When shit hits the fan, we can now all turn to cinema for a dose of inspiration to go through some helluva adversity in pure Hollywood-style. Depending how deep you’re buried in life’s profound shit, the silverscreen already has myriad DIY options for us to choose from, tailoured to your pick-me-up needs. If you’ve given […]
A fiercely independent filmmaker chronicles one of cinema’s most searing non-conformists – sounds like a match made in film heaven. Abel Ferrara, in all creative virtue, attempts to demystify Pier Paolo Pasolini, arguably the most controversial Italian director that ever lived, and in turn sublimating the quintessence of the multi-hyphenate’s vast artistic, political and moral […]
Jack O’Connell possesses about him the kind of gritty, British masculinity that’s rarely been around the silver screen for a while. His is a refreshing presence, and also very impressive how he manages to convey a deep-seated vulnerability whilst maintaining intensity. He’s definitely matured since his days as the violent, womanising Cook on Channel 4’s Skins – […]
The story of Alan Turing is truly a tragic one. After breaking the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park, the mathematician endured several long, lonely years before being arrested for “gross indecency” for his homosexuality. After being forced to undergo chemical castration, he committed suicide in 1954. The Imitation Game tries its very best and does a […]
All hail Peter Strickland. At last, a new film that magnificently refuses to harken to your sad, mediocre, low-grade, commercial expectations. To sum up his third feature in a mere few words is a frightful mission, but this we’re certain of – it’s a mighty, majestic ‘fuck you’ to linearity and convention. In this day […]
It’s been a while since Kristen Stewart has treated us with her signature brand of what we may now call as “constipated scowl” acting. Two years back, anyone who paid to see the closing chapter of the Twilight saga and Snow White and Huntsman got the full shivery, lip-biting, eyelid-flickering, perpetually semi-gaped mouth Stewart treatment, […]
The secret formula on How To Make It Big these days must be extremely obvious by now. You just have to look at YA adaptations. Except you’d take the shameless sex novel route, the teen tome is kind of a big deal at the moment, with Hollywood patenting the alchemy of turning pages into cash-grabs, […]
David Fincher’s latest in a long line of tonally faithful adaptations takes new-found forms of good and evil in stride, as it plays host to the listless. Taken from one of 2013’s most celebrated novels, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl intimately explored a progressively complex system of deceptive narration and readership allegiance. Flynn’s self-adapted screenplay sees […]
In Mischa Kamp’s understated Boys, the wordless moments speak volumes. A lingering glance across the racetrack, a quiet tug of a drawstring hoodie as a gesture of apology, an idyllic, magic-hour swim in a lake that soon transforms into a blissful awakening – it demonstrates that the exquisite execution of details matter the most in […]
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Cinema, perhaps more than any other art form, has explored, celebrated and romanticised the night and all its manifold, mystical shades. From film noir to the poetic realism of Alain Resnais, from the dark dystopia of Terry Gilliam to the nightmarish midnight encounters of David Lynch, right down to the elegant reveries of Woody Allen […]
Since its bow in the London Film Festival last year, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida has quietly burrowed deep into my psyche, refusing to vacate my cerebral cortex with its haunting imagery and quiet tragedy. Finally finding its way to the UK cinemas this weekend, Pawlikowki’s resonant masterpiece is shorn of historical fat and rather makes the […]
To approach a film like Before I Go To Sleep with little knowledge of the narrative, its nifty twists and turns and psychological jolts, isn’t only appropriate but a necessity – just like you would approach any vintage mystery thriller. Overhear a detail and the jigsaw pieces will all soon fall. Read the book and […]
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More thematically and stylistically audacious than any other films you’ll clap your eyes on this year, The Congress melds live-action with 70’s retro animation to often breathtaking effect, purposefully fusing the medium of cinema and graphical art to concoct a potent philosophical critique to the Hollywood industry, crass commercialism and the cultural delusions of our […]
Few dramas are as gentle and sensitive as Hong Khaou’s immensely moving debut Lilting – a film that, when carelessly calibrated, could easily slide down to mawkish grief porn. Its title, which refers to a rhythmn, the cadence of melancholy that flows between and around people after loss, is poetically apt – a sincere, hopeful […]
It’s safe to say that the cinema of South Korean provocateur Kim Ki-Duk isn’t for the faint-hearted. Ostensibly the most batshit of all South Korean directors, if not the entire Asian continent, themes of incest, sexual violence, masochism and Oedipal malaise simmer and boil over his tar-black pot filled with scenes of rape, genital mutilation […]
Based on the true story featured in Lucía Puenzo’s novel of the same name, Wakolda forgoes the easily accessible blatancy of Nazi villainy in favour of an altogether more personal arrangement. By restraining the viewer through spates of singular perspective, Wakolda is often tinged with a foreboding sense of realism. As such, Wakolda’s considered malefactor […]
Filipino auteur Lav Diaz isn’t one for brevity. His brand of cinema – which rivals in length and protraction to that of Hungarian maestro Béla Tarr – requires colossal patience, endurance and a certain cinephilic dedication usually reserved for hardcore arthouse film marathons. Over the last few years, his previous artistically liberated offerings Melancholia (2008), […]
