The World Is Yours: Power and Decay in Scarface and Carlito’s Way Rob Salusbury September 11, 2020 Analysis, Features, Opinion, Spotlight Few directors can boast a more diverse filmography than Brian De Palma. The legendary filmmaker’s work has stretched from taut psychological thrillers to disturbing horrors and big budget action vehicles....
Blade Runner’s Visual Construction of the Future Weiting Liu September 4, 2020 Analysis, Features, Opinion Blade Runner's science fiction cyberpunk world is anchored in the classic noir genre’s sombre aesthetics. But it also subverts them. The film combines urban decay in the high-tech metropolis of a futuristic...
Disney’s Live Action Remakes Are in Need of Life Scott Wilson September 3, 2020 Analysis, Features, Opinion Disney’s 1994 The Lion King is full of life, death, and the harmony in between. At a tight 89 minutes, it never runs out of steam, and its colour palette is as vibrant as its song book. Part of the "Big...
In A World: Cinema’s Most Innovative Trailers George Howarth September 3, 2020 Features, Opinion, Top 10 So you're a director, you've made your genre-defining debut picture, and now it's time to convince the viewing public that your film blows the other cinematic dross out of the water. But how do you prove it?...
Love Letter: Buster Keaton’s One Week, 100 Years On Jess Goodman September 1, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia “Who would not wish to live a hundred years in a world where there are so many people who remember with gratitude and affection a little man with a frozen face who made them laugh a bit long years ago when...
At 70, Rashomôn Remains the Best Blockbuster Hollywood Never Made Jack Cameron August 28, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Torrential rain batters against the skeleton of a half-destroyed building, where two men shelter inside. They are quiet and shell-shocked; ‘I can’t understand it. I can’t understand it at all’ is all...
Christopher Nolan and the Problem with the Good Lie Jack Cameron August 19, 2020 Analysis, Opinion Tenet is just around the corner (although the corner keeps getting further away), fuelling cineaste hopes that this year won’t be a total cinematic write-off. And yet, the hype just doesn't seem to be there....
Me and the Cult Leader – An Interview with Director Atsushi Sakahara Sophie Maxwell August 13, 2020 Behind The Curtain, Features, Interview In 1995 members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo (now named Aleph) deposited bags of sarin gas along Tokyo’s subway line during rush hour. It was an act of domestic terrorism that killed 13 people and has...
Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Edgar Wright’s Perfect Adaptation Rory Steabler August 10, 2020 Analysis, By The Book, Features Ten years ago, Scott Pilgrim vs the World bombed at the box office. Director Edgar Wright had made a name for himself with his first two features: Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, a pair of gag-heavy genre...
Unbridled Hope in On the Town Anna McKibbin August 1, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Before the three protagonists of Gene Kelly’s On the Town come bounding into frame, the audience is greeted with a series of sweeping shots of the static New York skyline. We see a construction worker...
Forty Years On, Caddyshack Remains a Cinderella Story Carmen Paddock July 23, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia There are messy films that have aimed at greatness. Films whose evident care, visionary goal, and meticulous craftsmanship are apparent through the shipwreck of ambition. There are others that are deliberately...
Why are Filmmakers Falling for Monochrome? Rob Salusbury July 22, 2020 Analysis, Features, Opinion It may feel like a lifetime ago now but it was only back in February when Jane Fonda opened that golden envelope and sent the film world into rapture. The cinematic sensation of 2019, Parasite became the...
Atonement and the Precarity of Desire Anahit Behrooz July 17, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Atonement was the film that made me fall in love with cinema. There had been films before and innumerable films since, but nothing has ever approached that heart-stopping, locking-eyes-across-a-crowded-room...
The Painted Bird and Depicting the Holocaust on Film Rob Salusbury July 15, 2020 Analysis, Opinion The Holocaust is, without a doubt, the toughest topic to discuss in modern history. The mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime during World War Two was a defining moment in the history of mankind:...
Inception and the Time of Capitalism Anahit Behrooz July 14, 2020 Analysis, Close-Up, Features Once upon a time, so my head canon goes, a drunk philosophy fresher told Christopher Nolan that time is a construct and Nolan has never looked back. The majority of his films are characterised by their focus...