Film

With contributions from: James McAllister, Stephen Mayne, Jim Mackney, Michael McNulty, and Sam Inglis The night is dark and full of terrors… but enough about the trick-or-treaters. For us film fans, Halloween is generally a time to indulge in some creepy thrills from the comfort of our sofas, all the while exerting a tremendous amount of willpower by ensuring we don’t eat all the sweets brought for those hooded figures who come knocking on our doors in search of candy…...

By Jim Mackney Nearly forty years have passed since The Shining was first released in 1980. It was Stanley Kubrick’s only proper foray into horror but it can be said that many of his films, A Clockwork Orange for example, have heavily flirted with the genre. This Halloween the film is being rereleased in glorious 4K! Is it worth the admission price, after nearly forty years? The honest answer to this lies somewhere in the unhelpful, no mans land of...

By Michael McNulty Joachim Trier’s latest cinematic instalment, Thelma, is a veritable melting pot of genres.  Part coming of age romance, supernatural mystery-thriller and straight family drama.  This is a dizzyingly tense, low-key film and a subtlety poignant observation on sexuality and repressed desire that wraps itself around you and squeezes. The young, attractive Thelma (Eili Harboe) has moved to Oslo for university.  Away from home for the first time, she is tentatively taking her first steps into a world...

 By Michael McNulty It’s Halloween week.  So, it goes without saying that we’re all looking for films to get the scares in.  For those of you looking for a break from the Slasher films of yesteryear and their countless reboots, prequels, sequels and mash ups here’s a chilling alternative, John McNaughton’s 1986 film, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Although Henry was released in 1986 it didn’t really see much screen time until 1990.  This was largely due to the...

I've deliberately left the first two names you'd think of off this list. Spinal Tap and The Blues Brothers are, of course, the gold standard of movie bands, but they seemed such obvious picks that I wanted to use those two slots for other bands. Josie and the Pussycats: Josie and the Pussycats Josie and the Pussycats have had several different incarnations, in comics, animation and now on Netflix's Riverdale, but it's the version from the criminally underrated 2001 film...

By Anna Power Opening this year’s London Film Festival,  Andy Serkis’ directorial debut, a biopic of Robin Cavendish, a polio survivor and lifelong disability rights campaigner and with Jonathan Cavendish – Robin’s son, as Producer. Despite a syrupy start, wherein the couple meet and idyllically fall in love at first sight at a cricket match, the film turns towards tragedy when Robin is struck down with polio whilst working as a tea broker in Kenya leaving him paralysed and unable...

It is fair to say that Brawl in Cell Block 99 delivers on its title. It’s the kind of film that makes you feel like a bad person for liking it. Set in the Sothern states of the USA, the film opens with Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) losing his job as a tow truck driver. He goes home to find that his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) has been having an affair. After deciding to forgive her, he promises her a...

Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors, adapted by Riwia Brown from Alan Duff’s novel of the same name was, at the time of its release in 1994, the highest grossing film at the New Zealand box office. A position it held for nearly a decade, until the release of Whale Rider. Centring on the Heke family, Tamahori’s film provides an uncompromising insight into the Maori experience of inner city living, alcoholism, and domestic abuse. Jake the Mus (Temuera Morrison), on account...

Winner of this year’s Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Dina follows its title character as she prepares to get married to her fiancé Scott, who works as a greeter at Walmart. They are both on the autism spectrum and each struggle with it in different ways. For the most part, though, they lead fairly normal lives. Scott enjoys rock music and Dina has a liking for the Kardashians. As the film progresses we learn about the hardships that Dina...