Film
Blu-Ray Review: Climax
There are few, if any, living directors who take as much pleasure in pushing boundaries and traumatising cinema-goers as Gaspar Noé. The Argentine has made a career out of terrorising his audiences, both visually and aurally. When he releases a new film, it’s guaranteed to be an experience; whether you like it or not. That …
Blu-Ray Review: Human Desire
Gloria Grahame was not your usual Hollywood star. Despite being obsessed by her looks later on in her career (to a worrying degree) her contract was sold by MGM to RKO because she ‘hadn’t what it takes’ to be successful. She had four husbands, one was the son of another (who she was caught in …
Incoming: If Beale Street Could Talk
In early 1970’s Harlem, Tish, a nineteen-year old girl, is in love with a young sculptor, Fonny, the father of her unborn child. When Fonny is falsely accused of rape and imprisoned, Tish and their families race to clear his name before the baby is born. A story about love persisting in the face of …
DVD Review: Tides
There are still over one hundred functioning canals in England covering over two thousand miles of navigable waterways. In their heyday they played an integral role in Britain’s industrial revolution, transporting good across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Today, they still play an important commercial role but are increasingly becoming a way …
DVD Review: VS.
Being a middle-aged white liberal, I rely heavily on the broadsheets to tell me about what the young people are up to. Millennials, it turns out, are work-shy, stupid and drug-addled wasters who don’t even have the decency to drink anymore. Or at least that seems to be the impression of the privileged. Young working-class …
Blu-ray Review: Rosa Luxemburg
There’s a good chance that you’ve never heard the name Margarethe von Trotta before. Despite being a leading light of the German New Wave, the Berliner has been over-shadowed by the likes of Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. She’s still making films, but history has done her a disservice and her earlier …
Incoming – Alita: Battle Angel
When Alita (Rosa Salazar) awakens with no memory of who she is in a future world she does not recognize, she is taken in by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate doctor who realizes that somewhere in this abandoned cyborg shell is the heart and soul of a young woman with an extraordinary past. As Alita …
Incoming: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Now chief and ruler of Berk alongside Astrid, Hiccup has created a gloriously chaotic dragon utopia. When the sudden appearance of female Light Fury coincides with the darkest threat their village has ever faced, Hiccup and Toothless must leave the only home they’ve known and journey to a hidden world thought only to exist in …
Blu-Ray Review: Blindspotting
It seems almost unbelievable in this day and age that race relations in America have regressed towards the levels they were during the Civil Rights movement. Some of the gains Martin Luther King et al made have gradually been eroded under the current regime. Most worryingly, the spectre of white nationalism is on the rise, …
Blu-Ray Review: The Possessed
Alleghe is a popular tourist destination which attracts visitors all year round to enjoy its narrow lanes, beautiful mountains and tranquil lake. Between 1933 and 1946 a chain of four murders shattered the tranquillity of the village in north-eastern Italy. It struck a chord, resonating across the country. Luigi Bazzoni, along with co-director Franco Rossellini, …