Year: 1976 Directed: John Schlesinger Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, William Devane In the 1970s America was wrestling with a number of demons. Vietnam. Watergate. A decade of politicised assassinations. A country that once sold itself as young and idealistic suddenly found itself wading through an antagonised adolescence (with plenty more growing pains set to … Continue reading Why I Love… #128: Marathon Man
Director: Mike P Nelson Stars: Charlotte Vega, Daisy Head, Bill Sage For the better part of a decade, the Wrong Turn franchise terrorised straight-to-DVD horror with a slew of tawdry sequels that ranged from bad and really very bad. Indeed the otherwise functional 2003 original came to feel like something of a minor masterpiece by comparison. … Continue reading Review: Wrong Turn (2021)
Director: Kevin Lewis Stars: Nicolas Cage, Beth Grant, Emily Tosta Nicolas Cage has comfortably settled into a mid-career groove of plentiful straight-to-VOD productions that tilt toward his strengths in manifesting either world-weary boredom or wide-eyed mania. Kevin Lewis is the latest director to be blessed with the actor's largess, and this cheap but cheerful horror … Continue reading Review: Willy’s Wonderland
Director: Jens Dahl Stars: Sara Hjort Ditlevsen, Signe Egholm Olsen, Morten Holst The cosmetics industry is worth billions; from the pastes and poultices we use the create the brief illusion of youth through to surgical procedures designed to enhance or preserve. To freeze time. Jens Dahl's ice-cold, slow-burn body horror counters that, while some people … Continue reading Review: Breeder
Director: Patric Chiha Stars: Gisèle Vienne, Kerstin Daley-Baradel, Sylvain Decloitre The relentless, propulsive rhythms of '90s rave music, out of context, are some of the most purely irritating sounds one can encounter (ever had noisy neighbours?). So guttural and invasive, violent and ceaseless. But with rave music context is everything. It's a genre that is … Continue reading Review: If It Were Love
Director: Ben Hozie Stars: Julia Fox, Peter Vack, Buddy Duress At the tail end of 2019, Julia Fox put herself on the map in the Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems. Fittingly enough for PVT CHAT, the online thirst for Fox was... notable. But that film also showed the world that she was a fine performer, a talent … Continue reading Review: PVT CHAT
Focus Hong Kong is run by members of the Chinese Visual Festival (CVF) team, and is dedicated to celebrating the amazing cinema and filmmakers of Hong Kong, from early works to the glory days of its reign as the Hollywood of Asia, through to new and exciting films. Timed to coincide with the Chinese New … Continue reading Focus Hong Kong: A Witness Out of the Blue
Director: John Lee Hancock Stars: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto It shouldn't be this way, but the mid-budget meat'n'potatoes serial killer crime thriller has become something of a novelty. Back in the '90s they were a dime a dozen. Now, their relative paucity causes any new offering to trigger a kind of wistful nostalgia. … Continue reading Review: The Little Things
Director: Sam Levinson Stars: Zendaya, John David Washington None of us want it, but pandemic cinema is coming to get us. It's already started of course (see Shudder's inventive and trim little Zoom horror Host), but are we fully prepared for the onslaught of clumsy offerings Hollywood and the streaming giants have in store? Malcolm … Continue reading Review: Malcolm & Marie
In the months following the release of Steven Spielberg's world-conquering Jurassic Park, British director Stewart Raffill received a deeply unusual phone call. A man with a 'life-sized' animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex and a million dollars wanted to make a movie. No script. No story ideas. And a miniscule time window: three weeks. Against all odds, Raffill made … Continue reading The Wonderful Weirdness of Tammy & the T-Rex
Year: 2007 Director: Mia Hansen-Løve Stars: Paul Blain, Constance Rousseau, Marie-Christine Friedrich Mia Hansen-Løve has had an almost perfect career to date (or, at least, as far as I've been able to see - her 2018 feature Maya is still MIA as far as UK distribution is concerned). The five features we have been treated to have … Continue reading Why I Love… #127: All is Forgiven
Director: Simon Stone Stars: Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James While Film Dudes have suffered constant rug-pull release delays forr the latest James Bond outing over the course of the last 12 months, those invested in the indie scene have felt similar pangs over Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman - the well-hyped Carey Mulligan vehicle which … Continue reading Review: The Dig
Director: Dea Kulumbegashvili Stars: Ia Sukhitashvili, Kakha Kintsurashvili, Saba Gogichaishvil A communal space - a place of worship - lies empty. Gradually it fills with people and then, mid-sermon, it is dramatically emptied again, as Molotovs are thrown inside. The place burns and it descends into chaos. All of this happens without a cut and … Continue reading Review: Beginning
Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead Stars: Anthony Mackie, Jamie Dornan, Ally Ioannides No one could accuse Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead of lacking ambition. Over the course of their low-budget features Resolution, Spring and The Endless, the idiosyncratic creative duo have navigated time loops, metaphysical horror monsters, cultists, the mandates of storytelling itself and inter-species romance (of a … Continue reading Review: Synchronic
Director: Gavin Rothery Stars: Stacy Martin, Theo James, Rhona Mitra For Gavin Rothery, the future is monochrome. His debut feature - a reasonably scaled sci-fi piece reminiscent of opening salvos from the likes of Duncan Jones and Alex Garland - takes place seventeen years from now. At a remote Japanese facility owned by a corporation … Continue reading Review: Archive
