I’m going to talk about George A. Romero’s so-called ‘lost classic’, Knightriders, which has recently found its reincarnated form in a new special edition Blu-Ray edition. But before I do that, I need to get something out of the way: the living dead. In a hypothetical game of cinematic word-association, if I were to say “George A. [...]
Musician, writer, director and all-round renaissance man of horror, Rob Zombie, takes his lifelong love affair with the genre to new heights in his latest offering, The Lords of Salem. A dark tale of satanic ritual and blood sacrifice based around the present day descendants of the Salem witches, the film plays out like a [...]
A battle of wills: a gruelling contest of endurance and sheer determination whose lone victor will finish physically and mentally exhausted, having outlasted all challengers. Defeated rivals will literally stumble away, collapsing into chairs or leaving in a dazed state, some seemingly unaware of where or even who they are. The victor will be too [...]
“A gruesome secret, protected for generations, rises to give its… Deadly Blessing.” The tagline to Wes Craven’s 1981 offering, Deadly Blessing, could just as well be a description of the film’s elusive home release itself rather than the mysterious, supernatural antagonist which haunts a young Sharon Stone and company in the story. After a limited [...]
New film releases and features about film from arthouse to horror, UK and international
I’m going to talk about George A. Romero’s so-called ‘lost classic’, Knightriders, which has recently found its reincarnated form in a new special edition Blu-Ray edition. But before I do that, I need to get something out of the way: the living dead. In a hypothetical game of cinematic word-association, if I were to say “George A. [...]
Musician, writer, director and all-round renaissance man of horror, Rob Zombie, takes his lifelong love affair with the genre to new heights in his latest offering, The Lords of Salem. A dark tale of satanic ritual and blood sacrifice based around the present day descendants of the Salem witches, the film plays out like a [...]
When I told people that I was going to a back-to-back screening of This is England ’86 and ’88 at the BFI the response was an almost unanimous, and unanimously sarcastic, “That’ll be fun!” This confused me at first, since each sarcastic response was then followed by unremitting praise for the series, but as the [...]
A battle of wills: a gruelling contest of endurance and sheer determination whose lone victor will finish physically and mentally exhausted, having outlasted all challengers. Defeated rivals will literally stumble away, collapsing into chairs or leaving in a dazed state, some seemingly unaware of where or even who they are. The victor will be too [...]
Given the now legendary status of filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen, it’s surprising that the director’s cut edition of their 1984 debut, the critically acclaimed Blood Simple has only now surfaced on DVD in the UK. If you’re unfamiliar with the film, rest-assured, Blood Simple lies within comfortable Coen brothers territory and bears many [...]
Musician and composer John Parish, best known for his work with PJ Harvey, is, on the 16th April, releasing Screenplay, an album of a selection of his film music. Feature writer, Claire Hazelton, had a chat with John to find out more about the album and his involvement with the Filmic 2013 Festival in Bristol, [...]
“A gruesome secret, protected for generations, rises to give its… Deadly Blessing.” The tagline to Wes Craven’s 1981 offering, Deadly Blessing, could just as well be a description of the film’s elusive home release itself rather than the mysterious, supernatural antagonist which haunts a young Sharon Stone and company in the story. After a limited [...]
Ramis Cizer picks out his highlights of the Turkish Film Festival in London and views some crackling cinema due for imminent release… It’s not the teeth of the big bad wolf that Little Red Riding Hood should fear but the sharp crackle of an assault rifle and overhead birds of war; this is Grimm’s well-known [...]
NOW TV have teamed up with Rooftop Film Club to veto Valentine’s this year. And you can tweet for a seat at this very exclusive Anti-Valentine’s Day film screening. The films they’re screening at Rooftop Film Club (Roof Gardens, 99 Kensington High Street, London W8 5SA) from 6pm on Wednesday 13 February are a secret and will be [...]
They say you get the politicians you deserve. I hope that’s not true as ours are a sorry bunch. They are so painfully conscious of their own self image and the media that it guides or should I say warps their thinking and thus sometimes their policies. This is clear to see when it comes [...]
“I’ve seen how democracy is under duress, But I’ve never seen a nipple in the Daily Express.” (John Cooper Clarke) Tabloids’ indiscriminate muckraking produces a telling mash-up of porn and politics. Both embody the workings of power, and power requires a dynamic between have/have not.The problem of porn is its insistence on a retro-futurism of [...]
Ben Wheatley was present for a preview screening of his latest film Sightseers and introduced the film by joking that “it was made with cynicism…there were lots of focus groups”. This statement sums up Wheatley’s work quite well. Having worked as a writer on comedy series such as Modern Toss and The Wrong Door, his [...]
(Dedicated to Desmond and Jamie) “I pretended to be someone I wanted to be until I finally became that person. Or he became me.” (Cary Grant) As you can tell from my name, I am a pop culture construct. I’m no Cary Grant but I did try to follow his advice and can testify that [...]
London documentary maker and journalist, Leah Borromeo, has been working on a documentary exposing links between the fashion industry and 300,000 Indian farmer suicides over the last 17 years. Focussing not only on the farmers, but on the families they leave behind, and on resistance campaigns here in the UK, yet again we hear transparency in the [...]
The Dominant – Short film by Emir Hasanpor Devil’s Desires to Doctrinal Death List Religion, Rape, Political Prisoners and Execution are the subject of The Dominant, a short film by Iranian Director & independent film maker Emir Hasanpor. The film has caused Hasanpor gun shots and knife attack and placed his life under threat. So [...]
I got myself a reputation at art school by declaring pop videos to be the perfect artform (that and for being frequently naked). My reasoning was that with something so short (I’m talking about videos here), not a frame can be wasted; our fickle attentions must be seduced into submission. The sexy aesthetics of music [...]
Up until now most online drama has been either a promo for the main event be it small or big screen or it’s been on such a low budget with little marketing that it’s made little impact. Well all that is set to change with the launch of Cybergeddon. This is a big budget filmed [...]
Why are we so fascinated by famous figures that tragically die young, cut down in their prime? John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix the list sadly goes on and on. It’s as if they are frozen in time often at the height of their powers so we don’t get to see them in [...]
When trying to think of some writer/director/stars working at the moment, the most recent who comes to mind is Linda Larson, writer/director/star of Whatever Happened to Alice, a truly jaw-dropping sci-fi horror mess in which a middle aged woman (Larson) spends 2 hours running around an old shed, clutching a doll and screaming “Daddy no” [...]
Just imagine you’ve just boarding a train minding your own business when you see a man suddenly pour a bucket of water over a young girl standing on the platform. This is the attention grabbing opening scene for the 1977 film That Obscure Object of Desire. After the initial shock and outcry the man begins [...]
Another welcome re-release that is part of the Studiocanal Collection; Le Quai des Brumes is an unsettling piece of drama from director Marcel Carné. Jean is a troubled man. He’s a deserter on the run and lands in the small port town of Le Havre looking for a way out of the country. He finds [...]
This is a welcome re-release of Welles’ classic film. Many directors have tackled Kafka’s surreal and forbidding novel but Orsen Welles’ version has to go down as the closest to realising the book’s dark sense of unease and paranoia. Josef K (Anthony Perkins) is arrested for an unspecified crime. To protest his innocence he is [...]
This looks like a fascinating evening – a special screening of the documentary film ‘Lawrence of Belgravia’ followed by an encounter with Lawrence himself – there’s no surname – just Lawrence – plus Paul Kelly the director. This will all take place on Saturday 13th October in a suitably atmospheric space in the historic 1830 Warehouse [...]
War epic, The Flowers of War, directed by Zhang Yimou (who famously brought us House of Flying Daggers) and starring Christian Bale sees its UK DVD release this week. And Flux has 6 copies to give away. The Flowers of War is set during the “Rape of Nanking” in 1937, following a Japanese invasion of the [...]
Alastair Siddons’ new film ‘In The Dark Half’, set where a crumbling, suburban neighbourhood meets a dark and eerie expanse of countryside, uncomfortably shifts continuously between scenes of disorientation, anger, suspense and loss. The film follows the life and imaginings of 15-year old Marie (Jessica Barden) and centres around two traumatic events: the sudden death [...]
For decades, poker has been portrayed in many fashions in both film and TV. While the game was largely portrayed in a negative light in early cinema, shows like Maverick and M*A*S*H were among those that gave a positive spin to the game. In recent decades, numerous films have been made that have helped to [...]
This film was actually released in the early seventies but it’s aged well and has now been re-mastered for its 40th birthday. Luis Buñuel was 72 when he directed this film but it still bares all the hallmarks of his greatness. There is fizz, bite and satire aplenty in this dreamlike and quite mind boggling [...]
This year, the inaugural edition of the Berlin Fashion Film Festival will run alongside Berlin Fashion Week from 3 - 8 July. The festival will present fashion in an innovative way, combining film with fashion presentations, whilst grouping together outstanding film directors, emerging fashion talent and influential characters of the international creative scene. The [...]
Film Preview by Daniel Lennard ‘Leave it on the Floor’ is a sort of gay, African American, underground dance musical if that makes any sense at all. Our hero Brad is in a bit of a mess. His volatile, gay hating Mum hates what he stands for. So, homeless and rudderless he lands in the [...]
Fashion film is one of those genres that is evolving so quickly, it’s just getting hotter and hotter, fuelled by the ability to showcase films so much more easily on fashion websites and blogs. To help facilitate that, some exciting news today is that the first edition of Berlin Fashion Film Festival will be launched [...]
Anyone watching events unfolding in Syria will no doubt share the same sense of frustration and helplessness that I myself feel as the images are beamed into our living rooms. The brutality of the regime is truly breathtaking. The situation is grave and changing on a daily basis. Pity then the organisers of Reel Syria [...]
New Film Review by Sophia Satchell Baeza In This Must Be the Place, Paolo Sorrentino has managed to make the premise – a Nazi-hunting road movie through the American desert with Robert Smith – infinitely more exciting than the reality. Cheyenne (Sean Penn) is an ageing rock star dressed up like Robert Smith from The [...]
Closing Night Gala: Penderecki and Greenwood Providing a crashing crescendo to the end of the UKs 10th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, London legendary composer Krzysztof Penderecki will come together with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood for a special concert at London’s Barbican Hall. The collaboration revises a musical meeting first staged in Poland in 2011, with a [...]
The close of this week marks just the beginning of a 16-day, Spanish and Latin American film festival brought to you by Manchester’s international centre for contemporary, visual arts and independent film, better known as Cornerhouse. The festival will be dragging a little of those southerly rays, kicking and screaming, to blustery Blighty for the [...]
On the surface, the area around Waterloo station might not seem like such a strange or dark place. However, upon looking hard enough, a bizarre current is noticeable, pulsating through the streets; the remnants of cardboard-city tucked away in the subways, free-runners prancing about the rooftops and, deep underground, a cavernous space dripping with history, [...]
This is another classic Hammer romp through history with Oliver Reed at his mischievous best in this slightly off kilter role. Reed plays Eli Khan, a rebel tribesman in this classic British film set in the Indian desert whist the country is still under the iron grip of British rule. A mixed race lieutenant, [...]
Oliver Reed gives a characteristically big performance in this historical romp based around the English Civil War. Reed plays Captain Sylvester a willing, grinning cohort to his Roundhead boss Colonel Judd also played with vigour and swagger by that old stalwart of British film, Lionel Jeffries. Under orders Reed captures the King and takes [...]
Drive, Nicholas Winding Refn’s minimalist action movie about a stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) who moonlights as a getaway driver, feels like a film out of time. Its methodical pacing, neon-soaked vision of L.A. and electronic soundtrack give it the feel of a lost Michael Mann film and it’s easy to see why the film received [...]
British-Ghanaian artist John Akomfrah’s independent film The Nine Muses is a thoughtful, poetic piece of cinema that explores the immigrant experience of Post War Britain.
French director Michel Hazanavicius is a master at mimicking the works of others; his two hilarious OSS 117 films skewer the silliness of spy movies by recreating their style and tone, whilst throwing a healthy dose of modern absurdity into the mix to create films that feel like undiscovered gems and very fresh, irreverent modern [...]
Kate Winslet projectile vomiting across an expensive coffee table. Christoph Waltz stuffing his face and snorting like a deranged pig. Four people at a meeting in an apartment they appear unable to leave. It sounds like a torturous Sartre play. Thankfully, it is a lot more fun than that. It all takes place in ‘Carnage’ [...]
“WOMAN DEAD IN FLAT FOR 3 YEARS”: an arresting, somewhat anonymous August 2006Sun headline. That woman’s name was Joyce Carol Vincent and she died in her North London flat in 2003, aged 38. Her remains were discovered three years later, with the television still on, its warm glow flickering over a cold cadaver. Joyce passed [...]
If you are looking for those last minute Christmas presents Momentum Pictures have recently released five classic movies on Blu-ray for the first time ever. To fill those gaps in your collection we can recommend these contemporary films stunningly remastered in 1080p high definition for Blu-ray and packed with special features – an essential for [...]
Though he has only directed two films (Shotgun Stories in 2007 and his latest, Take Shelter), Jeff Nichols has already established himself as one of the most exciting directors in modern American cinema. His subtle yet explosive examinations of conflicted men trying to escape the pressures of their past are quietly yet deniably powerful ones [...]
Fleet Foxes have gone the extra mile with this their latest video accompaniment to new single The Shrine / An Argument”. Directed by Sean Pecknold, this is a beautiful, sometimes startling animation. We enter a dreamlike world haunted by dark fairytales. Diabolical beasts and wondrous creatures appear from the gloom as our story is played [...]
It’s hard to watch Andrea Arnold’s version of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights, about the destructive, all-consuming power of love without comparing it to Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, which was released mere months earlier. This is, to an extent, superficial, since the two might not be compared if they hadn’t [...]
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Directed by Wayne Wang, Starring Bingbing Li, Gianna Jun, Hugh Jackman Weaving two parallel stories one in the present day and the other in 19th century China, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan tells of the story of how two sets of women, matched as laotong, or “old sames’ [...]
Oslo, August 31st. Directed by Joachim Trier Starring Anders Danielsen Lie Taking place over the course of one day, and inspired by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s 1931 novel Le Feu Follet, this melancholic second feature from Trier, tells the story of Anders, a recovering heroin addict, as he contemplates his future. Heading into Oslo for a [...]
The Outlaw (Lope) (2010) Director; Andrucha Waddington. Starring Alberto Ammann and Luis Tosar. Felix Lope de Vega Carpio, or “Lope”, is one of the most notable figures to emerge from the flourishing literature scene of the Spanish Golden Age. He is certainly the most prolific. Lope’s life was emulative of his own writing, fraught with [...]
The beginning of the end commences as we witness the final interview with fashion visionary, Yves Saint Laurent before his loss to his battle with brain cancer. The sadness, the joy, the jubilation, the relapses and the recoveries; nothing escapes the cinematic capabilities of debut director, Pierre Thornton with his Yves Saint Laurent DVD: L’Amour [...]
Our favourite new sneakers from fashion to sportsfield!