REVIEW: Monday (2021)
Modern romantic dramas are few and far between, so I tend to lap each one up like John Mills drinking the beer at the end of Ice Cold in Alex. I prefer romantic dramas to rom-coms, but we don’t get many and those we do get…
REVIEW: The Banishing (2021)
Borley Rectory is a name that lives in infamy in the UK and has birthed countless books and films, after being given the moniker of The Most Haunted House in England by ‘psychic researcher’ Harry Price. Price becomes the character Harry Reed (Sean Harris) in…
INTERVIEW: Director and Star of ‘The Last Right’
The Last Right is an Irish comedy written and directed by Aoife Crehan, starring Michiel Huisman and Niamh Algar, as well as rising star Samuel Bottomley, as autistic teenager Louis. Bradford-born Samuel Bottomley appeared in Paddy Considine’s film Tyrannosaur (2011), Private Peaceful (2012), TV show…
REVIEW: The Last Right (2019)
Ireland has a rich tradition of finding humour in both Catholicism and death – even better if it’s both. From the great playwrights Beckett, Behan, Synge, Friel and O’Casey, through to novelist/screenwriter Roddy Doyle (best-known for The Commitments) and onto the London-born McDonagh brothers taking…
REVIEW: Undine (2021)
Water-based myths and folklore have long been mined for film, ranging from mainstream – Splash, Aquaman, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter (mainly Goblet of Fire) and the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid to the tiny and independent – Evolution (France, 2015), 80s-mermaid-musical-horror The Lure (Poland, 2017,…
INTERVIEW: ‘Everything in the End’ Writer & Director Mylissa Fitzsimmons
Everything in the End is a film about Paulo (Hugo de Sousa) – a man who has travelled from Portugal to Iceland in the last days of Earth. He has encounters with various locals and contemplates life’s meaning amongst the stunning scenery. Your film is…
Romeo & Juliet – An Original Film from the National Theatre (2021)
“filmed on a single stage, over seventeen days, during a global pandemic” The theatre has been one of the hardest-hit parts of the arts sector in the last year, due to the live experience being so integral to defining what theatre is. The National Theatre…
REVIEW: The World to Come (2021)
As someone who is generally not a fan of Westerns, there have been a few films within the last decade that have been set in 19th century American isolated frontiers that have caught my eye and I’ve ended up loving – and these are the…
REVIEW: The Yellow Wallpaper (2021)
Gothic fiction has had something of a resurgence in the last decade, with adaptations of classic novels including Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011), Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011), Daphne Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel (Roger Michell, 2017), Henry James’ The Turn…
ROAD TO OSCARS: Documentary Feature (2021)
On March 15 2021, the Oscar nominations will be announced and we will discover the five films in contention for Best Documentary Feature. We know that they will come from this list of fifteen films, which will advance in the Documentary Feature category for the…
ROAD TO OSCARS: International Feature (2021)
On March 15 2021, the Oscar nominations will be announced and we will discover the five international films in contention this year. But we already know that they will come from this list of fifteen films, which have advanced to the next round of voting…
INTERVIEW: ‘Antigone’ Director Sophie Deraspe
Antigone was Canada’s official entry to the International Film category in the 2020 Oscars and if you’re wondering how Canada could contribute an “international film,” it’s because the language spoken in Antigone is Québécois. Sophie Deraspe is the writer, director, cinematographer AND co-editor of the…
REVIEW: Pleasure/Violation (Sundance 2021)
Two takes on sexual subject-matters from women directors that are deliberately provocative, but with very different results. After decades of men directing films featuring women who are nude and in various sexual scenes and scenarios, it is refreshing that we’re starting to see some examples…
