You step off the dilapidated coach, warm trade winds kicking at the fedora you haggled for at the village market, and into your “resplendent” holiday villa-complex. Then you discover the brochure hadn’t been entirely truthful. You were promised El Dorado, the Mysterious City of Gold, and instead you got El [...]

It’s a curious facet of the human psychological condition that we actively seek to do what we’re told explicitly not to. As either a child or adult we’re all familiar with exchanges such as this: “DO NOT touch that!” “But why not, Mum?” “Because I said so!” “But it’s just [...]

I’m no fan of the 3D film. Something about having my eyes covered in any way while engaged with a medium that is at least 50% visual doesn’t sit well. Then there is the fact that film is three-dimensional already (time is a dimension) so the name is incorrect. And [...]

“I found myself fascinated and excited by Marley. At times it drew me close to tears. I didn’t of course, actually cry. In fact, had I cried, I would still probably say that I didn’t of course, cry.”

Adam Wingard’s 2010 film stands as an impressive achievement; intense performances, a restrained and understated script, and a twisted, thrilling tale. But undermining all of this, a few creative decisions threaten to derail the film entirely. Does the remainder withstand this onslaught? Is the powerful substance more noteworthy than the [...]

Comfortably replete with Jarlsberg cheese, Vikingfjord Vodka and some wonderful Scandinavian pastries, you could be forgiven for thinking I’d forgotten I was there to review a film. But this was just the very genial introduction to a new Norwegian film hitting UK shores in April.

“Dispatched to settle the affairs of a recently deceased woman, Kipps arrives in a quaint but markedly rude village in the heart of the Victorian countryside. Under the chocolate-box veneer, dark undercurrents flow.”