As a child of the ‘90s, it’s great to see the media icons of my youth returning to the spotlight. After comebacks from Jeff Goldblum and Janet Jackson, it’s Ötzi the Iceman’s turn. His hollow eyes and emaciated frame were inescapable in 1991, when his five-thousand-year-old corpse was found in […]
DVD Review
Bad Samaritan (2018) and the sin of being entertaining (Review)
With the democratisation of filmmaking and the move to digital distribution, something refreshing is happening with American cinema. There has been a slow crawl away from New York and Los Angeles and out into ‘real America’. Dean Devlin in his follow up to Geostorm, Bad Samaritan sets events in Portland, Oregon. […]
Crowhurst (2017) if you prefer your biopics a little more obscure and experimental (Review)
In October 1968, a weekend sailor and engineer attempted to sail into the history books with one of the last great adventures of the twentieth century and the new Elizabethan age, the race to circumnavigate the globe single-handed and without any stops. That man was Donald Crowhurst and although he […]
I Kill Giants (2017) loses the magic of the original IMAGE graphic novel (Review)
In a small coastal American town, the middle-schooler Barbara has a secret: she must save the lives of everyone around her from murderous giants. Virtually nobody believes that giants exist, of course, but that’s simply because nobody bothers to look at the evidence. Barbara may be bullied at school, she […]
A Ciambra (2017) Neo-Italian Social Neo-Realism fails to recapture the magic of the masters (Review)
A spectre is haunting cinema— the spectre of Italian neorealism. Spectral, because despite the critical and cultural ripples made by films like The Florida Project, American Honey, and Valeska Grisebach’s Western, these non-professional actors, semi-real situations and hitherto unexplored settings tend to be forgotten by awards season. The genre, which […]
The Mercy (2017) James Marsh delivers arguably his finest fictional narrative cinematic feature yet (Review)
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race; the first single-handed, round the world (with no stops) yacht race. The race remains deeply controversial as only one yachtsman managed to finish and another, the failing businessman and amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst, encountered so many difficulties […]
Allure (2017) A modern equivalent to ’90s psychological thrillers like Single White Female (Review)
Pyewacket (2017) Black Magic Rituals, Demons and Character led Horror (Review)
Beyond the Woods (2018) Irish Low-Budget Horror whose characters trump all (Review)
Brakes (2016) An interesting debut with an interesting spin on the Rom-Com (Review)
London based actress Mercedes Grower makes her screenwriting and directorial debut with Brakes, a film that couldn’t be any more lo-fi if it tried. Episodic and improvisational in feel, Brakes is a multi-stranded ensemble piece that explores what it is to fall in and out of love in contemporary London. […]