Film
Blu-ray Review: Cujo
Since their domestication thousands of years ago, dogs have been man’s best friend. Loyal, obedient, protective, loving. Our cinema screens have been graced by some truly great canine performances – Lassie, Red Dog, Marley and Beethoven all won over hearts, if not always minds. Indeed, the latter starred in a whopping eight film series and …
DVD Review: Furious
Genghis Khan was the first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. He united the largely nomadic tribes of Mongolia in the early 13th century to create what would eventually become, under his successors, the largest contiguous empire in history. Its fragmentation fifty years later led to the rise of the Golden Horde who would go …
Incoming: Long Shot
Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) is one of the most influential women in the world. Smart, sophisticated, and accomplished, she’s a powerhouse diplomat with a talent for…well, mostly everything. Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) is a gifted and free spirited journalist with a self-destructive streak. The two have nothing in common, except that she was his baby …
DVD Review: Beyond the Sky
Each year, tens of thousands of people claim to be the victims of alien abductions. Extra-terrestrials, for some inexplicable reason, seem to target North Americans who often have the characteristics you would closely associate with a redneck. Whilst these experiences are often very different and are perpetrated by a gamut of alien species, the one …
Incoming: Pond Life
It’s summertime 1994 in a quiet ex-mining village in Yorkshire. Trevor is treading on everyone’s toes at home as misfit Pogo is trying to make sense of the world. Lovesick Malcolm is trying to mend his broken heart and best friends Shane and David have nothing better to do. When rumours of a giant carp …
Film Review: The World is Yours
Growing up in the shadow of greatness can’t be easy. In the case of Romain Gavras he had to contend with the undeniable genius and political savviness of his father, Constantinos Gavras (Costa-Gavras). Whilst I’m sure their relationship hardly hampered his career, Romain has without doubt forged his own path. The main commonality in the …
Blu-Ray Review: Khrustalyov, My Car!
I don’t think any modern director has painted a portrait of a living Hell quite so starkly and disquietingly as Aleksei German. His final film, Hard to be a God, was entirely unsettling in its depiction of an alternative reality/alien Medieval horrorscape. Like many of his eastern European colleagues, German became a victim of a …
Film Review: Ash is Purest White
It’s easy to forget that until the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China was a purely communist country. The landscape in 2019 is a far cry from the Maoist era. Whilst things are beginning to slow down, the Celestial Empire has consistently been one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Huge cities …
Blu-ray Review: Everybody in Our Family
Romania has long produced highly individual and unashamedly idiosyncratic cinema. Heralded by the release of Cristi Puiu’s directorial debut Stuff and Dough in 2001, and exploding during the middle of the decade, the Romanian new wave movement is characterised by an emphasis on minimalism and realism. Directors such as Corneliu Porumboiu, Adrian Sitaru, Cristian Mungiu, …
Film Review: Donbass
The Donbass is a region is eastern Ukraine or south-western Russia, depending on your perspective. Given its geographical location, the area has had a rather turbulent and colourful history since the land was first populated in the 17th century. In 2014, it became the arena for Vladimir Putin’s latest muscle-flexing land grab/reclamation project, despite some …