Film
Film Review: Phoenix
The teenage years can be tricky as it is. What with school, girls/boys and hormonal changes threatening to take over young alien bodies. With all this going on it’s unsurprising that many adolescents become self-obsessed. However, childhood can come to an abrupt end when there’s no strong parental figure in the picture. This is the …
Interview: Cédric Le Gallo and Romain Brau (The Shiny Shrimps)
Having experienced commercial and critical success in its native France, The Shiny Shrimps, a comedy about an ostensibly homophobic competitive swimmer nearing the end of his professional career who is ordered to train an incompetent LGBTQ+ water polo team as punishment for a public indiscretion, opens in the UK this weekend. I caught up with …
Film Review: Rojo
Latin America has never been the most stable region in terms of politics or government. When not acting as a microcosm of the Cold War, the continent’s recent history has been marred by Military Juntas and brutal dictatorships. Argentina in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s is a case in point. A coup d’état in …
Film Review: The Wrath
Whilst being cursed today would probably either involve a string of invective or uncontrollable laughter, it was no joking matter only a few hundred years ago. Especially in some of the more superstitious societies, and very few could equal Korea during the Joseon period. It is an era captured frequently in films and on TV. …
Blu-Ray Review: Dark City
In a career which spanned over sixty years, Charlton Heston became an American icon and one of the most familiar cinematic faces. He has starred in over seventy films with the likes of Ben-Hur, El-Cid, Planet of the Apes, Touch of Evil, The Omega Man and The Ten Commandments ensuring he became a household name. …
Film Review: The Run
Whilst the whole concept seems pretty alien to me, some people were just born to run. Sometimes kids pick it up at an early age and never stop but for others an attempt to get fit can spiral into an obsession. As a young man, Pat Farmer found he had a passion for ultra-marathon running. …
Film Review: The Shiny Shrimps
The Shiny Shrimps is co-written and co-directed by Cédric Le Gallo, making his feature debut here, and Maxime Govare, previously known for the comedies I Kissed a Girl (2015) and Daddy Cool (2017). The film is about a curmudgeonly, humourless, 33-year-old Olympic swimmer, Matthias Le Goff (Nicolas Gob), who is coming to the end of …
Blu-Ray Review: The Naked Kiss
Samuel Fuller was never a director to shy away from controversy or take the easy road. The controversial film-maker never abided by convention and was seemingly incapable of resting on his laurels. After starting out making Westerns and war films, he made the shift into thrillers during the 1960s. Operating largely outside of the studio …
Film Review: The Souvenir
Joanna Hogg is undoubtedly one of the most unusual and singular voices working in British cinema today. Her work resides in the world she knows. A world of privilege, art and wealth. Whilst this approach is undeniably refreshing, it has come in for criticism. However, her work to date, Unrelated, Archipelago and Exhibition, demonstrate an …
Film Review: Aniara
Earth has only got finite resources and with rapid population growth, climate change and an increasingly unstable political landscape our time on this planet might be limited to decades, not centuries. At some stage, we’re likely to need a new home. One within reach but which can sustain human life, one way or another. When …