Your enjoyment of The Grand Seduction is entirely dependent on having a healthy suspension of disbelief and a broad tolerance for the rom-com formula – if you’re in possession of both those qualities, then you’ll likely have a good time with the film. Starring Brendan Gleeson as the mayor of a sparsely populated Canadian harbour…
Within the rusted, mud-splattered framework of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer is a distillation of 1970s American cinema. It has the bruised masculinity of Taxi Driver, the abiding pessimism of Chinatown and the nightmarish madness that would send Coppola deep into the jungles of the Philippines for Apocalypse Now. It’s fitting that its release would be eclipsed…
There’s no reason Nurse 3-D couldn’t have worked. A bloody mixture of sex-negative horror, nurse sexploitation and American Psycho sounds like it should be an interesting mess. Instead Nurse 3-D is just bloody terrible, a Frankenstein’s monster lurching awkwardly through the detritus of better B-movies, assembling the occasional “so-bad-it’s-good” moment within its remarkably tedious eighty-four…
Half of a Yellow Sun is constructed around the proven formula of personal drama against the backdrop of political upheaval. The personal drama involves the many infidelities – and repercussions that follow – of a group of Nigerian bourgeoisie played by the likes of Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anika Noni Rose and John Boyega. The…
“I don’t see nothin’ but what I’m lookin’ at.” This line – or variations thereof – is repeated in John Slattery’s God’s Pocket, as ordinary folk reassure one another that they have no interest in the other’s minor misdeeds. It’s also a reasonable description of my reaction to the film; it’s not bad, but it…
This satirical take on the degradation of ‘60s counter-culture contains genuine insight, positioning Nixon’s election – seven years prior to filming – as the death knell for hippies. The narrative uses the election as backdrop rather than focus, however, centring its story on the collaborations and copulations of lothario hairdresser George (Warren Beatty; the synchronicity…
I love films that gradually sneak up on you, films that effortlessly establish an engaging world without an overarching conflict before developing into something possessing immense emotional weight. The necessary balance to achieve this kind of affecting social realism must be difficult to attain, but it’s on full display in Clio Barnard’s surprisingly touching The…
Confession: I spent the majority of Vampire Hunter D thoroughly puzzled. Not necessarily at the narrative – though its convoluted miasma of vampire aristocracy, big guns and faces-in-hands is a good distance from coherent – but at how little the film in question met my expectations. Didn’t I watch this a while ago? Didn’t it…
You could probably make an argument that Fear and Desire, Stanley Kubrick’s debut feature film (later described by the man himself as “amateurish”), is some kind of lost masterpiece. The argument would likely involve cherry-picking the film’s rudimentary anti-war themes and include a lot of stills. Unfortunately, when you actually watch the damn thing –…
Margin Call seems like the perfect post-Wolf of Wall Street palate cleanser. Scorsese’s film wielded kinetic entertainment as provocation, presenting the unlimited excess of the American dream before turning the camera on the audience and insisting on their culpability. Margin Call isn’t on the same level, trading absurd hedonism for dry didacticism on the verge…
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