Who’s That Knocking At My Door, Martin Scorsese’s black and white debut feature film from 1968, originally started out life as his NYU graduation project some three years earlier. Aged just 23, armed with a minuscule budget and relying on numerous favours, Scorsese took to the familiar streets of his […]
Reviews
My 20th Century (1989) a full-on thermonuclear blast of intellectual, comic and sensory pleasure (Review)
“We live in the flicker”, Joseph Conrad famously wrote, referring to the breathless speed of technological advancement in the crossover from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. In addressing the same historical period, Ildikó Enyedi’s debut film My 20th Century – released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Second Run – […]
Two Rode Together (1961) The John Ford Western nobody talks about (Review)
The celebrated director John Ford once said of his overlooked 1961 film, Two Rode Together as “the worst piece of crap I’ve made in twenty years”. It’s understandable why he would say something like this as production for Two Rode Together was far from an easy one. Ford made the […]
Story of Sin (1975) the standard by which all other Blu-Ray and DVD releases should now be judged (Review)
Story of Sin begins with a quintessentially Walerian Borowczyk image; the doors of a church confessional booth being opened. Already, we can see so many things that fascinate this director, from what’s on-screen (the frame-within-a-frame, the old-fashioned handmade props and sets) to the implicit (the unlocking of secrets, the critical attitude towards […]
Through the Wall (2017) Hasidic Judaism Rom-Com still falls into Rom-Com Traps (Review)
“I have a hall. I have a dress. The apartment is almost ready. It’s a small task for God to find me a groom by the end of Hanukkah” So says Michal, the kooky heroine of writer/director Rama Burshtein’s Through the Wall (alternatively known as Laavor Et Hakir in its […]
The Olive Tree (2016) Spanish Social Realism and the history of our homelands (Review)
The Olive Tree (or El Olivo as it’s known in its native Spanish) is director Icíar Bollaín’s third collaboration with the writer and long-term screenwriting partner of Ken Loach, Paul Laverty. It is an aesthetically beautiful, heartfelt and spiritual film that explores the notions of hope, tradition, history and economic […]
Radio Days (1987) Honey-hued homage to the Golden Era of Radio (Review)
If you want to see an impressive track record from any filmmaker, then Woody Allen shines as one of the most prolific directors of modern times. Since 1982 with A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Woody has directed a film each and every year. This is a rule that has landed […]
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Perfectly captures our love affair with movies (Review)
As incredulous a comparison as it is, the monoliths that are DC & Marvel have an awful lot in common with that rare, super prolific class of directors which Woody Allen belongs to. Both parties present the uninitiated with an unwieldy mass of titles to consume and no clear starting […]
Alice (1990) Woody Allen, stepping out of the shadow of his comedy (Review)
In his book Crackpot, John Waters devotes a chapter to his guilty pleasure movies – the joke being that the trash cinema most people would describe as a guilty pleasure is exactly what you’d expect Waters to unashamedly love. Instead, the chapter is devoted to achingly sincere, existential art films which Waters […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Woody Allen’s narrative pleasures are worth the wait (Review)
No matter how many times actors, writers and directors repeat that old saw about dying being easier than comedy, critics are still more likely to go into raptures about hard-hitting Oscar-season dramas than summer comedies. One rare exception, enshrined as a great living American director despite an almost entirely comic […]