By Paul Risker. From horror to comedy by way of black humour, this list reads like a roll call of honour that reiterates the importance of the Ealing canon in British cinema: Dead of Night (1945), Passport to Pimlico (1949), Whisky Galore (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) […]
Bollywood: Gods, Glamour and Gossip (2012)
July 16, 2015
A Book Review by Alison Frank. It is difficult for a book of just over 100 pages to cover any topic in sufficient detail; a decent overview of one director’s career, perhaps, or an in-depth reading of a single film. Nevertheless, Wallflower’s Short Cuts series has the ambitious aim of […]
American Movies vs European Films: a Review of Leaves of the Tree
By Noah Charney. There are some films that you watch and repeatedly think to yourself, “Wow, that’s beautiful.” The director, cinematographer and often-overlooked location scout mesh their talents to harvest the world around them through the camera’s lens. Leaves of the Tree, the debut feature film by director Ante Novakovic, […]
A Romcom About Romcoms: The Film Critic (2013)
July 13, 2015
By Jude Warne. Ideal film criticism is that which is as objective as possible. This is to ensure that the reader of the criticism is the recipient of factual information, from which he or she can derive a personal conclusion as to whether or not he or she might like […]
Banished to Strangerland
July 10, 2015
By Elias Savada. The psychological story and claustrophobic/expansive landscape seem familiar, especially for fans of the series The Killing (2011-14) and Broadchurch (2013- ), recently watched locales where anyone and everyone might be guilty. Suspects (of something) are a-plenty in this return to Australian indie cinema, after a two-decade absence, by […]
A Debut Emerges: Rebels of the Neon God (1992)
July 7, 2015
By Paul Risker. As Rebels of the Neon God (1992) opens, one cannot help but be struck by the weighty feel of the images. It is perhaps something within the shot selection in Ming-Liang Tsai’s debut (now in release in the US), the framing and positioning of the actors in relation to the […]
The Suspense of Climate Change: Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously
July 6, 2015
By John Duncan Talbird. The Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously is aware of how to make the unsexy topic of climate change both engaging and even suspenseful. Not surprising as two of its executive producers are action movie veterans, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Each episode is split into […]
Escalation as Class Conflict in Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales
July 5, 2015
By William Repass. Newton’s Third Law does not hold sway in Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes, 2014). On the contrary, action leads only to overreaction, effect revenging itself on cause. Each of the six thematically interlocking shorts that comprise the film advances by means of escalation. In […]
Big Game (2015): Hi/Low Concept
June 28, 2015
By Elias Savada. If Oskari Kontio, the cautious, newly-minted 13-year-old boy that is half of the unusual buddy team in Big Game, were Jewish, he’s having one heck of a Bar Mitzvah day. Theme: Wilderness Action Adventure on wry. Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander, in his English-language feature debut, is throwing […]
Slow Coen-esque West
June 27, 2015
By Elias Savada. John Ford’s nowhere to be found. Stagecoach (1939) has left the building. There’s also no widescreen, large-ensemble-driven Silverado (1985) on the golden western horizon. Slow West is the latest film that tries to reinvent a genre that has died off more times than John Wayne can remember. And he’s […]