"Extinct animals have no rights"

Over an hour's worth of simply dreadful filmmaking and storytelling mercifully gives way to a second half which, while still bad, at the very least dissolves into a comical farce.

It's phenomenal how much the film looks down on its audience by gratifying really basic tropes while simultaneously not satisfying those tropes in a remotely competent way. Plot beats and character moments are here yet also not really: enough stimuli are evoked to initiate a…

"I'd been wanting to fly it free but I daren't"

Both beautiful and tragic, though to a certain extent there is a contradiction between those two emotions.

Every scene constructs the persecution of Billy (David Bradley) in such a way which is skilfully both understated but also making precise social commentary. It's an inconsequential scene, but Billy being turned away from the library is emblematic of this dichotomy. A public service we take for granted as immediately accessible becomes inaccessible…

The Red Turtle could have been named amongst some of the greatest animated movies ever made had it ended approximately 40 minutes in. What was at one point an intensely emotional and profound exploration of human resilience and our conflict with nature, almost at once completely goes to trash at the introduction of a second character.

(As it happens midway through the film this could be considered a spoiler however what I am going to discuss as the downfall of…

Film Club May 24th - May 26th

"but in a world of peace there is no hope"

Simply excellent doesn't begin to cover how magnificent Harakiri is. Nearly flawless in both story telling and visuals, Masaki Kobayashi 1962 classic deserves no less than to be called a masterpiece.

An ex-warrior, Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) seeks admittance into a house in order to commit Harakiri (the act of committing suicide by self-inflicted disembowelment). While waiting to commit the act, he tells…