I had a bit of difficulty when it […]
Cure (1997) Modern Horror Masterpiece about Evil’s absolute power to indoctrinate
In 1999, Hideo Nakata’s gloomy horror masterwork, Ring, popularised a wave of horror films from Japan that took the world by storm under the banner of J-Horror. J-Horror, like any genre or movement, has its line-up of standards and tropes, with the harsh digital look of muted Green, Grey and […]
The Awful Truth (1937) Screwball comedy, Oscars and the Politics of Laughter (Review)
It is almost inconceivable today that Academy voters would award an Oscar to the director of a light, farcical comedy. But in 1938, not only did Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth get the trophy, it won at the expense of that year’s other McCarey effort, Make Way For Tomorrow, a […]
Le Corbeau (1943) All too relevant given the current state of global politics (Review)
A moment on the pen; a lifetime on the soul. Set in a small French village, Le Corbeau is the dark tale of a number of residents who find themselves the target of poison pen letters that condemn their perceived immoral behaviour. The primary target for the letters is the […]
The Old Dark House (1932) proof that James Whale was a master of intelligent, witty thrills and chills (Review)
During a particularly treacherous thunderstorm in rural Wales, a series of travellers are forced to seek refuge in an eerie and isolated house. Their hosts are an elderly eccentric pair of siblings and their mute brute of a butler. As the night unfolds, the stranded party realise that the house […]
La Chinoise (1967) More fun than the dry, doctrinaire Godard it is accused of being (Review)
There’s no greater feeling of kinship than learning someone shares your hot take, so let’s start this review of Arrow Academy’s Blu-Ray of La Chinoise by praising one of the extras – a great, informative, witty discussion of the film by Denitza Bantcheva. Listening to Bantcheva, I finally felt like […]
Twin Peaks The Return Episode 18 (The Rewatch)
Twin Peaks the Return Episode 18 MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS WHAT IS YOUR NAME? LA-based viewers of the Twin Peaks finale felt unsettled when Dale Cooper drove up to Eat At Judy’s. This isn’t an unusual feeling when watching Twin Peaks: rewatching this episode, I felt deeply uncomfortable waiting for the […]
Pyewacket (2017) Black Magic Rituals, Demons and Character led Horror (Review)
Horror films take another trip to the woods, this time in Canada courtesy of Adam MacDonald’s Pyewacket. Leah and her mother have recently lost her father, and they move to a house in the middle of a local forest to make a fresh start. Their relationship has deteriorated since Leah’s […]
Twin Peaks The Return Episode 17 (The Rewatch)
Twin Peaks the Return Episode 17 MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS THE PAST DICTATES THE FUTURE David Lynch once admitted to being “fascinated” by the spread of grey hair on his head. As responses to the ageing process go, it’s not one that’s widely shared. Yet you can see its benefits all over […]