Creativity and Culture. All rights in film images are reserved by the filmmakers. Words are my own.
Social realism by way of eighties Helsinki; Shadows in Paradise is early, yet masterful Aki Kaurismäki. The film follows Nikander, a garbage collector, as he goes about his day-to-day life, which is as dull as you might expect. He works in a two-man team (under his superior), traveling the city and taking in the trash. By night,… Continue reading Film Review | Shadows in Paradise
What a title; and yes, literally, the title, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It's phonetically satisfying to read, and as a title of a motion picture, implies terror, gore, and revulsion. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has the three in droves. It's a film that suggests it's based on true events, something that was later revealed to… Continue reading Film Review | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974]
Vampire's Kiss is the ultimate Nicolas Cage film, and a bizarre, surreal and hilarious horror-comedy. It's a film about a yuppie; Peter Loew (Cage) in late eighties New York City, single and rich, and mentally unhinged. His time is divided between working as an executive in his literary agency, nights on the town, and trips to… Continue reading Film Review | Vampire’s Kiss
Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan as you'd expect. Big, boisterous, and loud; and in terms of scale, you can't get much grander than the atomic bomb. In that sense, Oppenheimer is Nolan to the nth degree. He's always been about creating larger-than-life cinema, even to the detriment of logic in his screenplays. This film follows the formula and then some.… Continue reading Film Review | Oppenheimer
La Haine is a bold and fierce film about social and racial injustice in nineties Paris. Released in 1995, it was celebrated on release and has rightfully gone on to be lauded as a modern classic. The film follows three friends from different ethnic backgrounds - Jewish, African, and Arabic - in a Parisian banlieue, the day after… Continue reading Film Review | La Haine
Dev Patel's directorial debut, Monkey Man, is a brutal, bloody and unrelenting revenge thriller from the streets of India. The film follows our protagonist, played by Patel and unnamed other than in the film's title, who takes part in violent and seedy underground fights for cash. He is representative of India's underclass, with a willingness to… Continue reading Film Review | Monkey Man
Denis Villeneuve's adaption of Dune brings with it a sense of remarkable scale and style. Riding high on the successes of Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, Dune continues Villeneuve's flair for capturing epic, otherworldly escapes. Frank Herbert's original landmark 1965 science fiction novel was, in fact, long regarded as unfilmable. A melting pot of themes, references and sociopolitical commentary, the overriding view… Continue reading Film Review | Dune [2021]
Ben Mullinkosson's The Last Year of Darkness is an intimate and vibrant documentary-exposé on nightlife subculture in Chengdu, China. The title, ostensibly, refers to the film's central nightclub, Funky Town, in which drag artists, DJs and outcasts gather to drink and smoke copiously. The Last Year of Darkness is a celebration of what happens when… Continue reading Film Review | The Last Year of Darkness
Dune is a mess. It's a grandiose, Hollywood-backed epic with auteur David Lynch at the helm, so the stage should have been set for science fiction greatness. But therein lies the problem. Lynch had come off making the surrealist, art-house portraits Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, and ostensibly had his mind set on something greater. Frank Herbert's 1965 science… Continue reading Film Review | Dune [1984]
Monster is a dense and complex drama by Hirokazu Kore-eda that serves to explore contemporary Japan through the eyes of a mother, her son, and the boy's teacher in an entwined triptych. The film opens with a burning building in the centre of town, lighting up the dead of night. Whilst people take notice and observe,… Continue reading Film Review | Monster
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