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 MoreFilm Essay: Yellow Submarine 4K Reissue
Reviewed by Lee Hill Where did the time go? Fifty years ago, if memory serves, when Yellow Submarine first hit theatres, I was mesmerized by the Gold Key comic tie-in owned by one of my neighbourhood pals. My other Beatle memory of 1968 was seeing the fab four on The Smother Brothers when their promotional films for “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” aired. I didn’t get to see the film properly…
Read MoreFilm Essay: Harlan Ellison Tribute
Harlan Ellison RIP: The Writer on the Edge of Forever Essay by Lee Hill Given that most of his books were out of print when he died, the widespread outpouring of love and admiration for Harlan Ellison belies the writer’s own cynicism about modern popular culture. During the heyday of his career in the 60s and 70s, Ellison dragged science fiction and fantasy (and legions of wallflower-like fans) kicking and…
Read MoreFilm Review: Time Trial
Reviewed by Lee Hill Time Trial is a mesmerising documentary portrait of Scottish cyclist David Millar. He competed in the Tour de France and other world class cycling events with success through much of the late 90s to early naughties. His career coincided with the period when the consensus culture surround doping was coming under greater scrutiny from the press, whistle-blowers and legal investigators. In August 2004, he was banned…
Read MoreEdinburgh Film Festival: L’Apparition
Reviewed by Lee Hill The Catholic Church has seen better days at the cinema. During the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, The Church acted as gatekeeper and censor ensuring that both the Holy Spirit and Hays Code were affirmed. The clergy on film tended to come with a touch of the blarney a la Bing Crosby or as sympathetic, but ineffectual sounding boards like Karl Malden in…
Read MoreFilm Review: Path of Blood
Reviewed by Lee Hill Terrorism is so often framed as an “us” vs. “them” proposition – First World being attacked by everyone else – in mainstream media outlets that it is important to be reminded that the worst impact is still being felt in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South-East Asia. Jonathan Hacker’s documentary, Path of Blood, is an absorbing examination of one such front line, Saudi Arabia. Drawing…
Read MoreFilm Review: In the Fade
Reviewed by Lee Hill As clichés go, “revenge is a dish best served cold” ranks as one of the more vacuous. History is full of countless examples of eye for an eye retribution. Acts of vengeance may simmer. but are rarely far from boiling point. Much of the debate around how to deal with terrorism and its causes strives to get opponents to the negotiating table on the basis that…
Read MoreFilm Review: Studio 54
Reviewed by Lee Hill In the mid-70s, reggae, punk and disco pushed and shoved a complacent rock scene into new musical frontiers. When two Syracuse University buddies, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, with the aid of $500k from silent partner, Jack Dushey, converted an old CBS TV studio in mid-town Manhattan into the legendary dance club, Studio 54, disco got a cocaine fueled boost into the mainstream. From 1977 to…
Read MoreFilm Review: Pandora’s Box BFI Reissue
Reviewed by Lee Hill Film critics are known for superlatives with a shelf-life that makes the average fruit fly seem like one of the immortals. As newspapers and magazines became as quaint as brass rubbings, fewer critics make any money from what they do and being asked to contribute a blurb for a sub-adolescent comic book tie-in, paint-by-numbers rom com or earnest biopic now qualifies as a career high, I…
Read MoreFilm Review: Zama
Reviewed by Lee Hill Zama is a sly historical anti-epic that deconstructs the expectations and assumptions viewers often bring to a certain kind of prestige film. Writer/director Lucrecia Martel’s first feature since The Headless Woman in 2008, follows the tragicomic efforts of a loyal colonial magistrate to maintain dignity as his superiors and those he rules treat him with contempt or indifference.
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