I have previously written the profound impact the films of Powell and Pressburger have had on me. Michael Powell is the filmmaker I most think of most as a magician, using tricks and sleight of hand to create rich worlds and transport his audiences to wondrous places. With their brand […]
Reviews
Greedy People (2024) Himesh Patel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have been Bad Boys
“And for what? For a little bit of money? There’s more to life than a little bit of money ya know.” Despite the works of the Coen brothers spawning their own massively popular sub-genre of comedy crime caper shenanigans, nobody ever surmised the absurdity and the nonsensical allure of the […]
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) Faithful adaptation preaches to the converted, forgets to shepherd a new flock (Review)
The clue should be in the name: there are fewer franchises more cursed than Hellboy. The first two outings for Mike Mignola’s gentle red giant fared well enough, with Guillermo del Toro’s luscious vision and Ron Perlman’s career-defining take on the character proving to be a leftfield refreshment in the […]
The Vourdalak (2023) An Inventive and Unique Vampire Tale (Review)
Dracula may be the best known fictional vampire around but Bram Stoker’s creation is far from the origin point. European folklore and stories like John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” from 1819 had long established vampires as frightening creatures, and it’s this tradition that Adrien Beau draws on for his take. He […]
Die Before You Die (2024) Claustrophobic Thriller buries deep into the Modern Zeitgeist (Review)
Is there a worse fate than being buried alive, trapped in the darkness, running out of air, undiscoverable to the rest of the world? It’s everyone’s worst nightmare and then some, but as you’re clinging to what little light, breath and life you have left, what’s happening to not just […]
The Substance (2024) One of the Finest Horrors of the Year (Review)
At first blush, Fargeat’s latest feature recalls that recent female-directed Franco-horror opus, Ducournau’s Titane. Both mix sex and horror in provocative ways that reaped laurels at Cannes, with The Substance winning Best Screenplay at this year’s festival. Both display a fascination with smooth surfaces and the ways women become pariahs […]
Pharaoh (1966): Polish epic offers a very different kind of sword-and-sandal picture (Review)
When people think of cinema made in non-democratic countries, they often imagine something austere, high-minded, and either incomprehensibly arty or intelligence-insultingly didactic. It’s almost as if we in the liberal world imagine ourselves to have invented entertainment, which simply isn’t the case as it was often easier to get a […]
Hostile Dimensions (2023) Funny, light-hearted trek through the Multiverse (Review)
In an infinite multiverse, there is infinite potential for terror. The idea of parallel universes is nothing new, yet in the past couple of years, there has been a colossal boom in “multiverse movies”, and yet, in spite of films on this subject matter being released with frequency to the […]
The Box Man (2024) Gakuryu Ishii’s Boxing Clever (Review)
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 […]
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 […]