There’s an image late on in Albert Serra’s Liberté which seems to contain something of the film in its entirety. A woman is walking through the woods, the scene of an orgy held by decadent aristocrats exiled from the court of France’s last king Louis XVI. She is in period […]
Reviews
The New World (three cuts, 2005-8): choose your own adventure (Review)
Terrence Malick is often caricatured as the Fotherington-Tomas of cinema, whose tendency to wander around saying hullo birds hullo trees hullo skies can appear ridiculous in modern-day films like Lawless [5]. If you want to see Malick’s style and thematic concerns in a world where they make absolute, perfect sense, […]
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes by William Greaves (1968/2005) red-hot takes (Review)
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes by William Greaves is the new Blu-Ray release from Criterion UK. It contains genuine footage of the Roswell incident, cast-iron evidence of voter fraud, and natural health secrets that THEY don’t want you to know. None of the preceding sentence is true, but if I hadn’t come […]
Mouchette (1967) The kind of serious art cinema that just isn’t made anymore (Review)
It can be daunting watching a film with a Mouchette-sized reputation. Robert Bresson’s second adaptation of a novel by Georges Bernanos (after 1951’s Diary of a Country Priest) is one of the most acclaimed works from one of France’s most heavyweight directors; it’s been cited as a favourite by everyone […]
Waxworks (1924): An Iconic Display of German Expressionism (Review)
Released to Blu-ray by the Eureka Masters of Cinema label last month, Waxworks aka Das Wachsfigurenkabinett was the final film that director Paul Leni made in his native Germany, before forging an illustrious career in Hollywood with films such as The Cat and the Canary, The Man Who Laughs and […]
Possessor (2020) Escaping the Shadow of Horror Royalty (Review)
Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, burst onto the scene in 2012 with Antiviral – a film very much cut from the cloth of his father’s most celebrated era that saw Cronenberg Sr. crowned as the undisputed king of body horror. One of the major criticisms of that earlier output was […]
Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) A beautiful swan song for a fictional picture house (Review)
I’m sure for many it’s been quite some time since we’ve been able to step foot into a cinema of any kind. A sad shame, but we can replicate the experience at home somewhat. For me, I put a Bluetooth speaker behind me that plays people loudly whispering for two […]
Five Easy Pieces (1970) New Hollywood Icon where Jack Nicholson peels back the Persona (Review)
At the peak of his powers in the 1970s and 80s, they where few actors who could touch Jack Nicholson. Looking at his run of films, it’s no surprise he has gone done as one of the greatest American actors of any generation. We have Five Easy Pieces (Out now […]
Girlfriends (1978) an agonising, engaging dive into the dark reality of the artist’s breadline (Review)
Living with your friends is an odd experience. You get to see their most intimate, unguarded selves. I can only imagine the horrors I have presented to those I have lived with throughout my days as a University student. I once tried to hoover up a spider whilst drunk, and […]
How You Live Your Story: Selected Works by Kevin Jerome Everson (2005-2020)(Review)
If I had to choose one film from Second Run’s new double-disc Blu-Ray of Kevin Jerome Everson’s work to sum up his appeal to the uninitiated, it would probably be the 2015 short Grand Finale. That’s not to say it’s the best thing on offer, merely that it offers the […]