Carmilla – Review Carmen Paddock October 17, 2020 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in June 2019 as part of our Edinburgh Film Festival coverage. Inspired by a pre-Dracula vampire novella, Emily Harris’ Gothic thriller plays fast and loose with its plot...
Scheme Birds – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 30, 2019 Reviews In Motherwell, Gemma tells us, you end up either ‘locked up or knocked up’. The steel capital of the world died at the hands of Thatcher in the 1980s, and Gemma recounts how the skies turned grey with dust...
Bittersweet Symphony – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews Rich people problems are one of cinema’s perennial favourites; when done well, the results are last year’s Crazy Rich Asians or Joanna Hogg’s upcoming The Souvenir. When done sloppily, self-indulgently,...
Skin – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews There is an argument to be made that white nationalist redemption narratives focus the pain and trauma on the aggressors rather than the communities they terrorise, making them at best valueless and at worst...
Firecrackers – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews What happens when youthful dreams crash into reality? In Firecrackers, writer and director Jasmin Mozaffari follows Lou and Chantal, two teenage Canadians who have saved every penny from their janitorial jobs...
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Edinburgh Film Festival Review Carmen Paddock June 27, 2019 Reviews Based on Shirley Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle never leaves the perspective of 18 year old Merricat (Taissa Farmiga), who lives reclusively with her older sister Constance...
Love Type D – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 27, 2019 Reviews What if being dumped wasn't your fault? This is the belief that Frankie (Maeve Dermody) hangs onto after her ex-boyfriend’s precocious eleven-year-old (Rory Stroud) – who was also employed to dump her –...
The Flip Side – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 27, 2019 Reviews At the opening of Marion Pilowsky’s new rom-com, Ronnie (Emily Taheny) and Henry (Eddie Izzard) are getting cosy on an Adelaide film set – she is the caterer and he is the star, and they are going to move...
Robert the Bruce – Edinburgh Film Festival Review Carmen Paddock June 25, 2019 Reviews The titular character has little to do in this new account, spearheaded by and starring Angus MacFadyen 24 years after his same portrayal in Braveheart. Set after he loses his wife, child, and army, the king...
Strange But True – Edinburgh Film Festival Review Carmen Paddock June 24, 2019 Reviews A panicked young man runs through a forest, moments ahead of an unseen assailant and heavily hampered by a broken leg. The view then abruptly cuts to two days earlier, when his brother’s high school...
The Dead Don’t Die – Edinburgh Film Festival Review Carmen Paddock June 24, 2019 Reviews There is always that friend at parties who tells the same joke on repeat – one which delights them more than the listeners and gets endlessly rephrased with diminishing returns. This is the personification...
She’s Missing – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 20, 2019 Reviews In the final minutes of Alexandra McGuinness’ soul-searching narrative, one of the protagonists is told that "every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness". While She’s Missing evocatively captures this...
Boyz in the Wood – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 20, 2019 Reviews Hot Fuzz meets Trainspotting in this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival opener: a farce that weaves every throwaway gag and ridiculous scenario into a raucous, joyous paean to youthful...
Newton – EIFF 2017 Review Laura Davis June 22, 2017 Reviews Jungle-set political satire from Amit V. Masurkar picks on the Indian electoral process as the butt of its 104-minute-long joke. Much like politics, Newton is a comedy in which two ridiculous male egos make...
The Green Inferno – Review Cameron Ward February 14, 2016 Reviews 1 Comment Making his directorial debut with Cabin Fever in 2002, with a further array of torture porn quickly on the way through Hostels one and two, actor/producer/director Eli Roth freely continues his gore-laden...