Review

By Cleaver Patterson. Several films have attempted to revisit Frank L. Baum’s magical land of Oz, since Judy Garland first walked the yellow brick road over seventy years ago. So, considering such efforts as the dubious Michael Jackson / Diana Ross vehicle The Wiz (1978) and a Muppet television version […]

By Cleaver Patterson. Some people seem predestined to play certain roles. Seldom, however, do you find a complete cast so perfectly suited to their parts as that of Stoker (2013), the new gothic thriller from Korean director Park Chan-wook. Holding the unfortunate accolade of being the last work on which […]

By Jacob Mertens. Can images invoking a sense of awe bring a man closer to God? If so, then Ang Lee’s Life of Pi could have rested easily as its titular character raged aloud to an unseen deity, watching as lightning struck the ocean, its light spreading through the water […]

By Cleaver Patterson. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have, during the long and varied history of their annual award ceremony, shown favour towards three things – period drama, films which focus on physically or mentally challenged characters, and a liberal sprinkling of controversial, often divisive, political intrigue. […]

By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Yasujiro Ozu is no longer a name unknown in the Western world; for a long time, this “most Japanese” of directors was overshadowed on the international scene by Akira Kurosawa, whose flashier, more action oriented style translated much more easily to 1950s American culture, and paved […]

By Cleaver Patterson. Given the subject matter of The ABCs of Death (2012), the new compilation horror movie from producers Ant Timpson and Tim League, and directors including Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film [2010]) and Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police [2008]), it was inevitable that it would, to a greater […]

By Robert Kenneth Dator. “Featuring Enfant Terrible Street Superstars” This is not so much a title as a claim from director-producer Fabrizio Federico. Yes, there is a cast of dozens in Black Biscuit, street people all, and the disenfranchised, and those just slightly round the bend, and some who appear […]

By Cleaver Patterson. There is a certain type of film so caught up in a sense of its own importance, that it becomes the perfect embodiment of the very thing it claims it is trying to avoid – conformity. Many (though not all) independent films are in danger of falling […]

By Jacob Mertens. A woman sits on her living room floor, lips parched, transcribing Henry David Thoreau’s Walden by hand. Each time she finishes a page, she folds the paper into a loop on a paper chain and takes a sip of water. Lately, she shares her house with a […]

By Jacob Mertens. For those who love film, there will always be seminal viewings that helped foster that love. And I do not mean watching classics on Blu-Ray or DVD, or even cassette tape, digesting the film long after its vibrant beginnings. I mean seeing a film in its theatrical […]