Film

By Anna Power Pride is a funny, heartwarming, celebratory film about the real-life union between gay rights campaigners in London and striking Welsh miners. Set in the 80’s, depicting a time when the harsh policies of Margaret Thatcher’s government made insurgents out of the least likely, crossing societal divisions of class, race, gender and sexual identity, when politically the only side to be on was - any side but Thatcher’s side. Throw into the mix a stonking 80’s soundtrack (The...

By Sam Inglis   @24fpsUK  24fps.org.uk Gregg Araki started off as a true underground figure, making distinctive and divisive films like The Living End and his 'teen apocalypse' trilogy. Over the past decade, however, he seems to have been trying to square his auteurism and his favoured topics with at least some level of commercial appeal. Some films, like Mysterious Skin and Kaboom veer more towards his auteurist side, while Smiley Face was an unabashed tilt at the mainstream. White...

By Emma Silverthorn  @HouseOf_Gazelle Feature-film A Dark Reflection was inspired by the research for a potential sequel to the 2007 documentaryWelcome Aboard Toxic Airlines and perhaps director Tristan Loraine should have stuck to documentaries. On a political level I feel strongly that this is an important film but artistically it left me cold. Personally I was glad to see the little known issue of the potential damage that organophosphates can cause exposed. It’s not a very sexy topic but the...

By Emma Silverthorn @HouseOf_Gazelle Kornel Mundruczo’s feature White God can’t really be done justice in conversation, as I’ve realised this week raving to friends about a film that follows an army of dogs as they take over a Hungarian city! But White God is an exceptional film. It’s many things depending on your view point, an animal rights film, a comment on the current political situation in Hungary; one that is easily extrapolated to other parts of the world, (the...

Corrina Antrobus @corrinacorrina A best selling weepy with a critically acclaimed cast? No wonder there's an Oscar whiff about the theatrical adaptation of Lisa Genova's book Still Alice. This $5m to make movie entered Toronto Film Festival with no distribution ties and left with the wet ink of Sony Pictures Classics (and not a dry eye in the house). This is no drama, it's more of a horror story for anyone with a bird brain. Ever forgotten to put the...

Review by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada Quoting Homer and repairing garages while flashing his biceps, Noah seems like the perfect distraction for the super-glamourous high school teacher Claire (Jennifer Lopez). She has recently kicked her cheating husband out of her house, but not quite out of her life. Noah, the titular boy next door, is an allegedly 19 year old hunk with a passion for the more violent episodes of the Iliad and great abs, played by visibly 27 year old...

By Stephen Mayne @finalreel  thefinalreel.co.uk A week on and the dust is settling on the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. As ever with the Berlinale, this edition mixed the sublime with the ridiculous in a programme so large unwitting critics have been known to lose sense of direction and never emerge again. So what did this February film bonanza bring? By all accounts a worthy winner in the shape of Jafar Panahi’s Taxi. The acclaimed Iranian filmmaker whose previous effort...

By Leslie Byron Pitt @Afrofilmviewer afrofilmviewer.com Nowadays I find myself, much more compelled to revisit the latest features of Cronenberg as opposed to his more explicit shock flicks that appeared earlier in his career. My main reason for this I feel is, as a director, Cronenberg has elevated his themes of body horror, carnal pleasures, and creative enterprise gone awry, to its peak. His love the viral and transfer of fluids hasn’t left him, however, while his films had a more...

By Emily Wight About halfway through Maidan, a man climbs up the side of a disused bus with its windows smashed and seats wrenched off their hinges, and yells at the sea of riot police lined up behind it: “Are you people or animals?” None of them respond, but with explosions and chants roaring through the air, they may well not have heard. If it were to have emerged from Syria or Iraq over the past few years, footage like...