Reviews
Film reviews written by some of our volunteers.
Reviews
The Secret in their Eyes (El Secreto De Sus Oyos) Juan Campanella (Argentina 2009)
adrin neatrour writes: The cocked leg shot that says it all More Info
I Hired a Contract Killer - Aki Kaurismaki (Finland/UK 1990)
adrin neatrour writes: retrocrit: sound as essence More Info
I am Love Luca Guadagnino (2009 It UK)
adrin neatrour writtes: Junk food in a glossy package More Info
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Luis Bunuel ( 1972 Fr )
Adrin Neatrour writes, retrocrit: From inside the mind laid bare... More Info
The Killer Inside Me - Michael Winterbottom (USA 2010)
adrin neatrour writes; Winterbottoms film is straight from the life-style zone More Info
Rear Window A Hitchcock (USA 1954) James Steward; Grace Kelly
adrin neatrour writes: retrocrit - Castration angst More Info
Brief Encounter David Lean (UK 1945) Script: Noel Coward: Celia Johnson; Trevor Howard
Adrin Neatrour writes retrocrit: Love in a mechanistic country More Info
Birth of a Nation D W Griffith (USA 1915) Lillian Gish Mae Marsh
Adrin Neatrour writes: Retrocrit: What’s in a name…. More Info
In the Realm of the Senses (Ai No Corrida) Nagira Oshima (Japan 1976) Tatsuya Fuji; Eiko Matsuda
Adrin Neatrour writes: Les Enfants Terribles....... More Info
The King of Marvin Gardens Bob Rafelson (1972 USA)
Adrin Neatrour writes: retro crit - a psychic place for space to play More Info
Cleo de 5 a 7 Agnes Varda (1962 Fr)
adrin neatrour writes: retrocrit: laying the cards on the table More Info
Peeping Tom - Michael Powell - UK 1960
adrin neatrour writes: A film about the end of the world. More Info
Jailhouse Rock Richard Thorpe (1957 USA)
adrin neatrour writes: retrocrit - some people see the movie, I see an initiation rite. More Info
Inglorious Basterds Quentin Tarentino (USA 2009)
Adrin Neatrour writes: No one ever expects...the Spanish Inquisition More Info
District 9
Directed by Neil Blomkamp, Release date Sept. 4 2009, 1 hour and 52 minutes, If you are sick of those fokin prawns chewing the tires of your new four door this is the film to watch. More Info
New Forms for Old
Adrin Neatrour writes: It’s been apparent for some time that film has been developing new forms and that it might be worth while to try to develop a loose typology as a way of talking about them and their characteristic stylistic qualities. More Info
Ma Nuit chez Maud (My Night at Mauds) Eric Rohmer (Fr 1969 )
Adrin Neatrour writes: More seen than heard. Often described as talk driven, and talk centred I found it was in the film, its settings and cinematography that Rohmer inscribed his central moral concerns. More Info
Drag Me To Hell
Just when you thought Sam Raimi left his bucket and hose at home and went to Hollywood to sell his soul to the Deadites... More Info
La Cienaga (The Swamp) - Lucretia Martel (2001 Argentina) Mercedes Mona; Graciela Borges
Adrin Neatrour writes: A world that sucks you in…. More Info
Reflections on Fassbinder Season at the Star and Shadow April 09 Fear Eats the Soul; Fox and his Friends; Chinese Roulette; The Marriage of Maria Braun
Adrin Neatrour writes: Fassbinder and The Phantom Fuhrer More Info
The Wrestler Darren Aronofsky USA 2008; Mickey Rourke; Marisa Tomei
adrin neatrour writes: Now hairs a funny thing.... More Info
A Woman under the Influence - John Cassavetes (USA 1974) Gina Rolands; Peter Falk
retrocrit, Adrin Neatrour writes: accept me as I am or leave the cinema. More Info
Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle, Lovelen Tanden (2008 UK India)
Adrin Neatrour writes: The Disneyfication of India More Info
Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette) – Vittoria de Sica Italy 1948;
Adrin Neatrour writes: Retrocrit: seeing as thinking More Info
Waltz with Bashir – Ari Fisher (2008 Israel); Animation
Adrin Neatrour writes: Not so much Waltz with Bashir; rather Tangle with False Memory Syndrome. More Info
Gone, Baby, Gone, by Dennis Lehane (1998); dir. Ben Affleck (2007)
'Public Service Denouncement', by Tom Jennings. Essay on US crime fiction comparing Dennis Lehane's Boston-set novel with Ben Affleck's film adaptation. More Info
Standard Operating Procedure, dir. Errol Morris (2008)
'Telling Tales of Torture', by Tom Jennings In addition to its revealing ‘worm’s eye view’ of the Abu Ghraib scandal, Tom Jennings sees Standard Operating Procedure as a more general fable of modern governance More Info
Somers Town, dir. Shane Meadows (2008)
'New Wave Goodbye', by Tom Jennings. Tom Jennings appreciates Shane Meadows’ sly cinematic commentary on our changing times in Somers Town’s low-key coming-of-age tale. More Info
Jar City, dir. Baltasar Kormakur (2008)
'Hardboiled and Hardwired', by Tom Jennings Jar City juggles the clichés of police procedurals and conventions from Icelandic myth to suggestively modern effect, finds Tom Jennings More Info
Gomorrah, dir. Matteo Garrone (2008)
This Toxic Thing of Ours, by Tom Jennings, published in Freedom, Vol. 69, No. 21, November 2008 More Info
Hunger – Steve McQueen (UK 2008) Michael Fassbender
adrin neatrour writes: With its bold use of close-ups and mounted camera to frame its subject it looks like McQueen has paid close attention to Carl Dreyer’s 1928 movie the Passion of Joan of Arc. Hunger might well be titled The Passion of Bobby Sands, as flesh transmutes into spirit. More Info
Gomorrah – Mateo Garrone (2008 Italy)
adrin neatrour writes: Location Location Location Location Location More Info
The Fall - Peter Whitehead (UK 1969) Doc with Peter Whitehead and AlbertaTiburzi
adrin neatrour writes: In the beginning was the image and the image was made flesh More Info
Billy Liar John Schlessinger UK 1963
adrin neatrour writes:Machine gun dreams: a moral tale More Info
Man on Wire – James Marsh – UK 2008 Doc
adrin neatrour writes: Fiction passing for fact or fact passing as fiction? More Info
Kiss Me Deadly – Robert Aldrich USA 1955: Ralph Meeker – Maxine Cooper
adrin neatrour writes: Retrocrit: pleasure for pain; sex for death More Info
There Will Be Blood – Paul Anderson – USA – 2007
adrin neatrour writes: Film as installation: first there was drive in now we got walk through movies. More Info
Singapore Sling Nikos Nikolaides – 1990 - Gce/Fr – B&W Meredyth Herold; Panos Thanassoulis; Michele Valley
adrin neatrour writes: He could not tie his shoe laces. I think this is an old story. A twisted post modern retelling of the return of Odysseus with Nietschean and Freudian shifts of consciousness. An eternal recurrence where the returning male is never able to get it together to tie his shoes; he is unable to enter the world of total self absorption demanded by shoelaces because he is sucked into the black hole created by the filmic projection of Nikolaides, a dark orifice comprising of two voracious all consuming women. More Info
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp – Powell and Pressburger (UK 1943) Roger Liversey; Deborah Kerr
Adrin Neatrour writes: Retro crit: cinema of obsessive desire, this is a film of pure expressive form that uses camera sets props and costumes to create a world characterised by the dark obsessive marriage of sex and death. With his ability to create mood ideas associations and drama through purely filmic means, Powell equals Visconti at his best. More Info
Funny Games US – Michael Haneka – 2007 – USA/Fr/UK/ Ger/It Naomi Watts; Tim Roth; Michael Pitt; Brady Corbit; Devon Gearhart.
adrin neatrour writes:Without an element of cruelty at the root of every spectacle the theatre is not possible:…it is through our skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds. (Antoine Artaud) “It was just for fun!” Testimony of Private First Class Lynddie England at her trial for her part in the murder torture and abuse committed by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib. More Info
Eyes Wide Open – Jan 08 open screening at the Star and Shadow
adrin neatrour writes:The Jan open screening was remarkable for the broad range of material screened and the extent to which the viewings were testimony to a state of affairs in which film rages across the landscape as a force that that is alive and vibrant. More Info
12:08 East of Bucharest – Cornelieu Poromboiu Romania 2006
adrin neatrour writes:A film made out of the ordinary everyday elements of the social matrix: a drunk, an old man in his ‘70’s, a second rate journalist. A film uses these elements to initiate a process that engages with the historical myth pertaining to what happened in Romania on 22nd Dec 1989. More Info
The Yacoubian Building – Marwan Hamad Egypt 2007 - Nour el Sherif;
Adrin Neatrour writes:The riddle of the Sphinx - Reflections on the most expensive Egyptian film ever. More Info
The Walker - Paul Schrader – USA /UK 2007 Woody Harrelson, Lauren Bacall Lily Tomlin, Kristin Thomas
Adrin Neatrour writes: Paul Schrader’s film compromises its own intention and ambitions. Schrader’s intention as I read it was to conduct an expressive exploration of the form taken by American power during the Bush administration. This intention would be actualised not through a script that directly probed the central machinations of power, but through an examination of the peripheral zones – the hangers on, the petty criminals the courtiers, courtesans and lackies – such as Carter Page. Instead of allowing Page’s hollowness to pursue its own dance its own logic to find his own lines of flight, Schrader’s script follows a sentimental humanising line of development to suggest the possibility of redemption for his protagonist. More Info
Ten Canoes – de Heer. Djiggir – 2006 Australia
adrin neatrour writes: Ten Canoes is an idyll – beautifully shot respectful treatment of the Australian aboriginal world. But ultimately it made me think of Walt Disney’s ‘Bambi’. Ten Canoes is set in a primeval forest world where man and nature are so closely intertwined that the natural and social systems vibrate sympathetically in close harmony. But it doesn’t have a ‘Bambi’ movement. More Info
The Medusa Touch – Jack Gold (UK 1978) Richard Burton – Lee Remick
adrin neatrour writes: Jack Gold’s Medusa Touch has a simple enough plot structure. The protagonist John Morlar is a man who believes that he is able to induce catastrophe by actively imagining the event. Like some modern theme parks, certain movies feel like psychic rehearsals for disasters and calamities yet to come. More Info
Golf on TV - what you see what you don't
adrin neatrour writes: Were an uninitiated observer – say a dude from planet Mars – watch a round of championship golf being played by two men on TV, would that observer understand that what he was watching was in fact a sporting contest? More Info
The Lives of Others F.H.von Donnersmarck Germany 2006
adrin neatrour writes: It looks like an angel to me.... More Info
John and Jane – Ashim Ahluwalia – 2005 – India – Doc
adrin neatrour writes: There are four characters in Ahluwalia’s movie. When we are introduced to them for the first time they are all lying down in sleep induced by exhaustion. As the movie progresses we can understand their sleep as an unconscious state in which as they lie prostrate, the succubus of desires slithers across their beds and penetrates their bodily orifices taking possession of their desires. Here are lie the deterritorialised servants of the great corporations. More Info
Great Expectations – David Lean – UK 1946
adrin neatrour writes - What shines out of this Dickens’ adaptation is David Lean’s preoccupation with enchantment... More Info
Cairo Station - Youssef Chahine – Egypt 1958 78 mins Fariq Shawqi; Hind Rostrom
adrin neatrour writes: Coming off the rails - The concerns and tensions realised in Cairo Station are embedded naturally into the film’s setting at the very junction of life in 1950’s Egypt – Cairo Station – a crucible for the contradictions and strains experienced by a rapidly changing society. More Info
Days of Glory (Les Indigines) - Rachid Boucharab – 2006 France Belgium Algeria
You’re in the army now…. This is a war movie with an angle – the angle being that the group of buddies whom we follow are members of a regiment raised in Algeria and comprising of native Algerians. They are in effect fighting for the colonial occupying power, and their propensity to enlist and fight was engendered through ignorance poverty and a desire perhaps to get outside the enclaves in which their French masters and the Pieds Noirs{‘Algerians’- of European origin) have sequestered them. More Info
Thoughts on The Masters Golf from Augusta – BBC – 6-9 April 2007
Adrin Neatrour writes - Were an uninitiated observer – say from the planet Mars –to watch a round of golf being played by two men at the Masters, would that observer understand that what he was watching was in fact a sporting contest? To judge by the intoned whispered BBC commentary you might think that what was taking place was some kind of religious ceremony. More Info
Bamako – Abderrahmane Sissako – 2006 – Mali France Belgium
There is an Africa of anger and an Africa of surfaces More Info
All you need to know about golf
Were an uninitiated observer – say from the planet Mars –to watch a round of golf being played by two men at the Masters, would that observer understand that what he was watching was in fact a sporting contest? To judge by the intoned whispered BBC commentary you might think that what was taking place was some kind of religious ceremony. More Info
Sunshine – Danny Boyle – UK – 2006 - Ensemble caste.
Watching Sunshine was a detached experience. I felt remote and uninvolved with anything happening on the screen. The crew seemed to have been beamed up from an episode of ‘Friends’ and were going through the motions of pretending to be in a space ship. All around them techni-wizards organising the CGI , were busy making the futurist wallpaper. More Info
La Quai des Brumes – Marcel Carne Fr 1938 – Jean Gabin, Michele Morgan
Jean Paul Sartre probably saw this film when it opened in 1938. Did he go with Simone de Beauvoir? Did they identify with Gabin and Morgan? More Info
Ossessione - Luchino Visconti
Retrocrit: I had never realised that Visconti’s first film, his adaptation of the James M Cain novel the Postman always rings Twice preceded Tay Garnett's Hollywood version with Lana Turner and John Garfield by some 4 years. The manner in which the two protagonists eye each other for the first time highlights the ambition scope and styles of the two films. More Info
Inland Empire – David Lynch - Fr – Pol –USA – 2006 Lorna Derne
Once upon a Lynch there was a film maker who worked off energy released from an insight that beneath smooth suburban lawns there was a rich primal schizoid earth which produced strangely deformed psyches. But Lynch seems to have progressively forgotten his starting point, the lawn itself, and developed little interest in examining the necessary conditions for the development of lawn culture. More Info
We Are All Fine Bizhan Mirbagheri Iran 2005
We Are All Fine is a metaphysical black comedy which as a double take offers an oblique and penetrating look at contemporary Iran. More Info
Transe – Teresa Villaverde – 2006 126 mins: Ana Morcira
Viewed Rotterdam International Film Festival 3 Feb 2007 The background actuality of Teresa Villaverde’s film lies in the criminal racket of people smuggling and in particular the entrapment of young Eastern European girls into prostitution. Transe is not as a movie about issues or dramatised statement of the obvious levels of exploitation in this activity. Transe is film. More Info
Sounds of the Sands – Marion Haensel (Belgium) – 2006 - Rotterdam 2007
Viewing Haensel’s film Sounds of the Sands,shot in and about Africa, triggered thoughts about my own experiences of having my picture taken; having my image captured, by my dad. Appropriation of image...... More Info
Half Moon – Bahman Ghobadi (Iran 06) viewed Rotterdam Film festival 2 Feb 2007
Bahman Ghobadi is a filmmaker who is making films from within the people. He is not an outsider coming into a culture or a society and then making a movie about the people and their problems. Ghobady is of the Kurds. Half Moon is about them and him and it’s a simply shot road movie in which every sequence is informed by understanding of the Kurdish situation. More Info
He Who gets Slapped – Victor Sjostrom (aka Seastrom) – 1924
No clowning about He who gets slapped presents as a film about collusive victimhood, a subject area at the core of European and American political sensibilities. Authoritarian cultures and societies develop mechanisms through which scapegoat becomes a role voluntarily adapted by despised and excluded groups as a strategy for their survival. More Info
Spank the Monkey, and The 'G' Word, Baltic Centre
Art Review High Street Art-Lite, and Bombing Babylon, by Tom Jennings. Art reviews published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 24, December 2006; and Freedom, Vol. 68, No. 8, April 2007. More Info
Pan's Labyrinth, dir. Guillermo del Toro (Spain 2006, English subtitles)
Film Review Between a Roc and a Hard Place by Tom Jennings. Film review published in Freedom, Vol. 68, No. 1, January 2007 More Info
London to Brighton – Paul Williams – UK 2006 - Lorraine Stanley; Johnny Harris
Film Review Happy Days are Here Again It’s hard to see why this film has been so heaped with praise, except that the Brit film reviewers have a proclivity to fete new Brit directors after one ‘successful’ feature. Much like their colleagues on the sports pages who billboard every new Caucasian pugilist as the next great white hope after their first winning fight. In contrast to many Brit first timers whose disaster prone cameras have been larded with Lott’s money, Paul Williams, as director/writer (auteur!) of London to Brighton shows a utilitarian competence in assembling his film. In truth London to Brighton is just another gangster movie, populated with the usual stereotyped heavies, replete with the usual violent gestes and looking to squeeze extra mileage out of the pursuit / chase plot by giving it a fashionable paedophilic nexus. More Info
I saw Ben Barka get Killed - Serge Le Peron
Film Review A deadly interest in film making There has been a recent interest by Western film makers in looking at Europe’s psychic inheritance in relation to our responsibility for both colonialism and the effects of our retreat from direct colonial rule. The question can be posed as to whether this interest is anything more than superficial, using history as a hook on which to hang the plots of action movies, exploiting exotic backgrounds or notorious events for their dramatic impact. Haneka’s Hidden both in style and narrative form examines the consequences of the massacre of Algerians in Paris in 1959. Politics is at the heart of Hidden which is located in Paris as is Le Peron’s more recent Ben Barka movie. More Info
The Last King of Scotland – Kevin MacDonald
Film Review Slide to porn The contemporary Western action thriller is on a dead end trip with nowhere to go other than towards the pornography of violence and sex. It’s a clapped out genre trapped in a logical cul de sac of is own making. The genre has nothing to say; it has nothing to show other than a series of gestural posturing; it has nothing to reveal. All that is left to the genre at this stunted stage of its expressive cycle is the slide down the incline of images of sex and violence(in the end the two become culturally interchangeable and indistinguishable). These images obey the laws of decreasing returns. Consequently directors of productions of this type (like those of hardcore pornography) are locked into a struggle against the constant devaluation of shock value, and scriptwriters must work hard to devise and invent ever new variations and graphic representations of sex and pain. They say it’s what we want. More Info
Children of Men, dir. Alfonso Cuaron (UK, 2006)
Film Review Slouching Towards Bexhillem, by Tom Jennings. Review published in Freedom magazine, Vol. 67, No. 22, November 2006 More Info
Red Road – Andrea Arnold – UK 2006 – Kate Dickie,
Film Review Twitching nets on desolation row = no mirrors The film opens with dulled desaturated out of focus pictures beamed from the cctvs scattered around Glasgow into a control room where they are policed by Jackie. The world of surveillance that is established in the opening sequence doesn’t open up any ideas about multiple actualities or the nature of closed circuit realities: rather it closes down into one reality. In Red Road Andrea Arnold makes the monitor into a simple window, like the window of a house in a working class terrace behind which the wife spies on the street, unseen behind her twitching nets. It would have been more interesting if it had been more like a mirror...... More Info
Volver, dir. Pedro Almodovar (Spain 2006)
Film Review Women's Troubles, by Tom Jennings. Film review published in Freedom magazine, Vol. 67, No. 21, November 2006 More Info
Confidential, by M1 and Can't Sell Dope Forever, by Dead Prez & Outlawz
Music Review Zero Sum Game, by Tom Jennings. Music review published in Freedom magazine, Vol. 67, No. 22, November 2006 More Info
Mischief Night, dir. Penny Woolcock (UK, 2006)
Film Review A Midautumn Night's Dream, by Tom Jennings. Film review published in Freedom magazine, Vol. 68, No. 2, January 2007 More Info
The Death of Mister Lazarescu - Cristi Puiu-Romania 2005 Ion Fiscuteanu;Mioara Avram
Film Review Faking Lazarus The critical decision made by Puiu in making his drama Mister Lazarescu was to give it a documentary frame. This key formal concept governs the production of his film: its style, the nature of the camera work (hand held) and the role of the camera which is observational. In most films the role of the camera often changes from shot to shot: sometimes the point is to keep the viewer uncertain about whose eye the lens is representing,. In Mister Lazarescu, the camera’s only function is to observe. More Info
Nashville Robert Altman 1975 USA
Film Review I had forgotten what a terrific assemblage Nashville comprises. A series of interfolded action strips and situations, and vignettes all encapsulated within the idea of documenting American society in the throws of undergoing the transformations that were visible in the 1970’s but are now in the 21st century, virtually complete. So we see in Nashville a society which is being taken over by disembodied entities. A society being colonised by political parties and large corporations and the social interests that they front. A society in which personal values are dying and replaced by amoral greed and materialism disguised as fake sentimentality. . A society in which people no longer represented by themselves but images of themselves. A society in which the people no longer exist. More Info
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Film Review Alain Resnais 1959 Fr: script Margaruite Duras: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada More Info
Effie Briest - Rainer Fassbender - 1974 - Hanna Schygula
Film Review To thine own self be true The titles that open the film are burnt in black letters on a white background, a shimmering field that sets the tone for a film that is an optical rendering to spirit what is spirit’s, to all that which is not of the flesh. And the eponymous subject of Effie Briest is not of the flesh. More Info
Volver - Pedro Almodovar - Spain 2006 Penelope Cruz
Film Review Witchy business The opening shot of Volver (v. to return) tracks through the graveyard of the village where the women are washing and cleaning the graves of their loved ones: women’s work with a menacing undertone carrying the tacit idea of woman’s implication in the process of death - especially the demise of the male. Like a lot of Almodovar’s filmic images it promises to open up for us a cinematic world. As in most of his films, the occasional visual flair displayed by Almodovar in Volver leads only to hopes dashed, an experience that by the end of the film, amounts to no more than substandard TV visual fare fleshed out with female leads posing as iconic feminists. More Info
Manderlay - Lars von Trier - Denmark 2005 Bryce Howard
Film Review Wobbly camera The opening sequence comprised of digitally mastered shots plots the course of a small convoy of cars as it crosses a schematic political map of the USA, out of Texas and into the South. This convoy comes to a halt in the blackness of von Trier’s theatrically contrived studio space which contains the iconically and ironically named cotton plantation of Manderlay. As in the house of the same name in Hitchcock’s Rebecca, it is the past that permeates and controls the present of this eponymous foundation. More Info
The Son (Le Fils)- Jean-Pierre/Luc Dardenne France 2002 - Olivier Gourmet
Film Review There is the possibility…of grace The setting is a youth training centre in Belgium where young men without skills are sent to learn practical trades. The opening shot is of a functional overhead light fitting that castes its harsh glare down onto the floor and walls of an adapted featureless partitioned industrial unit..... More Info
Branded to Kill - Seijun Suzuki - Japan 1966;
Film Review How to cook the rice What to make of this film: it is the product of a totally schizoid society, a society ripped open by a cultural hurricane called the USA. Suzuki’s episodic story line links a series of increasingly violent confrontations all played out to a very cool jazz score by Naozumi Yamamoto. Branded to Kill reflects Japan as a broken society seen through the multiplexed reflections of smashed shards of a zen mirror. The here and now as a nightmare. A document produced by a defeated society, but made with the extraordinary lucidity of the state of affairs: a twisted deterritorialised Samurai gangster culture shaped by an ethos of sadism played out in depersonalised spaces with guns and American cars.. More Info
Fire Routine
General This is a list of the checks we need to make for the building to be fire safe (daily, weekly, monthly, 6-monthly, yearly). Printed version to sign is in cinema More Info
Pick A Bigger Weapon, by The Coup, Epitaph Records, 2006
Music Review Weapons-Grade Funk, by Tom Jennings. Music review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 16, August 2006 More Info
Class, Self, Culture, by Beverley Skeggs, Routledge, 2004
Book Review Exchanged and Marked, by Tom Jennings. Book review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 3, February 2006 More Info
Judgement Days, by Ms Dynamite
Music Review MsJudged Blandishments, by Tom Jennings. Music Review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 23, November 2005 More Info
Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large, by Carolyn Cooper
Book Review A (New) Message from Rudy, by Tom Jennings. Book /music review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 6, March 2005 More Info
Wall and Piece, by Banksy
Art Review Random Signage and Secret Acts of Beauty, by Tom Jennings. Art / book review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 23, November 2005. More Info
Help Build the Ruins of Democracy, by Bob & Roberta Smith
Art Review The Art of Brill O’Pads, by Tom Jennings. Art review published in Freedom magazine, Vol. 66, No. 5, February 2005. More Info
Paradise Now, dir. Hany Abu-Assad (2006)
Film Review Clarifying the Muddle East, by Tom Jennings. Short review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 13, July 2006. More Info
Küba, by Kutlug Ataman
Film Review Ghetto Fabulous, by Tom Jennings. Art review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 19, October 2006. More Info
Political Themes in Recent Mainstream Cinema
Film Review Rose-Coloured Spectacles, by Tom Jennings. Essay published in Variant, No. 27, October 2006 More Info
London Counterculture and People Power of the 90s, by Stefan Szczelkun
Film Review Documents of Dissentiment, by Tom Jennings. DVD review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 12, June 2006. More Info
V for Vendetta, dir. James McTeigue (2006)
Film Review V Signs and Simulations, by Tom Jennings. Short review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 7, April 2006. More Info
Book review of Hollywood's New Radicalism, by Ben Dickenson
Book Review The Empire's New Clothes, by Tom Jennings. Review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 5, March 2006. More Info
Lower City, dir. Sergio Machado
Film Review The Hard Labour of Love, by Tom Jennings. Review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 11, June 2006. More Info
The Road to Guantanamo, dirs. Michael Winterbottom & Mat Whitecross (2006)
Film Review Likely Lads in the Global Gulag, by Tom Jennings. Short review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 8, April 2006. More Info
Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap, by Eithne Quinn
Book Review Can’t Knock the Hustle, by Tom Jennings. Book /music review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 24, December 2005 More Info
Hidden, dir. Michael Haneke (2005)
Film Review The Discreet Karma of the Bourgeoisie. Short review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 5, March 2006. More Info
Saul Williams, The Fader Label, 2005
Music Review Slam Dunk Funk Sunk by Clunky Punk Junk, by Tom Jennings. Music review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 13, July 2005 More Info
Stencil graffiti by Arofish
Art Review AeroSoul, by Tom Jennings. Art review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 4, February 2005 More Info
Anti-GM event at RISK: Creative Action in Political Culture, CCA, Glasgow, April 2005
Art Review Gene Genies, by Tom Jennings. Art review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 14, July 2005 More Info
The Gerbil's Guide to the Galaxy, by Sally Madge
Art Review Rodent’s Eye View, by Tom Jennings. Art review published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 14, July 2005 More Info
Manderlay, dir. Lars Von Trier (2006)
Film Review Grace, Favour and Farce, by Tom Jennings. Short review published in Freedom, Vol. 67, No. 15, July 2006. More Info
Urban Riots and Their Reportage
Essay A Hall of Mirrors: Television News and Social Reality, by Tom Jennings (originally published 1992) More Info
License Operating Schedule
General This is a list of how we operate. Its useful reading for all volunteers. More Info
Old Boy - Park Chan-Wook - Korea 2003
Film Review Old Boy - Park Chan-Wook - Korea 2003 Tyneside Film Theatre 29 Oct 04 Ticket £5-95 More Info
2046 -Wong Kar Wai - Hong Kong - 2004, Tony Leung - Su Lizhen - Bai Ling - Faye Wong
Film Review 2046 -Wong Kar Wai - Hong Kong - 2004, Tony Leung - Su Lizhen - Bai Ling - Faye Wong Viewed: Tyneside Cinema Newcastle 11/ 2/ 05 Ticket - £5 - 95 When the bubble pops. More Info
Devil Doll - 1936 - Todd Browning Lionel Barrymore - Maureen O’Sullivan Script Eric von Stroheim, Garrett Fort, Guy Endore
Film Review Devil Doll - 1936 - Todd Browning Lionel Barrymore - Maureen O’Sullivan Script Eric von Stroheim, Garrett Fort, Guy Endore Viewed Side Cinema - 30 01 05 More Info
Ydessa, the Bears, and etc. Agnes Varda - Fr 2004
Film Review Ydessa, the Bears, and etc. Agnes Varda - Fr 2004 viewed: Film Forum, New York, 26 Feb 2005 - ticket price $10 More Info
Blissfully Yours - Apichatpong Weersethakul - Thailand 2002
Film Review Blissfully Yours - Apichatpong Weersethakul - Thailand 2002 Viewed ICA cinema 2; 20 - 03 - 05; ticket £6-50 More Info
Lost In Translation - USA 2003 Written and Directed Sofia Coppola
Film Review Lost In Translation - USA 2003 Written and Directed Sofia Coppola More Info
9 Songs - Michael Winterbottom - 2004 - UK - Keiran O’Brien - Margot Stilley
Film Review 9 Songs - Michael Winterbottom - 2004 - UK - Keiran O’Brien - Margot Stilley Tyneside Film Theatre 2 April 2005 - price £5-95 More Info
La Nina Santa - Lucretia Martel - Argentina 2004 - Mercedes Moran; Maria Alche; Carlos Belloso
Film Review La Nina Santa - Lucretia Martel - Argentina 2004 - Mercedes Moran; Maria Alche; Carlos Belloso Viewed - Tyneside Cinema 31 March 2005 - £5-95 More Info
O Lucky Man Lindsay Anderson; UK 1973; Malcolm McDowell; from an idea by Malcolm McDowell
Film Review O Lucky Man Lindsay Anderson; UK 1973; Malcolm McDowell; from an idea by Malcolm McDowell Side Cinema Newcastle 23 April 2005 Price £3-50 More Info
Downfall (Der Untergang) - Oliver Hirshbeigel- Germany 2004 - Bruno Ganz
Film Review Downfall (Der Untergang) - Oliver Hirshbeigel- Germany 2004 - Bruno Ganz Viewed at Tyneside Cinema Newcastle - 19 May 2005 - £6-00 More Info
The Edukators (Die Fetten Jahre Sing Vorbei) - Hans Weingarten - Germany 2004
Film Review The Edukators (Die Fetten Jahre Sing Vorbei) - Hans Weingarten - Germany 2004 Viewed Tyneside Film Theatre 7 5 05 Ticket price £5-95 More Info
Palindromes - Todd Solondz - USA - 2004
Film Review Palindromes - Todd Solondz - USA - 2004 Viewed 3rd June 2004 - Tyneside Cinema Ticket price £6-00 No message from dead woman walking More Info
Down by Law - Jim Jarmusch - USA 1986 - John Lurie, Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni
Film Review Down by Law - Jim Jarmusch - USA 1986 - John Lurie, Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni Viewed: Side Cinema, 19 June 2005 - ticket price £3-00 More Info
I Vitelloni (1953) / Amacord (1973) – Fellini double bill
Film Review I Vitelloni (1953) / Amacord (1973) – Fellini double bill Viewed Curzon Mayfair 17 07 05 Ticket price -£5- 00 More Info
Kuhle Wampe - 1932 Germany directed Slaten Dudow script by B. Brecht.
Film Review Kuhle Wampe - 1932 Germany directed Slaten Dudow script by B. Brecht. Score Hanns Eisler Hertha Thiele as Anni Side Cinema - 1 2 04 More Info
The Qeros, directed John Cohen Doc 50 minutes. 1977
Film Review The Qeros, directed John Cohen Doc 50 minutes. 1977 More Info
The Yes Men, dirs. Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, Chris Smith
Film Review The Maybe Men by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 7, April 2005] The Yes Men, dirs. Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, Chris Smith (USA 2004) More Info
Dogville - Lars Von Trier - USA/Denmark 2004
Film Review Dogville - Lars Von Trier - USA/Denmark 2004 More Info
Vera Drake, dir. Mike Leigh
Film Review Dilemmas of a Bleeding Heart by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 3, February 2005] Vera Drake vividly portrays the paradoxes of backstreet abortion without passing judgement, writes Tom Jennings More Info
Boxing Booth - Adrin Neatrour 1984
Film Review Boxing Booth - Adrin Neatrour 1984 Sceened at Side Cinema 7 2 04 Directors comments More Info
Shameless (by Paul Abbott, Channel 4), series 1, 2 & 4
Film Review A Low Down Dirty Lack of Shame, The Gutter Snipes Back, and Lost in La Manchesta, by Tom Jennings [Reviews published in Variant, No. 19, February 2004; Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 7, April 2005; and Freedom, Vol. 68, No. 12, June 2007 More Info
Crimson Gold - Directed by Jafar Panahi
Film Review Crimson Gold - Directed by Jafar Panahi Iran 2002 Script by Kiarostami More Info
The Power of Nightmares, by Adam Curtis, BBC 2
Film Review A Pair of Right Scares by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 65, No. 22, November 2004] More Info
Natural Born Killers, dir. Oliver Stone
Film Review Natural Born Cultures by Tom Jennings [essay review of Natural Born Killers, dir. Oliver Stone (1994), published in Here & Now, No. 16/17, pp.48-51, 1995] More Info
Kill Bill 2 - directed by Quentin Tarantino - 2004 - USA
Film Review Kill Bill 2 - directed by Quentin Tarantino - 2004 - USA Uma Thurman - David Carradine More Info
The Motorcycle Diaries, dir. Walter Salles
Film Review On yer bike, Che! by Tom Jennings [film review published in Freedom, Vol. 65, No. 20, October 2004] More Info
Abu Ghraib all in the Mind’s Eye - an American movie on release everywhere
Film Review Abu Ghraib all in the Mind’s Eye - an American movie on release everywhere More Info
Confusion Is The Beginning of Wisdom - The beginning of an unfinished treatment
Essay Confusion Is The Beginning of Wisdom - The beginning of an unfinished treatment by Chris Gowens More Info
The Manchurian Candidate, dir. Jonathan Demme
Film Review New Age Paranoia by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 65, No. 24, December 2004] More Info
Inauguration of Pleasure Dome : ‘The Star and Shadow’
SS Review Inauguration of Pleasure Dome : ‘The Star and Shadow’ More Info
In the Cut, dir. Jane Campion
Film Review A Cut Above? by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 64, No. 22, November 2004] More Info
Last Days - Gus Van Sant - USA 2004: Michael Pitt
Film Review Last Days - Gus Van Sant - USA 2004: Michael Pitt Viewed Tyneside Film Theatre 20 Sept 05; Ticket - £6-00 More Info
8 Mile, dir. Curtis Hanson
Film Review Br(other) Rabbit’s Tale by Tom Jennings [essay on hip-hop, Eminem and 8 Mile, dir. Curtis Hanson, 2003; published in Variant, 17, May 2003] More Info
A History of Violence - David Cronenberg USA 2005 - Viggo Mortensen
Film Review A History of Violence - David Cronenberg USA 2005 - Viggo Mortensen More Info
Shock Corridor - Written Dir Prod Sam Fuller 1963
Film Review Shock Corridor - Written Dir Prod Sam Fuller 1963 - Peter Breck, Constance Towers. Viewed on 16mm print at Side Cinema, Newcastle June 6 2004 by Adrin Neatrour More Info
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie - John Cassavetes USA - 1976 - Ben Gazzara
Film Review The Killing of a Chinese Bookie - John Cassavetes USA - 1976 - Ben Gazzara Viewed Side Cinema 27 November 2005 Ticket price £3-50 More Info
The Silence between two Thoughts - Babak
Film Review The Silence between two Thoughts - Babak Payami - Iran - 2003 The Other Cinema - London 12 June 04 More Info
Shadows - John Cassavetes -USA 1958 Ben Carruthers Lelia Goldoni Hugh Hurd
Film Review Shadows - John Cassavetes -USA 1958 Ben Carruthers Lelia Goldoni Hugh Hurd Viewed Side Cinema: 13 November 2005 - dvd - ticket price £3-50 More Info
Hidden (Cache) Michael Haneke - France - 2005: Daniel Auteil; Juliette Binoche
Film Review Hidden (Cache) Michael Haneke - France - 2005: Daniel Auteil; Juliette Binoche Viewed 12 Feb 2006: Tyneside Cinema: Ticket price £6-00 More Info
Cock and Bull Story - Michael Winterbottom UK 2005 - Steve Coogan Rob Brydon
Film Review Cock and Bull Story - Michael Winterbottom UK 2005 - Steve Coogan Rob Brydon Viewed - Tyneside Cinema - Newcastle-upon-Tyne - Gala screening for Northern Lights Film Festival - 24 Nov 05 - complementary ticket. More Info
Dogville, dir. Lars von Trier
Film Review Dogville Rendezvous by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 65, No. 7, April 2004] In some ways a marvellous film, Dogville is at root a con trick – which neither its director nor the critics acknowledge, argues Tom Jennings More Info
The Hidden Injuries of Theory
Essay The Hidden Injuries of Theory by Tom Jennings [Essay on Class War, Dream On, and ultra-left critique, published in Here & Now, no. 14, pp.18-22, July 1993] More Info
The Edukators, dir. Hans Weingartner
Film Review Moral Politics at Play School by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 11, June 2005] Hans Weingartner’s The Edukators has some interesting angles despite its sneering at childish idealism, finds Tom Jennings More Info
Fahrenheit 911, dir. Michael Moore
Film Review Extracting The Michael and Slurs & Stereotypes by Tom Jennings 2 reviews of Fahrenheit 911: essay published in Variant, No. 21, Autumn 2004, pp.7-9; review published in Freedom, Vol. 65, No. 15, August 2004] More Info
9 Songs, dir. Michael Winterbottom
Film Review Going Through the Motions by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 8, April 2005] 9 Songs is the ‘dirtiest film ever shown in Britain’.1 If so thought must be dirty, as that’s all it aroused in Tom Jennings. More Info
Same Difference?
Film Review Same Difference? by Tom Jennings [Essay on cinema representations of European Asians & Muslims, published in Variant, No. 23, May 2005] [see also Part Two: 'Breaking Cover', Variant, No. 24, September 2005 - discussing documentary representations of British and European Muslim women] More Info
Bullet Boy, dir. Saul Dibb
Film Review Hackney(ed) Crossroads by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 10, May 2005] Hyped as a Brit Boyz N The Hood, Saul Dibb’s Bullet Boy hits more ambitious bullseyes, according to Tom Jennings. More Info
A Dirty Shame, dir. John Waters
Film Review Bad Taste and Good Sense by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 19, October 2005] Of several summer film releases tackling themes of sexual expression and repression, Tom Jennings judges John Waters’ A Dirty Shame the daftest as well as the most radical. More Info
Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, dir. Robert Stone
Film Review Barmy Liberation Army by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 20, October 2005] Guerilla: the Taking of Patty Hearst (dir. Robert Stone) More Info
A History of Violence, dir. David Cronenberg
Film Review What A Man’s Gotta Do by Tom Jennings [published in Freedom, Vol. 66, No. 21, October 2005] Tom Jennings applauds the success of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence in linking the attractions of action cinema to ideologies of control and conquest by force. More Info
Themroc -Claude Faraldo - Michel Piccoli, Beatrice Romand - France 1972
Film Review Themroc -Claude Faraldo - Michel Piccoli, Beatrice Romand - France 1972 Viewed: 16mm print; Side Cinema Newcastle, 14 November 2004 Ticket £3-00 More Info
Les Maitres Fous - Jean Rouch 1954 (France -25mins)
Film Review Les Maitres Fous - Jean Rouch 1954 (France -25mins) Viewed at Lumiere Cinema London, 9 Oct 04 - ticket price £7-00 More Info
The Return - Andrei Zvyagintsev Russia 2003
Film Review The Return - Andrei Zvyagintsev Russia 2003 Tyneside Cinema - 10th July 2004 More Info
The Fog of War - Errol Morris 2003 USA
Film Review The Fog of War - Errol Morris 2003 USA Seen Tyneside Cinema Newcastle UK More Info
A State of Mind - Daniel Gordon - UK 2004 - 94 mins
Film Review A State of Mind - Daniel Gordon - UK 2004 - 94 mins Viewed : International Documentary Film Festival - Amsterdam - November 2004 BBC/ARTE/WNET commission. Coming to a BBC channel - probably 4 - soon. More Info