Gakuryu Ishii may not be well-known in the West, but his aesthetics and work ethic have seen him become regarded as one of the most pre-eminent punk rock directors in the world (not that this is a long list). The former Sogo Ishii (he changed his name), launched into the […]
Reviews
Sayonara Girls (2022) & Kalanchoe (2017) Raw, Authentic High School Stories from Indie Japan (Review)
There’s a fun irony in saying hello to a new on demand platform joining our coverage umbrella with a movie all about saying goodbye (or sayonara as this is a Japanese movie). Sakka brings “quality Japanese independent films to the worldwide audience, with as few filters as possible to the […]
Mildred Pierce (1945) Joan Crawford’s Academy Award-Winning Role Steals the Screen in Every Scene (Review)
The story of an abusive parent is a tale as old as time, and sadly, a reality for many – from the exploitation of finances and constant verbal vilification, to emotional manipulation that makes the victim feel like escape is a pipe dream. What’s significantly more unheard of is the […]
Crumb (1994) A Meditation on an Important – and Controverisal – American artist (Review)
I have to admit that I’m no Crumb-head, and I came to this documentary – made by friend-of-Robert and ex-collaborator Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World) – knowing the man’s legendary underground comics and other works mainly only in passing. Crumb is now available in the UK in a Criterion Blu-Ray that […]
Red Rooms (2024) A Transcendental Interrogation of True Crime Obsession (Review)
French language courtroom dramas are having a real moment recently, with 2022 seeing Mati Diop’s masterfully haunting spiritual enigma Saint Omer, then in 2023 we got almost the polar opposite with Justine Triet’s Oscar and Palme D’or-winning marital drama murder-mystery blockbuster (or at least it felt like that in its […]
A Man Called Tiger (1973) A Vanity Project that lives up to the Hype? (Review)
In 1970 two former Shaw Brothers executives, Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho, started their own production company – Golden Harvest. While their early films were reasonably successful, it wasn’t until a certain Bruce Lee released The Big Boss that the studio was really put on the map. In a weird […]
Laurel and Hardy: The Silent Years (1927)(Review)
There’s a special joy in watching silent comedy legends before their personalities were fully formed, seeing the gradual snowballing of their characters until we get the iconic figures we know and love. Eureka’s new boxset collects the early works of Laurel and Hardy, chronicling their efforts before they mastered the […]
The Power of the Dog (2021) A Film that gets Under the Skin and Into the Mind (Review)
At the 2022 BAFTA awards, Benedict Cumberbatch had the dubious honour of being nominated, but rather than winning, he instead collected the Best Director award on behalf of Jane Campion for The Power Of The Dog – which would also go on to collect Best Film. It received twelve nominations […]
Lore (2024): An Entertaining Addition to the British Horror Anthology Tradition (Review)
From Dead of Night in 1945 to The House in 2022, anthologies are a familiar, and usually comforting presence in British horror. There’s much that could be, and likely has been, discussed about how this harks back to short stories from British writers like M. R. James and Charles Dickens, […]
Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza (1966) A Melodramatic Yakuza Tragedy (Review)
Radiance Films continue to invest their time and resources into introducing the extraordinary work of Tai Kato to a wider audience. Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza is their fourth release of the under-appreciated genre master. It is staggering to think that this time last year I had never heard of the director […]