Film
Blu-Ray: Partie de CampagneMonday, 18 September 2023
Partie de Campagne (1946), while not being one of French cinema giant Jean Renoir’s best-known films, unfinished and just under 40 minutes long, is still regarded as an important if not essential example of the director’s multi-faceted and often... Read more... |
AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T Rex review - musical doc falls between two stoolsThursday, 14 September 2023
Seeking to be both a documentary and a musical tribute to Marc Bolan, AngelHeaded Hipster doesn’t quite pull it off on either count. It’s based around the making of an album (whence the film gets its title) of versions of Bolan’s songs by an... Read more... |
Bolan's Shoes review - good-natured film about the healing power of a pop idolWednesday, 13 September 2023
Older fans of T Rex will get pleasure from hearing the band’s tracks and reliving some of the buzz of being a dino-rocker, but, despite the title, this isn’t strictly a fan film. Describing what kind of film it is, though, would involve a... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Three AgesTuesday, 12 September 2023
The Saphead gave Buster Keaton his first starring role in a full-length comedy, but 1923’s Three Ages is the first feature film which he wrote, produced, directed and starred in. Two-reelers were a form where he could go, in his words, “wild and... Read more... |
Fremont review - lovely wry portrait of an Afghan refugee looking for loveFriday, 08 September 2023
A cameo by Jeremy Allen White wouldn’t usually excite interest, but the star of Disney+’s The Bear is big box-office now, so his presence in Fremont, however brief, will probably guarantee it an audience. There the curious will also find a gem from... Read more... |
A Life on the Farm review - a fabulous eccentric gets neatly packagedFriday, 08 September 2023
“There’s nowt so queer as folk”, they say, and Life on the Farm amply proves the point. A cassette slides into the slot; “play” is pressed and a middle-aged man appears on screen at the gate of Combe End Farm. “Follow me down”, he says to... Read more... |
Past Lives review - poignant story of a long-maturing loveThursday, 07 September 2023
In the mood for love? It’s over 23 years since Wong Kar-Wai’s swoony, bittersweet film of that name reset the bar for the art-house love story. Now comes Celine Song's Past LIves, an entirely different kind of bar-setter but with a similar tough-but... Read more... |
Mercy Falls review - horror in the HighlandsSaturday, 02 September 2023
Mercy Falls isn’t the only Scottish film of the past year in which a young woman is haunted by childhood memories of a last summer holiday with her troubled father. And while Ryan Hendrick’s low-budget horror is unlikely to garner as much critical... Read more... |
The Puppet Asylum & Otto Baxter: Not a F***ing Horror Show review - director extraordinaire exorcises his demonsSaturday, 02 September 2023
Otto Baxter is no stranger to the camera, ever since he was a small boy he’s been featured on television with his adoptive mother Lucy Baxter, an impressive campaigner for better understanding of people with Down's Syndrome. Archive footage shows... Read more... |
Passages review - amusing, lusty, surprising Parisian love triangleFriday, 01 September 2023
From Forty Shades of Blue, 20 years ago, to Keep the Lights On and Love is Strange, writer/director Ira Sachs has proved himself to be a master at exploring romantic relationships – and the messier, the better. So, after the... Read more... |
Apocalypse Clown review - going out with a laughFriday, 01 September 2023
Here we are in rural Ireland and on the other side of bonkers. Apocalypse Clown is billed as an "end-of-the-world road movie with clowns". It’s hilarious, off the wall, beyond the cringe.The protagonists are three washed-up members of the circus... Read more... |
And Then Come the Nightjars review - two farm friendsThursday, 31 August 2023
This modest British dramedy is billed as a “heart-warming story of friendship and survival set against the backdrop of the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak”. That’s perhaps not the first catastrophe we associate with that fateful year, but it was a grim... Read more... |
