DVD & VOD

Written by Leslie Byron Pitt It’s still hard to imagine that there were financiers who were willing to take a chance on a horror film like Re-Animator. This is meant favourably, as the 1985 Stuart Gordon film is the type of deranged cult classic that would manipulate young minds into full blown horror hounds. Horror films like Re-Animator feel like lightening in a bottle. A perfect storm of confidence and craziness. When filmmakers throw caution to the wind and the...

Written by Leslie Byron Pitt/@Afrofilmviewer Kent Jones’s pithy and informative documentary; Hitchcock/Truffaut is released via home format, soon after film critics and viewers alike, have been in remembrance of Roger Ebert’s passing three short years ago. Hitchcock/Truffaut is also finding its way to homes not soon since the dying down of the critical mauling, fan defending theatrical release of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. The connective tissue of these three events is simply thus: Art in however it’s consumed...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt/@Afrofilmviewer Very much a cult curiosity, Black Mama White Mama condenses a truck load of plotting into what is effectively an exploitation chase flick. The results vary. While it’s fun to see a film which heavily influenced Quentin Tarantino, the film is so interested in stuffing itself with mobsters, corrupt cops and revolutionaries that the more interesting elements sometimes get lost. Set in an unknown exotic location (the film was shot in the Philippines), Pam Grier...

By Leslie Byron Pitt/@Afrofilmviewer Seth Rogan’s Christmas comedy the night before runs on a very defined “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule. This adult x-mas yarn has Rogan playing side kick (along with Anthony Mackie) to Joseph Gorden-Levitt’s Ethan, whose quest to find and enjoy New York’s dopest secret festive party, plays off very much in the way that you would expect it to. With varying results. There isn’t that much to expect and little to say about...

By Leslie Byron Pitt/@Afrofilmviewer This writer remembers trying awkwardly to impress an ex with Waking Life. Much like what one hears about David Forster Wallace’s Infinite Jest or Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Betty Blue (1986), Waking Life does feel like one of those features that certain inelegant young (male) students would use to show their “depth”. Drunkenly pontificating on the meaning of life to “display their knowledge” but probably just trying to use it to score some points with the opposite sex....

By Michael McNulty Extraction could not have been more appropriately titled. Like having all four of your molars pulled at once it requires a general anesthetic to get you through it. As unimaginative as that was, it’s on a level with the quality of this film. Former CIA operative Leonard Turner, played by a Bruce Willis (who must have stipulated in his contract that he would only provide a level of enthusiasm equal to that of a slug) is kidnapped...

Review by Miranda Schiller/@mirandadadada   Enfant terrible of French Cinema, driving force of the Film Noir and Nouvelle Vague movements, Godard is the name you drop when wanting to appear knowledgeable and Europhile. And with good reason. Time to revisit (or discover) some of his most influential films in this newly released Blu Ray box set. It certainly gives an indication of Godard's bandwidth of themes and artistic expressions, from his most well-known, the iconic Breathless, to the gloomy dystopia Alphaville,...

By Leslie Byron Pitt @Afrofilmviewer To utilise the vernacular that Dope uses, the soundtrack to Rick Famuyiwa’s fourth film is well…Dope. A quick glimpse of the film credits should have a viewer spy the names of Sean “Puffy” Combs and Pharrell Williams as executive producers. The film is filled with so many nineties hip-hop gems, it’s hard not to nod your head. There’s so much music, that the non-diegetic sound becomes wall-to-wall. It becomes distracting. Almost enough to forgo the...

By Leslie Byron Pitt @Afrofilmviewer It’s often said that you don’t watch porn for its plot. The same can certainly be said for Gaspar Noe’s indulgent Love. For all it’s on screen ejaculation and 3D Penises thrusting out at the audience, Noe cannot hide that this is a tediously overlong piece with an under baked plot. While Love is certainly a more sensitive and personal film in comparison to previous features (I Stand Alone (1998), Irréversible (2002), Enter the Void...