ARROW VIDEO FRIGHTFEST 2018 10 Questions with Johnny Kevorkian What was it about Gavin Williams’s script for AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS you liked so much, and what did you add to make it more personal to you? Well, when I first read the script I thought: “How the hell am I going to make this!” It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I knew it was going to be…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Heiresses
Reviewed by Lee Hill While there is a lot of fun to be had with the new Mission Impossible installment, summer film going is also about counter-programming. And few films achieve this with such calm panache as The Heiresses. This quietly assured debut feature by Marcelo Martinessi won best actress and best film at the Berlin Film Festival, earlier this year. While it does not quite achieve greatness – in…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Negotiator
Reviewed by Lee Hill It’s never a good sign when a film first appears at a creative friendly place like the Sundance Film Festival and then undergoes a change of title when it surfaces at your local multiplex. This is the case of The Negotiator, a ripped from “today’s headlines” (well, 70s/80s Lebanon to be exact) thriller, with a hardboiled take on Middle East realpolitk. Originally called Beirut, The Negotiator…
Read MoreFilm Review: Sicilian Ghost Story
Reviewed by Zoe Margolis Based on the true story of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the teenage boy who was kidnapped by the Sicilian Mafia in the 1990s, and held captive for two years to prevent his father, another Mafia figure, from testifying against them in court, Sicilian Ghost Story wraps this real-life event into a fictional fantasy involving a teenage girl who is intent on finding the missing boy.
Read MoreThe Big Bad Fox and Other Tales
Reviewed by Lee Hill It has become a critical truism in recent years to suggest that the most successful animated films appeal both to adults as well as children. Hasn’t this always been the case? Since Mickey Mouse appeared in Walt Disney’s debut short, Steamboat Willie (1928), Max Fleishman’s Popeye (from the comic strip created by EC Segar) and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, cartoons have often had a cross-generational appeal…
Read MoreFilm Review: Heathers Reissue
Reviewed by Lee Hill First released in the autumn of 1988, Heathers was the little teen suicide film that could. Produced by New World Pictures, a company founded by Roger Corman to nurture everything from Bergman’s Cries and Whispers to Slumber Party Massacre, Heathers was shot over 33 days for $3 million, and it made Winona Ryder and Christian Slater stars for much of the 90s. Focusing on a clique…
Read MoreFilm Review: Apostasy
Reviewed by April McIntyre Apostasy: “The abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle” cites the dictionary, which gives audiences a hint at what to expect from director, Daniel Kokotajlo’s debut, an insight into the lives of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Kokotajo, a former Jehovah’s Witness himself for 10 years shines a light on a community about which many know very little.
Read MoreTrailer: Peterloo by Mike Leigh
The trailer for Mike Leigh’s dramatisation of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre is here. The film which is part of the official selection at Venice Film Festival, will be released in the UK in early november, but we might even get to see it earlier, depending on whether is it also selected to be part of the BFI’s London Film Festival programme in October.
Read MoreMission: Impossible – Fallout Review
Reviewed by Freda Cooper (@FredaTalkingPix) Ethan Hunt is back! It’s the sixth instalment of the Mission:Impossible franchise, but let’s put aside the logic that says there should only ever have been one film with that title. The same argument applied to the original TV series and it never bothered them, so why should Tom Cruise worry about it? After all, this is not a series that demands too much of…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Racer and The Jailbird
Reviewed by Lee Hill Flemish director Michael R Roskam is best known for his noirish debut, Bullhead (2011), a searing character study of a young farmer caught up in the black market for illegal beef products. Bullhead made Matthias Schoenaerts one of the latest stars of European arthouse cinema to cross over to a global audience. It also established Roskam as a director who could combine character driven drama with…
Read More