Tag: film

Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

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First published on Little White Lies (3rd February 2012) //

Originally conceived of as a mini-series in his native Sweden, Ingmar Bergman’s film (or more accurately the shovel with which he digs a grave for marriage) originally aired to universal acclaim in 1973. The theatrical version, and the one you’d probably find on DVD, is a cut that shaved off some 130 minutes, yet left intact all of its spiky trauma.

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Shame (2011) Review

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First published on Spike Magazine (16th January 2012) //

Steve McQueen’s second feature is a visually arresting, thematically dense piece of cinema, that may, and probably will, prove to be an important film in years to come. That is, if enough people get to see it. Having been cursed with a NC-17 rating in the US and a limited release in the UK, it seems those it may have been intended for will be largely unaware of its arrival.

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We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Review

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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.

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Lint The Movie (2011) Review

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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).

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A Screaming Man (2010) Review

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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.

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