Incoming – Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
A documentary feature on Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses and their epic battles for the right to the city in the 20th century, and how those struggles inform, define and frame the fights we are having over cities in the era of mass urbanization and the global megacity. Citizen Jane: Battle for the City is out …
Blu-Ray Review: Phenomena
Dario Argento describes Phenomena as his favourite film. Free from the usual restraining elements of family or collaborators, he allows his imagination and inventiveness to run riot. Whilst this makes for a much more surreal and innovative experience, it’s fair to say that it’s not one of his most cohesive or coherent films he’s made. …
Blu-Ray Review: Brain Damage
Frank Henenlotter is a name you may not be familiar with unless you’re a devotee of horror cinema. However, for genre fans he’s an extremely popular figure; still regularly attending film festivals. Undoubtedly best-known for Basket Case, its sequels, and Frankenhooker, Henenlotter considers himself to be a purveyor of exploitation cinema. However, as Brain Damage …
Incoming: Burden
A probing portrait of Chris Burden, an artist who pushed the limits of creative expression and risked his life in the name of art. Burden is out in cinemas from today.
Blu-Ray Review: Melody
You may never have heard of a 1971 film called Melody but it marked an important moment for the British Film Industry. A new wave of screenwriters, producers and directors arrived on the scene from the advertising sector. It was David Puttnam’s first film as a producer. A career which has seen him to go …
Film Review: Harmonium
When considering Japanese cinema, the first things which spring to mind are likely to be samurais, Yakuza or devils. However, the Japanese have produced some incredibly powerful and touching family dramas and character studies. Most notably the work of the late great Yasujirō Ozu (Tokyo Story, Late Spring, An Autumn Afternoon), but also Kurosawa’s Ikuru …
Incoming: Mindhorn
When MI5 Special Operative Bruce Mindhorn was captured in the late 1980s, his eye was replaced by a super-advanced optical lie detector, which meant he could literally “see the truth.” He escaped and fled to the Isle of Man, to recuperate in the island’s temperate microclimate, and today has become the best plain-clothes detective the …
Film Festival Preview: Sci-Fi London 2017
Taking place over 10 days across the capital, Sci-fi London is an international science fiction and fantastic film festival. Comprising a whole host of World, European and UK Premieres, along with a short film programmes, live music and a whole host of special events, it promises to be fantastical fun. The festival starts today. Here …
Incoming: Lady Macbeth
Rural England, 1865. Katherine (Florence Pugh) is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age, and his cold, unforgiving family. When she embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her husband’s estate, a force is unleashed inside her so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get …
Blu-Ray Review: Tampopo (Criterion Collection)
The Japanese have a very special relationship with food. Often bathed in tradition and ceremony, food and drink are oft en as much about spirituality or religion than fulfilling a natural function. And as Naomi Kawase’s Sweat Bean (An) adeptly demonstrated last year, for the chef the pursuit of perfection is almost as important as …