In Review
Welcome to In Review! Check out the latest reviews across film, TV, theatre and so much more…
MIFF 2024 Feature - Godzilla 70th Anniversary Marathon
Much like Godzilla’s messy and complicated birth as a concept and popular culture figure, I too feel as though I’ve come out of this experience a strange creature. It’s something I won’t soon forget.
Film Review - Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Rewatching The Phantom Menace sent me far beyond the realms of good or bad; I left with an admiration for a deeply strange film, and a slight cynicism that we may never quite see the likes of it again.
Film Review - The Conformist (4K Restoration)
Being able to see such a beautiful restoration on the big screen is worth the price of admission alone, and I could not recommend The Conformist more.
🇵🇸Palestinian Film Fest 2024 Review - Resistance, Why?
This is one of the most important films in this year’s festival. I would implore anyone wanting to learn more about Palestinian history to watch it.
Film Review - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
While Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is not the most audience (or even fan) friendly experience around, it's a devastating look at a life cut short.
MIFF 2023 Film Review - Phenomena
Featuring Argento at his most feverishly creative, Phenomena lives up to its title, providing an experience that's as difficult to rationalise as it is rare to come by.
MIFF 2023 Film Review - With Love to the Person Next to Me (Restoration)
With Love to the Person Next to Me is not a perfect film, but it does have something that many films with larger budgets lack- a soul.
Fantastic Film Fest 2023 Review - Audition (2K Restoration)
With gut-wrenching violence and disruptive themes, and its critique of gender roles and cultural norms in Japan, cinephiles and fans of the more gruesome side of life ought to catch this slow-burning, thought-provoking thriller.
Film Review - Crazed Fruit
While there is much to talk about for this film’s context, Nakahira keeps the narrative in focus with contemporary editing and exciting cinematography so that Crazed Fruit can shine.
Film Review - Mustang
Mustang follows the story of five young girls growing up in rural Turkey, as they navigate their youth and the looming social expectations of marriage and purity.
Film Review - Martyrs
Martyrs is up there as a formative film of its time period. Just don’t dive deeper into its writer-director’s filmography looking for a similar level of quality.
Film Review - Suspiria
It'd be hard to prime anyone for the journey the feature takes you on, and to do so would in part ruin the fun. It's a thunderous Pandora's Box of a film, a disorganised mixed bag of funhouse tricks that's rewarding sporadically, but always daring.
Feature - Séance International Film Festival/A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
It's a séance in the city.
Monster Fest Weekender Film Review: Miami Connection
Unashamedly self-indulgent and barely cognizant of any sort of budgetary limitation […], Miami Connection is wicked fun for the midnight movie crowd that'll have you puzzling over how a movie like this even got made.
Film Review: Baraka
Baraka is a must-see for anyone who finds themselves with a proclivity towards social sciences, theology, or spirituality.
Film Review: Paddington 2
I haven’t seen a movie juggle the human range of emotions with such ease in years, although I can recall one movie that did it pretty well not too long ago: Paddington [1].
Film Review: Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi is a word used by the Hopi peoples of northeast Arizona which literally translates to “corrupted/chaotic life”, though the film prefers to define it as “life out of balance”, among other similar interpretations.
Tandem Film Review: The Souvenir & The Souvenir Part II
Tandem review of The Souvenir - a semi-biographical drama directed by Joanna Hogg and starring Honor Swinton Byrne - and its sequel The Souvenir Part II.
Europa Europa Film Festival 2022 Film Review: Naked (4K Restoration)
What the film succeeds at that I didn’t quite expect, is how thoroughly entertaining and engaging it remains throughout its 127 minute runtime. Given its reputation, I thought it’d be rather one-note with its kitchen sink drama, but the deeply rich characters and their maniacal tendencies lent to a plot that is truly hard to predict.