Film
DVD/Blu-ray: ParasiteTuesday, 02 June 2020
So what exactly is all the fuss about? For those of us from a cinema-deprived area, it’s been a long wait for the homevideo release of this much vaunted "masterpiece". And the trailer gives away so much, there’s probably little to surprise us, right... Read more... |
Blu-ray/DVD: Little WomenSunday, 31 May 2020
For the average female millennial, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women is the perfect film to watch in lockdown. Brought up on Winona Ryder’s Jo March, then Gerwig’s Frances Ha in our teen years, we never expected this blessing but are most ardently... Read more... |
The Vast of Night review - perfectly paranoidSaturday, 30 May 2020
The Vast of Night’s premise scarcely guarantees originality. Non-science-fiction buffs scoping Amazon’s film listings will probably move on quickly when they learn it’s about two late-'50s teenagers discovering that an alien space craft is... Read more... |
Krabi, 2562 review - a trance-like visitationFriday, 29 May 2020
Have you ever visited a destination you saw on film, only to realise it’s not quite how you imagined? Filled with tourists, the scars of mass visitation, and caught between its own culture and staying commercially attractive. The Thai city of Krabi... Read more... |
The Uncertain Kingdom review - Britannia agonistesFriday, 29 May 2020
The Uncertain Kingdom is a VOD anthology of 20 short films, 10 directed by women, comprising a tapestry of life in – and, in one case, outside – Brexit-era Britain. Though hope, humour, and whimsy were threaded into the project, its dominant fabric... Read more... |
Larry Kramer: 'I think anger is a wonderful useful emotion'Thursday, 28 May 2020
Larry Kramer, who has died at the age of 84, was the Solzhenitsyn of AIDS who indomitably reported from the gay gulags of Manhattan’s quarantined wards and revolving-door hospices. “I felt very much like a journalist who realises that he has been... Read more... |
The High Note review - Tracee Ellis Ross shines in so-so music dramedyThursday, 28 May 2020
Nisha Ganatra’s musical dramedy, penned by first time screenwriter Flora Greeson, isn’t going to win any prizes for originality and is almost unforgivably corny. But the feel-good vibes and winning combination of Tracee Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Thousand Eyes of Dr MabuseThursday, 28 May 2020
The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse (1960) was Fritz Lang’s final film, resurrecting his Weimar villain in Cold War Berlin and forming a satisfying circle with his career’s German first half, which included Metropolis and M. This ended when Goebbels... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Distant JourneyTuesday, 26 May 2020
Czech director Alfréd Radok’s Distant Journey (Daleká cesta) has an unprecedented place in the history of cinema of the Holocaust. Initially released in March 1949, it has been called the first fictional treatment of the Jewish experience during the... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Apu TrilogySunday, 24 May 2020
Over the years, the legend of The Apu Trilogy has been much-repeated. Now widely considered India’s greatest filmmaker, Satyajit Ray was little more than a small-time commercial artist when, failing to find a sponsor for his script, he assembled... Read more... |
Have a Good Trip, Netflix review - a breezy journey into the mindSaturday, 23 May 2020
Don’t do drugs, kids. For the past 50 years, that’s been the consistent message. But how much of what we know about psychedelics is just fearmongering? Do you really want to jump out of a window? Will you permanently lose your mind? To find out the... Read more... |
Women Make Film: Part Two review - two steps forward, one step backFriday, 22 May 2020
The second half of Mark Cousins’ documentary on films by women filmmakers starts with religion; it ends with song and dance. This is a second seven-hour journey through cinema. It reconfirms Women Make Film as a remarkable feat of excavation and... Read more... |
