The year is 1956. The radio crackles as Jean Shepherd, the host of Night People, introduces his next guest, a 26 year old actor promoting his latest film Edge of the City. Little did Shepherd know that crowdfunding as we know it was about to be invented. In what has now gone down as the stuff of legend, John Cassavetes managed to finance his first feature film, Shadows, off the back of a radio show. What began as a tirade about the superficiality of Hollywood ended with the young actor asking listeners to send him money to prove that he could make a better picture if only he had the means to d ..read more

New York born actor Al Pacino has given so much to cinema. Over more than fifty years, he has delivered some of the greatest performances of all time. He is so gripping, and at times so menacing, that sometimes a single stare from him can be worth as much to a film as a lengthy monologue. After a brief appearance on screen in Me, Natalie (1969), Al Pacino caught attention for his starring role in Jerry Schatzberg’s The Panic in Needle Park (1971). The two would reteam two years later for Scarecrow (1973), where Pacino starred opposite Gene Hackman. These were two fantastic films with bleak und ..read more

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver (2024) Director: Zack Snyder Screenwriters: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Shay Hatten Starring: Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Anthony Hopkins, Staz Nair, Fra Fee, Cleopatra Coleman, Stuart Martin, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Alfonso Herrera, Cary Elwes, Rhian Rees, Elise Duffy, Sky Yang, Charlotte Magi, Stella Grace Fitzgerald  Is Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon – Part Two better than the opening instalment? Marginally, but only because all the boring setup is now out of the way and we can more-or-less get straight t ..read more

Making his start as a novelist and writing scripts for directors like Danny Boyle (28 Days Later and Sunshine), thought-provoking ideas man Alex Garland learned from the talented filmmakers he so closely collaborated with, did some uncredited work to finish the troubled comics adaptation Dredd, and then eventually made his full directorial debut in 2014. Garland’s films tend to be cerebral sci-fi or psychological horrors, often tackling the biggest ideas about what makes us human while also being extremely visually striking and technically accomplished, though their ambiguity and challenging t ..read more

Sherlock Jr. (1924) Director: Buster Keaton Screenwriters: Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Ward Crane Somehow a century has passed since the inimitable Buster Keaton unleashed one of his best films upon the world. One of the three greats of silent slapstick (along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd), Keaton was responsible for some of the best films of the silent era, along with a great many of the best stunts ever put to film. Only partially is this due to most of them being done for real, something which would never get past health ..read more

Civil War (2024)  Director: Alex Garland Screenwriter: Alex Garland Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jesse Plemons, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai, Jefferson White There aren’t many film scripts written as cutting satires four years earlier that could still be considered “hot button” by the time they are released. But that’s the current state the world, where it’s more than a little frightening how Alex Garland’s fourth directorial feature Civil War has only become more relevant over time. In a very near future, after t ..read more

Monkey Man (2024) Director: Dev Patel Screenwriters: Paul Angunawela, John Collee Starring: Dev Patel, Sikander Kher, Vipin Sharma, Pitobash, Sharlto Copley From the moment a bloodstained, monkey mask wearing Dev Patel steps into the sweltering spotlight of a boxing ring, we know there’s going to be carnage. After a single tender moment between Kid (Patel) and his mother (Adithi Kalkunte) at the beginning of the film, this is true. From gnarly beginning to brutal end, Monkey Man does not afford us a single breath in its two-hour runtime. When Kid isn’t slitting the throat of corrupt cops, he ..read more

There are some figures that appear in legend. The actor’s actor. The Shakespearean ilk are certainly of that breed, with individuals such as Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton delivering peak performances regardless of their age, or the production they’re in. Max von Sydow, the giant of Swedish cinema, is one of those actors that has come to be regarded in the same breath. Any time he turns up, no matter for how long or short, the world is instantly brightened and the world of the arts is infinitely enriched. Born in Lund, Sweden, in 1929, to a Swedish father and a French mother, Carl Adolf ..read more

The First Omen (2024) Director: Arkasha Stevenson Screenwriters: Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas Starring: Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom, Sônia Braga, Ralph Ineson, Bill Nighy It seems that there is something in the air. We are in a new era of Nunsploitation or, perhaps more specifically, Catholic-sploitation. In the past few years we’ve had films such as Prey for the Devil (2022), The Pope’s Exorcist (2023), and The Exorcist: Believer (2023); even before that, the nunsploitation subgenre got restarted thanks to James Wan and Leigh Whannell getting The Nun (2018) to do the rounds ..read more

The Iron Claw is a heartbreaking film. On the surface, it tells of the trials of an often misunderstood touring circus, an ill-defined piece of entertainment, and warns us of the dangers of addiction, bodily damage, and generational trauma. It is filled with outstanding performances that stick with you, and there’s a whole world of additional information ready to be explored regarding the real people the film evaluates. Behind all the body slams and deaths, The Iron Claw is really about myth – and specifically about the relationship between famous human beings and their sensationalised persona ..read more