DVD/Blu-Ray Review
DVD Review: Dragon’s Return
Nationalism demands strong heroic (normally male) characters and Eastern European under the post-war regimes were full of ‘men of the people’. Polish cinema in particular is teeming with examples of hard working men who lived off the land and rose to glory for the good of the nation. Not to be outdone, Czechoslovakia had a …
DVD Review: Good Kill
Possibly the most controversial aspect of modern warfare is the use of combat drones. Unsurprisingly, it’s predominately America deploying this technology in ‘war zones’ and to terminate enemies in friendly countries (often without that government’s knowledge or permission). There have been a spate of ‘drone films’ over the last couple of years, with filmakers focussing …
Cruel Story of Youth (Masters of Cinema)
Post-War Japan was very turbulent in many ways. The Rising Sun has always been a very conservative and conformist country throughout modern history. The only time the consensus has been rattled was in this period from 1950 until the late ’60s. A youthful population were growing up in a society still struggling with the humiliation …
DVD Review: She’s Funny That Way
Peter Bogdanovich is a very singular kind of film director. There’s a thread of nostalgia running through all his work, but not in the sense of pastiche. The American director clearly has a love of classic cinema and his filmography feels like a homage to The Golden Age. In She’s Funny That Way, his first …
Film Review: The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?
The history of filmmaking is littered with what ifs. What if Tom Selleck played Indiana Jones? What if Sylvester Stallone was cast as Hans Solo? The greatest one perhaps is: What if Nicolas Cage was Superman? The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? tracks the story of the pre-production of Tim Burton’s take on the …
DVD Review: War and Peace
The story of Frank Oppenheimer and The Manhattan Project has been widely covered in film and on television. The race to build the first atomic bomb may have been the most important chapter in the history of the deadly weapon but its role in shaping the world has not diminished. Though The Cold War and …
DVD Review: Salute! Sun Yat Sen
When you’ve waited nine years since a director’s last proper feature, you’d be forgiven for expecting something a little special. Not Taiwanese filmmaker Yee Chih-yen, the director of Blue Gate Crossing, who instead chooses simplicity over flamboyant spectacular. Salute! Sun Yat-sen is an unusual mix of slapstick comedy, heist movie and social commentary. There are …
DVD Review: Listen Up Philip
There aren’t many modern films with such a high opinion of itself as Listen Up Philip. Sadly, like its self-obsessed titular character, Philip Lewis Friedman (Jason Schwartzman), Alex Ross Perry’s film likes to wallow in its own smug self-satisfaction and pungent aroma. Whilst it doesn’t do self-masturbatory in the same way as Birdman, there’s still …
Film Review – Adrift: People of a Lesser God
Sometimes the content of a film is much more important than the actual film itself. One of the most pressing world problems and biggest tragedies of this century is that of people being trafficked from Africa to Europe. Thousands have died this year, which is already a huge increase on 2014 and it’s a situation …
Blu-ray Review: 3 Women
Robert Altman got inspiration for 3 Women from a dream and the film itself has a dreamlike quality, feeling slightly otherworldly and obtuse. Having built up fearsome reputation as one of the best American filmmakers through the 1970s, the release of 3 Women signalled a change of direction and emphasis. Many comparisons have been drawn …