Incoming: Grandma
Elle Reid has just gotten through breaking up with her girlfriend when her granddaughter Sage unexpectedly shows up needing 600 dollars before sundown. Temporarily broke, Grandma Elle and Sage spend the day trying to get their hands on the cash as their unannounced visits to old friends and flames end up rattling skeletons and digging …
Incoming: Hector
Hector has been living on the motorways for years. His once comfortable family life has been replaced by a never-ending tour of service stations that offer him shelter, anonymity, washing facilities and food. The story follows his journey south from Scotland on his annual pilgrimage to a temporary Christmas shelter in London where he finds …
Film Review: The Forbidden Room
Guy Maddin has managed to forge himself a position in modern cinema as one of the most unique film makers around. There’s no mistaking a Maddin – his penchant for recreating the look and feel of silent and early-sound-era film has permeated his entire career. On his new venture, The Forbidden Room, the Canadian director …
Film Review: Ice and the Sky
Environmental issues are very much in the news at the moment with the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Paris at the moment. Despite ludicrous objections from a small minority of self-interested parties the case for global warming is now widely accepted by scientists and the general public alike. The first person to prove …
DVD Review: The Czechoslovak New Wave Collection II
The Czechoslovak New Wave was one of the richest periods of cinema in the 20th Century. A mix of originality, innovation, beauty, abdusdity and political satire resulted in some of the most groundbreaking cinema. For a short period during the 1960’s, Czechoslovakia was the most vital and exciting place to be for new film-making. Pioneering …
DVD Review: A New Leaf
Whilst the hangdog appearance of Walter Matthau is easily recognisable, you may find yourself hard-pressed to name many of his films. The Odd Couple, Kotch, The Fortune Cookie, The Sunshine Boys and Hello, Dolly! Are all great films but he never seemed to fit the profile of a Hollywood leading man. In Elaine May’s directorial …
Incoming: Sunset Song
Based on the classic novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and brought to life by master director Terence Davies, Sunset Song is an intimate epic of hope, tragedy and love at the dawning of the Great War. Set in the rural community of Kinraddie, Sunset Song is driven by the young heroine Chris and her intense …
DVD Review: Ghost Story
Glossy modern horror films tend to rely on (mostly dreadful) CGI to deliver their ‘shocks’ but there was a time when terror came from the simple art of good storytelling. Anyone familiar with the stories of M.R. James will know the power that imagination and invention can have. In Ghost Story, John Irwin’s film based …
Film Review: The Lesson
Bulgaria is hardly known for having a strong film making tradition. Despite having its golden age in the 1970s and 1980s most people in the West will struggle to name one film that the country has produced. Whilst Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s film The Lesson is unlikely to change this situation it’s certainly a sign that …
DVD Review: The Gift
Act in haste, repent at leisure. We don’t always think through the actions we take and are often blind to the hurt we cause to others (or worse, just don’t care), and more often than not they come back to haunt us. Lies and revenge are the subject of writer and director Joel Edgerton’s film …