Hoop Dream is an epic journey. There is some amazing stuff here and it really changes your perception of inner city black kids. The two portrayed here, keep them selves away from gangs, concentrate on their school work as they work hard on their passions, basketball. It’s quite inspirational. The problem with the film is certainly the length. It had put me off watching the film for years and for the first half, I wondered what I had worried about.…

A solid film that mixes a documentary feel into a narrative film very well. The attacks by the phantom are all very realistic and the scene with the killer hitting the girl in the arse with a trombone, though it sounds too strange to ever work, it actually does quite well. I’m not 100% sure about the narration, I don’t think the film really needed it and it certainly didn’t need the slapstick comedy that the character Sparkplug gave it.…

Beast of the Southern Wild is utterly amazing. It has traces of Korrine’s Gummo and parts of Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, but is totally it’s own thing. It’s part total realism with an almost documentary approach particularly with the use of it’s unsteady hand held camera work. Yet at the same time it exists in a strange fantasy world with giant beasts running wild destroying houses. The little girl is fantastic and is completely matched by Dwight Henry as her…