Better known for her role as psychopathic vampire Drusilla in the popular fantasy series Buffy Vampire Slayer, writer-director Juliet Landau delivers a rather disappointing first feature in A Place Among The Dead. The film is part factual, part fiction and purports to be an exploration of the modern cultural obsession with vampires. Landau – daughter of Hollywood legend Martin Landau (Mission: Impossible) and actress Barbara Bain – plays a fictional…
Read MoreReview: The Climb
In The Climb, director Michael Angelo Covino presents a downbeat and deliciously off-kilter comedy which spans years in the life of Mike (Covino) and Kyle (co writer Kyle Marvin), two bickering best friends who fall out over a woman. We first meet Mike and Kyle on the eve of Kyle’s wedding to fiancée Eva (a brief yet memorable turn courtesy of French actor Judith Godrèche). Whilst discussing their enduring friendship,…
Read MoreOne Night In Miami – LFF 2020 Review
After three decades as an actor Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami is a vibrant look at the conflicts and battles that defined the civil rights movement. Adapted from Kemp Powers’ stage play of the same name, the film mostly takes place in an unassuming hotel where four iconic figures meet and discuss how their fame and power can be used to progress the black cause. Malcolm X…
Read MoreWaves – LFF 2019 Review
Waves begins with a dazzling 360-degree spin inside Tyler’s (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) car as he drives with one leg dangling out of the window while singing along to the radio with girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie). It’s a beautifully choreographed moment that captures the sparkling chemistry between these young lovers. It’s immediately clear we are in the hands of a filmmaker brimming with ideas and stylistic verve. Trey Edward Shults’ overwhelmingly…
Read MoreFilm Review: A Season in France
Chadian director, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun offers us a necessary and political insight into asylum, Europe and family ties. From Bangui to Paris, brothers Abbas (Eriq Ebouaney) and Etienne (Bibi Tanga) escape their country where they both worked as teachers to a new life in a country where they must take jobs as grocers and security guards. Abbas struggles to let go of his old life, speaking to the ghosts of his…
Read MoreFilm Review: High Life
An insular tale of life in space, High Life gives Claire Denis’ dark, explorative filmmaking the zero gravity treatment. Abandoned and shunned by society, a group of death row inmates are sent to space, their goal to capture and record a black hole’s rotating energy, essentially, a suicide mission.
Read MoreFilm Review: 30 Miles from Nowhere
A group of friends, a cabin in the middle of nowhere and shit phone reception can only mean one thing; this film is unlikely to end well.
Read MoreFilm Review – Steel Country (A Dark Place)
Post-Fleabag withdrawal will have Andrew Scott admirers chomping at the bit for another heavenly performance, cue Simon Fellows’ new thriller Steel Country set in Pennsylvania’s backwaters, adorned with Trump propaganda, American flags and water towers. There’s no mistaking what country we’re in as sanitation worker Donald Devlin (Scott) begins an obsessive investigation following the death of a local boy.
Read MoreFilm Review: The Spy Who Fell to Earth
When Asraf Marwan fell to his death from a balcony in London in 2007 his secrets died with him too. Hailed as the best spy of the 20th Century, Egypt-born Marwan who after marrying Mona Nasser, daughter of President Nasser eventually moved to London to pursue his Masters in Chemistry. Marwan is considered as a hero and one of the world’s greatest modern spies by both Egypt and Israel, but…
Read MoreFilm Review: A Trip to the Moon
Director Joaquín Cambre’s debut feature A Trip to the Moon (Un Viaje a la Luna) is an otherworldly coming-of-age film that follows Tomas (Ángelo Mutti Spinetta) as he navigates his way through life and ultimately, through space. A unique family drama coupled with nuanced performances is certainly something audiences wouldn’t have seen before, but there might be a reason for that.
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