The film follows a man taking his very alienated daughter on the titular train to Busan to see her mother on her birthday just when there’s a breakout of zombies. That’s pretty much all the […]
LIFF30 Review: Under the Shadow – A horror without the fear factor
It’s a shame Under the Shadow is not better. It is very good but I wanted it to be scarier. The film is actually the British entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars […]
LIFF30 Review: I Am Not A Serial Killer – YA fiction meets American Psycho
I Am Not a Serial Killer is so many things at once. Pitched somewhere between The Thing, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Fargo, and American Psycho, with a thematic hint of Blue Velvet. The idea of all this stuffed into […]
LIFF30 Review: Creepy – a neighborly horror
A pinch of neighborly xenophobia, a touch of imminent terror and a dash of skillful casting only begin to describe director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s recent J-horror ‘Creepy,’ which premiered at LIFF 2016 on the 15th of […]
LIFF30 Review: Stop Making Sense – a victory lap for an under-appreciated band
Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads’ 1984 concert film, begins with frontman David Byrne on an empty, undressed stage with a guitar and a boombox performing Psycho Killer, the first song he wrote. The stage is […]
LIFF30 Review: Blue Velvet – not for the faint-hearted
Idyllic suburbia, with its white picket fences, rose gardens and tree-lined streets has its drapes pulled down in Blue Velvet (1986) by David Lynch, a heavily surreal mystery thriller. Kyle Machlachlan plays Jeffrey who, home […]
LIFF30 Review: Chi-raq – a feast for the eyes
Chi-raq (2015) is a triumph of no-holds-barred filmmaking. It is a feast for the eyes and the cinematic imagination, saturated with director Spike Lee’s biting political satire. The film is a hip-hop adaptation and incisive twist […]
LIFF30 Review: Lady Macbeth – leaves us cold
Lady Macbeth follows the young recently married Catherine as she is adopted into the cold, patriarchal and violent environment of her husband’s home. He is often absent and his new wife begins an affair with […]
Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – pure magic
In all honesty, the recent adaptation of JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is, if you’ll pardon the pun, pure magic. Eddie Redmayne breathes life into his bumbling and bashful character Newt […]
Review: A Streetcat Named Bob – an emotional rollercoaster
Not your classic rags-to-riches, Roger Spottiswoode‘s latest feature finds hope in all the right places. We sent Anika Vadukul to give us her verdict: The term ‘emotional rollercoaster’ has never been more relevant. Drugs + […]
Review: BalletBoyz – hauntingly beautiful
Screened on Remembrance Sunday, BalletBoyz’ Young Men challenges the necessity of language in depicting the horror of trench warfare. BalletBoyz was launched in 2010 by former Royal Ballet dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, whose […]
LIFF30: Zulawski – A Retrospective on some of the director‘s best works
While it has become something of a cultural in-joke that 2016 has seen a swathe of artists and celebrities pass away, one less talked about, but no less essential, filmic artist of the 21st century […]