Film

Disney princesses have been around since the 30s and have been inspiring girls around the world ever since. With a number of films, spin offs, albums, video games, theme parks and attractions under their belt, there is very little that we don't know about them. Up until recently one of those mysteries was what cars would they drive if they were real. But, thanks to our friends over at OSV we now know the answer. The vehicle leasing company have created a...

By Michael McNulty The end of another work week and it’s time to kick back in front of the box and settle into another great film. TGIFF: Thank God it’s Forgotten Film Friday. John Frankenheimer’s Seconds is a science fiction thriller with a pinch of horror delicately sprinkled over top. Released in 1966, the film never found an audience and was so poorly received at Cannes it was booed. This was the result of the commercial popularity of screen heartthrob,...

By Linda Marric First released in 1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats The Soul has become one of the German filmmaker’s most poignant work to date. This beautifully crafted melodrama deals with themes of love, alienations and racism in post-war Germany. Credited by some as being single-handedly responsible for reviving German cinema after the war, Fassbinder’s films were part of the New German Cinema movement, and saw him become one of the most influential directors of his time, at...

Never mind knocking, you’d be better off giving this uninspired urban chiller from director Caradog James the widest of berths. His 2013 debut feature, The Machine, may have garnered enough critical praise to suggest he was a filmmaker who could talk the talk, but Don’t Knock Twice, his stagnant second film, indicates that he’s yet to acquire the creative confidence needed to walk the walk. What makes this filmic failure all the more frustrating is that within the narrative is...

By Linda Marric @linda_marric Hailed as one of the most talented and prolific directors of his generation, it is deeply satisfying to see how Ben Wheatley manages to come up with the goods year after year. Fans and critics alike can breathe a sigh of relief to discover that his latest offering is every bit as exhilarating as his earlier work. After a brief absence during the making of his critically acclaimed adaptation of J.G Ballard’s High-Rise, Wheatley is back...

One could contemplate, for hours, the arguments for & against the judgment of director Rupert Sanders & his Hollywood moguls to cast a very caucasian Scarlett Johansson in the lead role of a live-action remake that’s based on an adored Japanese property, but the conclusion would ultimately be the same; no matter who they picked to play the iconic Major of Section 9 squadron, it wouldn’t make this drab & inert sci-fi thriller any more involving. Indeed, Johansson is arguably...

By Linda Marric In A Quiet Passion, Terence Davies’ delivers one of the wittiest and most accomplished screenplays of his career. This semi-biographical account of American poet and famous recluse Emily Dickinson, features a wonderfully eclectic cast and stars Cynthia Nixon as Dickinson herself and the excellent Catherine Bailey as the outspoken Miss Vrylling Buffam. Also known as Miss VB, Buffam’s friendship with Dickinson is often credited for taking the usually introverted poet out of her sombre humdrum life, and...

Shades of Spielbergian energy cast an endearing silhouette over this airy but assured big-screen adaptation of Spain’s much-loved 1950s comic book series ‘Zipi y Zape’; an affectionately adventurous vigour that matches the irresistibly mischievous vim of José Escobar Saliente’s original strip. Sent away to summer school as a punishment for their unruly behaviour, the titular twins (Raúl Rivas & Daniel Cerezo) find themselves at the mercy of an oppressive teaching establishment that forbids all forms of recreation & entertainment. Determined...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain @Wyndhamhp With all the attention around Jackie – the Jackie Kennedy biopic currently in cinemas – it would be easy to forget that Chilean director Pablo Larraín has another equally interesting film ready for release. Pablo Neruda, a poet and politician who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, is as compelling a central figure as the former First Lady and more than worthy of our time and attention. Set in a conflicted post-war Chile,...