Film Review

“We can only greet the strange and unusual with love.” This is ostensibly what film-makers Dash Shaw and Jane Samborski want to assert in Cryptozoo. For about thirty minutes, they deliver on this promise. Moreover, they do so in a…

In the lead up to the release of Malignant, director James Wan spoke of his love for Giallo cinema, and revealed that his new film would be his ode to the infamous sub-genre that many horror fans cherish dearly. Giallo is a sub-genre of…

Mark Cousins is always a notable presence in his own films. His voice, his authorial stamp, recognisably familiar both in tone and intent has always accompanied his investigations into the personal and the cinematic. For Cousins, the…

Bob Viddick, the grunting, grizzled and scruple-light hitman from the frenetically fun Copshop, informs us at one stage that he received a degree “from the university of common sense”. Is this a good line? It would be a struggle to…

Prisoners of the Ghostland represents a perfect artistic marriage: the gonzo Japanese auteur Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Love Exposure, Tag) and “the California Klaus Kinski", Nicolas Cage. While Sono's English language debut may not fulfill…

With the recent release of the Hellboy reboot in cinemas this month, to mostly negative reviews, we take a look at a lesser-known animated Hellboy film, Sword of Storms, released in 2006, the first of two direct to DVD tales (the other…

Christopher Nolan described Inception as a heist film taking place in the architecture of the mind. Bi Gan's sophomore effort Long Day's Journey Into Night is a neo-noir with the same setting. While the noirs of the 40s and 50s always had…

Not long after critically acclaimed documentary RBG - focusing on the life and career of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg - comes the fictional equivalent On the Basis of Sex. An origin story for the women's rights trailblazer,…

The Mule has a number of moments where a 90-year-old stares at a computer or smartphone and grumbles 'Internet' and yet is still great. Clint Eastwood directs and stars (his first leading role since 2012) as Earl Stone, a 90-year-old…

I’m a big fan of fight scenes. The barroom brawl. The schoolyard scrap. The prison yard punch-up. But I need context. I need someone to root for. A fight scene without these key ingredients is just a theme park stunt show. That’s basically…