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.
First published on The Rumpus (21st November 2011) //
A New York transplant working in LA, and son of the legendary experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, Azazel has journeyed steadily through the independent film scene since his debut in 2003 with Nobody Needs to Know.
He arrived this year with Terri, his biggest feature yet, a droll and unsentimental portrait of a pyjama-wearing teenager, played by newcomer Jacob Wysocki. Carer for his ageing uncle (an impressive by Creed Bratton), Terri must also deal with high school, the assistant principal (John C. Reilly) and generally growing up. A well-documented fan of The Clash (he appears unofficially in the Strummer biography, The Future Is Unwritten), Jacobs once said that he wished all of his interviews were about the band. We sat down for a chat about both.
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 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 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.
First published on Snipe //
Ken Loach’s take on Iraq was always going to be one to look out for. After In Our Name, Green Zone, The Hurt Locker and a slurry of others sent hot and steaming down the pipe of supposedly cantankerous cinema, Route Irish is a welcome return to veracity that has undoubtedly been amiss in previous war-film efforts. This isn’t to say that those other films aren’t sincere. Surely their respective producers think and believe the things they project up onto the screen, supposed wisdom in a blindfold, it’s just that no one as qualified or well-informed as Loach has bothered to make a mystery/thrillerama like this, until now.
First published on Snipe //
Starring: Om Puri, Robert Pugh, Jimi Mistry
Directed: Andy DeEmmony
As the long-awaited sequel to the 1999 breakout hit that was East is East, comes scribe Ayub Khan-Din’s West is West, a continuation of the Salford-set story of Sajid (Aqib Khan), jumping us forward five years to 1976. Except this time the plot moves the family (or at least 2 members of it, initially) out from the bleak chip chop and terraces of Greater Manchester to father George’s motherland, Pakistan.
Internet Present 