DVD Review: Bound
The Wachowski Brothers achieved fame with the Matrix films, but it’s easy to forget that they started out with a bold and striking crime thriller which not only challenged convention, but turned out to be one of the most remarkable films of that year. Bound might not be on the same scale or scope as …
Film Review: Mood Indigo
Michel Gondry is one of the most sought-after and ‘trendy’ film directors out there, yet other than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind he’s failed to produce a film that can be classed as great. Whilst Be Kind Rewind and The Science of Sleep have their moments he’s yet to reproduce that magic for the …
DVD Review: Half of a Yellow Sun
Based on the Orange Prize for Fiction winning novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun was always going to be a difficult novel to adapt. Indeed, whilst director Biyi Bandele makes a good fist of it, the source material is not suited to a big screen adaptation. However, the impressive case lead …
Incoming: The House of Magic
Seeking shelter from a storm, abandoned young cat Thunder sneaks into a mysterious mansion owned by retired magician Lawrence, aka “The Illustrious Lorenzo”. Lawrence shares his fairy-tale world with many animals and a dazzling array of automatons and gizmos capable of whipping up breakfast while rolling out a spectacular song-and-dance routine. He soon makes Thunder …
DVD Review: A Long Way Down
Bestselling author Nick Hornby has seen several of his novels adapted to film. Whilst there have been some undeniable successes in the shape of About a Boy, Fever Pitch and High Fidelity but there’s also been the abject failure of The Perfect Catch (a disastrous Americanisation of Fever Pitch). A Long Way Down has an …
DVD Review: A Hard Day’s Night
The Beatles are possibly the most well known pop group in history, but when A Hard Day’s Night was released they were only on the cusp of world domination. The band received many offers to make a film, but didn’t want to merely be the musical accompaniment to the action taking place on screen; they …
DVD Review – Too Late Blues (Masters of Cinema)
John Cassavetes was a pioneer of American independent film, and despite making such classics as A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Faces and Love Streams, he did spend a short period of his early career working within the Hollywood studio system. Too Late Blues is his second film, and the …
Blu-Ray Review: Harold and Maude (Masters of Cinema)
You’re unlikely to see a more perfect opening sequence than the beautiful beginning of Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude. Along with sublime musical accompaniment from Cat Stevens, it perfectly sets the scene to this offbeat American love story between two of life’s outsiders. Introverted and obsessed by death, Harold (Bud Cort) lives an unhappy yet …
Blu-Ray Review – Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
“It’s going to take a dead man to save the country…from a death merchant’s dream of destruction!” The 80s was an odd decade, but it was a high point for action films. John Rambo, John McClane, Riggs, Indiana Jones, Jack Burton and Chuck Norris (he needs no character) are all household names, but chances are …
DVD Review: Goal of the Dead
With all the World Cup excitement it seems as thought football has been dominating most people’s lives over the last few weeks. Football fans are sometimes perceived as mindless idiots, but in Goal of the Dead directors Thierry Poiraud and Benjamin Rocher take that slur to another level. Paris are headed to play an end …