If you're a fan of the arch stylings of Peter Strickland, such as he has deployed in films like The Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric, his debut feature may take a you a little by surprise.
Katalin Varga is an exercise in stylistic restraint and minimalism. Strickland lets his magnificent Carpathian locations do the work. Cinematographer Márk Győri shoots the verdant summer fields and forests of Romania. The haunting score by Geoffrey Cox and Steven Stapleton overlays the images…
I vividly remember seeing this at the cinema - it might have been my birthday - and having my mind completely and irrevocably blown. Partly at the spectacle. Partly at the rockin' soundtrack (which I confidently proclaimed to be the greatest movie music of all time, and I was fully familiar Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack at this point so I have no excuse). But primarily at the absolute mass slaughter of almost every beloved Transformers character from the Saturday morning…
Where is Edgar Wright headed, I wonder? I totally understand him wanting to move on from comedy. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are two of the greatest comedy films of the 21st century - and for my money will still be seen as such in 2099 - so why bother sticking at comedy when the best he can hope to do is come within striking distance of what he's already achieved before? Don't get me wrong, I'd selfishly…
I committed a bit of a faux-pas. A friend of mine said he wanted to have a movie night and he suggested Blade Runner because it's his favourite movie. I'm not going to say no to watching Blade Runner, but I suggested a Philip K Dick double feature, with Total Recall as the B movie. Problem is, I sent him an Outlook calendar invite titled "Dickfest" which triggered an alarm in his work's security software and gave his wife a…
Even with all the adulation this film has been getting, and from people whose opinion I genuinely trust, I was pretty sceptical about Top Gun: Maverick. I only went and saw it yesterday because my wife picked the movie. I have noticed lately a lot more mediocre ratings popping up for this lately and now I've seen it, I'm thinking Is that just contrarianism? Because I've gotta agree with the first wave of gushing reviews about this - it's fucking…
