Film
Film Review: Playground
I think most of us still have vague memories of our first day or days at school. Especially if we’ve moved around and have endured several. Even if they’re now just abstract feelings of terror. Everything seemed so big and scary, and that wasn’t just the older kids! There was a system. A hierarchy. One …
News: Hobart’s magnificent EWAH & The Vision of Paradise announce a showing of ‘Finding Paradise’ – a film based on their stunning album ‘The Warning Birds’
EWAH and the Vision of Paradise (EVoP) released a magnificent album ‘The Warning Birds’ earlier this year (see my 9.2/10 review here) – an album that I described as being a palimpsest for beauty and decay, wild and turbulent landscapes with the intrusion of modernity and the threats and ugliness this can entail. It is …
Blu-ray Review: Godmonster of Indian Flats
There’s nothing quite like a good creature feature. A film which introduces a monster into a narrative and has a whole lot of fun with it. Whether it works or not has as much to do with the time and effort invested in making it as it does budget. You don’t need to spend millions …
Blu-Ray Review: Rogue Cops and Racketeers
While Fabio Testi began his film career as a stuntman, taking on a few small roles, being cast in Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis made him a star in his native Italy. The Italian’s relationships with the likes of Ursula Andress, Jean Seberg and Charlotte Rampling ensured that he stayed in the …
Visions du Réel Review: My Paper Life
While the continuing refugee crisis is never too far away from new headlines, the discourse is rarely positive or not toxic. Indeed, many people seem to forget that these are ordinary families. Normal people driven from their homeland by war, poverty, persecution or a myriad of other reasons. Everyone has their own individual story. Their …
Film Review: The Cellar
Creepy old houses in the middle of nowhere are perfect settings for horror cinema. Close neighbours are few and far between, which is often for the best considering how odd they usually are. There are no passers-by to raise the alarm or hear, say, a chainsaw doing its work. Mobile phone signal is sporadic, at …
Blu-ray Review – Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
As a society, we seem to be fascinated by the concept of a serial killer. There appears to be some innate need to try and understand the rationale behind their actions and a constant debate over whether the blame can be attributed to nature or nurture. This has gradually seeped into popular culture and the …
Blu-ray Review: The Scare Film Archives Volume 1: Drug Stories!
The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to preserve the legacy of genre movies through collection, conservation, and distribution. Located in Austin, Texas and founded it 2009, it benefits from having a number of high-profile advisors from within the industry. With an archive containing over six thousand film prints, …
Visions du Réel Review: Daughters
Most people will have known friends, family or even just acquaintances who have committed suicide. Many will have been in a position where they’ve contemplated doing it themselves. Even attempted it and been unsuccessful. It’s a terrible thing to feel like you’re backed into a corner where you have no other choice. The aftermath of …
Film Review: The Tale of King Crab
For hundreds if not thousands of years, stories were handed down through generations by word of mouth. Either through storytelling or in song. Folklore, legends and folk tales played a large part in European societies for a long time, before the written word became dominant. Even then, only a small minority could read or write, …