First published on Spike Magazine (15th November 2011) //
From Shotgun Stories writer/director comes a second feature on small town America, another portrait of troubled family which despite its flaws, reaffirms Jeff Nichols’ potential to become an independent cinema mainstay.
First published on Spike Magazine (8th November 2011) //
Lynne Ramsay’s deranged adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s equally deranged novel (which Shriver quite garishly lauds on the film’s poster) is a decent stretch of film that concentrates more on the director’s ambition than it does on the novel’s. The result is a sometimes over-stylised but darkly entertaining genre-mix of gallows humour, psychological horror and suspense; likely to resonate more with shit-scared parents out on ‘date night’ than with their demonic kids, who have probably seen it all before, in more detail, and probably with gory special effects.
Continue reading “We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Review”
First published on Don’t Panic (23rd October 2011) //
Until recently, the promise of Steve Aylett’s £750 foray into feature-length film productions had seemingly been wandering desultorily around the Internet for quite some time, indulging in some shallow vanishing since 2009, popping up here and there on blogs, before triumphantly reappearing for its premiere in Brighton earlier this year. Followed closely by a London screening, it has since been saddled up for a couple more dates, in Northampton (October) and Portland at Bizarro Con 2011 (November).
First published on Asylum.co.uk (July 12th 2011) //
So Jean Luc Godard’s new film is a turkey apparently. But is it a golden turkey. One of those films that’s so bad it’s good?
Some movies are good, some movies are bad. And there are some movies that are good-bad.
So good-bad, in fact, that you get an unwelcome tickly feeling that’s confusing, urging you to fire up your trusty old video player for one more look at its faded VHS glory.
After the break we’ve compiled for your viewing pleasure, some of those golden turkeys adored by fans, and panned by critics, though loved by anyone who has had a moment to enjoy these demonstrations of the endless possibilities the wonderful world of film has to offer. That means you.
First published on Spike Magazine (July 5th 2011) //
Colourful comfort blanket for social misfits or tacky cult-by-numbers debut? Declan Tan reviews J.B. Ghuman’s debut
First published on Spike Magazine (June 28th 2011) //
Yuletide films are a risky proposition (and reviewing them in summer equally so). Can a Norwegian director of note make his mark? Declan Tan finds out
First published on Snipe //
Mahamet-Saleh Haroun’s third cinematic feature, sparse and emotionally kinetic, tells the modern-day allegorical tale of a Chadian man, Adam (Youssouf Djaoro); once unchangeable by the world, and content in his life, while seemingly devoted to his family (but more so his past), who begins to disintegrate as a result of pressures outside his usually taut control; forces which jolt him out of his still-water complacency.
First published on Snipe //
Neds (short for Non-Educated Delinquents in the film) charts the viscous trickle of one gifted boy’s eventual adhesion to the 1970s Glaswegian gang culture, a fate that Peter Mullan (writer-director), now into his third feature, so narrowly avoided in his youth.
First published on Spike Magazine (May 8th 2011) //
Continue reading “Peter Watkins, The Universal Clock and The Monoform”
First published on Snipe //
Jerzy Skolimowski (writer of Knife in the Water, writer-director of Deep End, actor in Before Night Falls) is clearly not a bad sort. His credits speak for themselves. And on top of writing one of Polanski’s greatest hits, he’s won a Golden Bear, Special Jury prizes galore and was even in Eastern Promises, which wasn’t such a farce either.
Internet Present 