DVD & VOD

By Ben New Marjane Satrapi, writer/director of the multi award winning semi-autobiographical animation Persepolis (2007), has a stab at creating this offbeat quirky comedy scripted by the versatile (and one time Eerie Indiana episode) writer Michael R. Perry. Jerry, played by Ryan Reynolds, is a factory worker who lives alone above a bowling ally. That is except for his pet cat Mr. Whiskers and his dog Bosco who, also voiced by Reynolds, insist on giving him polarising advice and commentary...

By Matt Keay To call The Happiness of the Katakuris a family drama would be to diminish its heart. To refer to it as a black comedy, however, would be to take away from the baffling and beautiful aspects of a film that contains a subplot of a Japanese confidence man claiming to be the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth II. Takashi Miike’s frankly bonkers 2001 musical/animation/love story/drama deals with the perils of setting up a bed and breakfast where the guests...

By Leslie Byron Pitt, @Afrofilmviewer In terms of adult mainstream cinema, the final quarter of last year was dominated by talk of the gender politics of David Fincher’s slick adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel; Gone Girl. The film, as well as the book, merrily sticks and twists the knife on the uglier side of a decaying relationship. Executed with extravagant twists and perverse cruelty, Gone Girl highlighted the battle of the sexes the only way America wants to these days,...

By Leslie Byron Pitt @Afrofilmviewer After a more than favourable year at Cannes and the Academy Awards, Wild Tales finally lands itself on Home Release for members of the great unwashed like myself. While the likes of Mark Kermode and Peter Bradshaw have kind words with this vengeful, dark comedy. I found despite some laughs along the way, my enjoyment of the Wild Tales to be wildly inconsistent. The set-up is an intriguing one. An anthology of six twisted tales...

By Emma Silverthorn @HouseOf_Gazelle Kajaki is based on the true story of  a group of soldiers, who in 2006 whilst on a routine expedition of the Kajaki dam in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, stumbled right into a minefield. What followed in reality was five hours of hell as the men waited on rescuing helicopters. One by one the mines activated leaving seven of the men severely injured, (blown off limbs and punctured lungs), whilst the remaining uninjured men attempted to calm...

By Adam Turner @AdamTurnerPR The Man Who Saved the World is a Danish historical thriller directed by Peter Anthony. It recounts the story of a modest, yet heroic, Russian Lieutenant General who in 1983 saved the world from, what could have been, the most disastrous nuclear war ever. The main character, Stanislav Petrov, is a remarkable man with an extraordinary story. His sagacious decision, when in charge of a Soviet nuclear early warning centre during the Cold War, saved millions...

By Ellery Nick @Ellery_Nick James corrects his older brother, ‘It’s not Jimmy anymore, its James.’ Reluctantly, Frankie accepts this and we take James’s point. He wants to be taken seriously. Frankie and Jimmy? This isn’t some toothpick-chewing bank robbery yarn set in the Big Easy after all. In American Heist, Hayden Christensen plays muscle-car driving James, who is less than thrilled about older brother Frankie’s return from prison after managing to pull his socks up and re-enter the civilised world...

By Leslie Byron Pitt If you have a quick glance at the IMDB page of Futuro Beach director Karim Aïnouz, you would find a substantial amount of award nominations. This includes Futuro Beach being selected for the Golden Bear prize at The Berlin Film Festival. However, after sitting through the beautiful yet vacuous 106 minutes of abstract visuals and bland melodrama, it’s difficult to see why. Opening with a vigorous opening sequence of vast areas of empty beach, overseen by...

By Emma Silverthorn  @HouseOf_Gazelle Coming out tales are up my filmic street. I loved the subject treatment in Appropriate Behaviour and The Way He Looks, (though both these films are about much more than sexual discovery), which sadly threw Silent Youth into an especially sad shade. The film details a chance encounter of two lonely boys wandering the streets of Berlin through the night and into the early hours of the morning, an encounter that develops into an awkward romance....