DVD Review: Among the Living
Inside (À l’intérieur) is one of the best horror films of the last decade. The writing/directing duo of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury announced themselves as an exciting new creative team with a big bloody bang. They followed their success up with the slightly disappointing, yet still inventive, Livid. Their star is set to shine …
Incoming: Goodnight Mommy
Twin boys who do everything together, from collecting beetles to feeding stray cats, welcome their mother home after her reconstructive surgery. But with her face wrapped in bandages, and her demeanour distant, they grow suspicious of her identity. Goodnight Mommy is in cinemas on Friday.
Film Review: Curtain
One accusation frequently levelled against the horror genre is that many films lack originality. Admittedly, there are many horror movies being made today which are highly derivative and often lazy. There are, however, a growing number of distinctly unique films being made. Killer tyres, mould, houses, beds and unfortunately situated teeth, to name but a …
Incoming: Hitchcock/Truffaut
In 1962, Francois Truffaut persuaded Alfred Hitchcock to sit with him for a week-long interview in which the great British auteur would share with his young admirer the secrets of his cinema. Based on the original recordings of this meeting—used to produce the seminal book “Hitchcock/Truffaut”—this film illustrates the greatest cinema lesson of all time …
DVD Review: Something Different / A Bagful of Fleas
Czech New Wave filmmaker Věra Chytilová had a penchant for the avant-garde, which is is personified in her most celebrated film, Daisies. Her career was blighted by the censorship she suffered under the Czechoslovakian and Soviet regimes,stifling the career of the most promising female director of her generation. Her early work is less well known …
Incoming: Hail, Caesar!
Joel and Ethan Coen write and direct Hail, Caesar!, an all-star comedy set during the latter years of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum, Hail, Caesar! follows a single day in the life of a studio fixer who …
Incoming: Secrets in Their Eyes
A tight-knit team of rising FBI investigators – Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Jess (Julia Roberts), along with their District Attorney supervisor Claire (Nicole Kidman), is suddenly torn apart when they discover that Jess’s teenage daughter has been brutally and inexplicably murdered. Now, thirteen years later, after obsessively searching every day for the elusive killer, Ray …
Film Review: Last Girl Standing
Have you ever watched a film and asked yourself, What happens next? In these heady days of the franchise, Hollywood will happily provide you with a less interesting answer. There are films with huge cliffhangers, such as Blade Runner, where the uncertainty of the final scenes generates a whole school of speculation. Horror films often …
Film Review: The Propaganda Game
North Korea is one of the most fascinating countries in the world for me. This is largely due to the lack of information we have about the State. Indeed, much of our understanding about the reclusive nation comes almost entirely through overblown stories in the media. This is the pretence behind Álvaro Longoria’s documentary The …
DVD Review: The Visit: An Alien Encounter
If you ever get the chance, have a quick browse of books about aliens. There’s a whole cottage industry of ‘factual’ books about alien conspiracies, visitations and bizarre theories. It’s an equally popular subject in films but most of the alien encounters normally turn out pretty badly. There’s been much speculation around Roswell, cattle mutilation …