21 Jump Street
By . Published 27 June 2012
I had a dream. Not the usual one where I'm sent back to school with – for an unexplained but apparently plausible reason – no clothes on. No, this one...
Film > DVDs
Rampart
By . Published 22 June 2012A sinking familiarity greets Rampart’s setup. From its plot (corruption in the LAPD) to its players (internal affairs, district attorneys and no-good hoodlums), the film patrols oft-walked streets. The Rampart...
The Lost Weekend
By . Published 22 June 2012From its elegant, telling opening shot – a slow pan across the New York skyline ending at an open window with a bottle suspended on a rope below – it...
The Squad
By . Published 07 June 2012The military-horror genre is a tricky nut to crack. Reducing hardened combatants to blubbering wrecks is an effective way of fostering fear in an audience, but there’s always a niggling...
Catch .44
By . Published 07 June 2012Bruce Willis' latest vehicle is a dismal, cliched gangster flick that fails to entertain on any level.
War of the Dead
By . Published 07 June 2012Uninspiring low-budget zombie horror fails to excite.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
By . Published 07 June 2012A Cold War-era Russian Sherlock Holmes adaptation with fantastic performances and bleak, beautiful scenery.
You Only Live Once
By . Published 07 June 2012A classic performance from Henry Fonda and the masterful touch of director Fritz Lang make this a classic of the film noir genre.
Coriolanus
By . Published 01 June 2012Ralph Fiennes directorial debut is a grim, gritty and challenging adaptation of a lesser-known Shakespeare play.
Black Pond
By . Published 08 May 2012Watching dream sequences is often like listening to someone telling you about their dream: nonsensical, dull and pointless. Black Pond, a low budget feature by two first time directors, contains...
Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society
By . Published 04 May 2012A cyber-enhanced anti-terrorist group tracking down a network of lunatics in futuristic Japan sounds appealing, but this second animated sequel to the TV series based on the films based on...
Lucky Luke
By . Published 03 May 2012Though he’s been gun-slinging since the forties, comic-strip cowboy Lucky Luke’s golden age came under the auspices of Asterix creator René Goscinny. Released elsewhere in Europe back in 2009, it...
Twice Around the Daffodils
By . Published 24 April 2012Produced, written and directed by the team behind the Carry On series and set in a tuberculosis ward, Twice Around the Daffodils (1962) presents an awkward mix of saucy laughs...
Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
By . Published 06 April 2012It seems ironic that a filmmaker famed for his zero pretence, zero budget exploitation flicks should have such starry disciples, with Jack Nicholson and Ron Howard among those paying tribute...
La Grande Illusion
By . Published 04 April 2012Perhaps the most striking thing about Jean Renoir's Le Grande Illusion - released in a restored version to mark its 75th anniversary - is its faith in a common humanity...
A Midnight Clear
By . Published 04 April 2012Although perhaps not the cult classic that the accompanying publicity would like us to believe it is, A Midnight Clear is a worthwhile watch, not least for the presence of...
Encounters
By . Published 02 April 2012This new collection from the BFI presents four classic short films of gay cinema, rescued from obscurity, cleaned up and given some love. The 1960s and 70s were challenging times...
Mother and Child
By . Published 02 April 2012Mother and Child steps into the lives of middle-aged Karen (Annette Bening), once a teen mother, her estranged, solitary, and fiercely independent daughter Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), and Lucy (Kerry Washington),...
Crows Zero
By . Published 26 March 2012Suzuran Senior High School for Boys is notorious as 'the toughest in the nation', an educational establishment where the droog-like pupils indulge in perpetual ultra-violence and the unrestrained use of...
Chung Kuo China
By . Published 14 March 2012In 1972, before impending Sino hegemony and fear of the day the tanks roll down Princes Street, China was a secretive state hidden behind a bamboo curtain. Yet this same...
