Film
12 Films of Christmas: Black ChristmasSunday, 16 December 2012
Flanked by the wonderfully weird tagline, “If this picture doesn’t make your skin crawl…it’s on TOO TIGHT”, 1974’s Black Christmas is amongst the first fully formed slasher pics. Based on a series of murders that took place in Quebec, this Canadian... Read more... |
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?Saturday, 15 December 2012
Here’s a rancid little hors d’oeuvre for the holiday season. The deliciously loathsome Gothic horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, 50 years old and back in cinemas, never ceases to amaze as director Robert Aldrich’s strychnine-laced missive... Read more... |
12 Films of Christmas: Rare Exports - A Christmas TaleSaturday, 15 December 2012
The Scandinavian countries can duke it out amongst themselves as to which of them Santa Claus is from, but this Finnish claim for being the whiskery fellow’s true home neither makes you want to enter his grotto or sit on his knee. A bizarre and... Read more... |
Neil Young JourneysFriday, 14 December 2012
"There is a town in north Ontario," sang Neil Young in 1970's "Helpless", and in this third collaboration between Young and film-maker Jonathan Demme, we get to go there. It's the little rural outpost of Omemee, where, as Young tells the camera, he... Read more... |
12 Films of Christmas: It's a Wonderful LifeFriday, 14 December 2012
It’s A Wonderful Life disappointed studio bosses at the box office. Five Oscar chances came to nothing. Gongs and money, however, don’t guarantee a classic and that is what It’s a Wonderful Life is - a film that can restore one's sense of joy within... Read more... |
DVD: Zombie Flesh EatersFriday, 14 December 2012
Zombie Flesh Eaters was at the heart of the early Eighties’ video nasty furore. Pilloried without being seen, it was cast as revolting and shocking, and subsequently banned from release. This pin-sharp, definitive restoration of Lucio Fulci’s 1979... Read more... |
12 Films of Christmas: The Muppet Christmas CarolThursday, 13 December 2012
Made in 1992, this was the first Muppets project after the death of creator Jim Henson, and was helmed by his son, Brian. It's been given a 20th-anniversary re-release by Disney, which now owns the Muppet franchise, appropriately enough in the... Read more... |
Dead EuropeThursday, 13 December 2012
“Why do you want to go to Greece?” After watching the numbing Dead Europe and the journey of its protagonist Isaac the question asked might, more pertinently, have been “do you know the Greece you’re going to visit?” This relentlessly dark film... Read more... |
The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyWednesday, 12 December 2012
JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit has always been the answer to those who rail at the self-consciously epic scale and bombast of The Lord of the Rings; it is the perfect Tolkien primer, an introduction to Middle Earth that is humorous and boisterous, doesn’t... Read more... |
12 Films of Christmas: The Family StoneWednesday, 12 December 2012
Thank heavens for Christmas, without which where would narrative be? Not that I'm sure Sarah Jessica Parker's uptight, brittle Meredith Morton has much to be thankful for in The Family Stone, as the Manhattan careerist braves her boyfriend's family... Read more... |
12 Films of Christmas: White ChristmasTuesday, 11 December 2012
White Christmas is named so you know that gorgeous song is inside it somewhere. Yes, this is the 12-year-younger and lesser remake of Holiday Inn that also stars Bing Crosby and also features the cry-your-guts-out, I-regret-everything holiday tune... Read more... |
DVD: Railroaded!Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Although Anthony Mann is best known for the five James Stewart Westerns (and one apiece starring Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper) he directed during the 1950s, it was the dour film noirs he made during the previous decade that made his name. Like Mann’s... Read more... |
