Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Piano Teacher
(La Pianiste)

Director – Michael Haneke – 2001 – Austria, France – Cert. 18 – 131m ***** A masochistic piano teacher with an abusive mother embarks on an affair with a young male student – the opening film of Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Friday, June 6th and on BFI Player from Thursday, […]

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Mongrel
(Baiyi Cang Gou,
白衣蒼狗)

Director – Chiang Wei-liang – 2024 – Taiwan, Singapore, France – Cert. 15 – 128m ****1/2 An immigrant caregiver is caught between the demands of his exhausted, needy clients on the one hand and his profit-oriented gangster taskmasters on the other – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 23rd This gets straight in there […]

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Blue
is the Warmest Colour
(La Vie d’Adèle)

Director – Abdellatif Kechiche – 2013 – France – Cert. 18 – 180m UK release date 22/11/2013; Review originally published in Third Way magazine, November 2013. A loose adaptation of Julie Maroh’s graphic novel Le Bleu est une Couleur Chaude, this is one of the most touching films about romantic love (and physical passion) ever. […]

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Features Live Action Movies

The Last Dance
(Po Dei Juk,
破·地獄)

Director – Anselm Chan – 2024 – Hong Kong – Cert. 12a – 130m (extended version – Cert. 15 – 140m) **** (regular version) / unseen (extended version) A failed, professional wedding planner joins a Taoist funeral director as a partner in his company as various crises come to a head in the latter’s family […]

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Animation Features Movies

The King and the Mockingbird
(Le Roi et L’Oiseau)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014. The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi et L’Oiseau) Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m UK release date 11/04/2014 ***** Wrinkles (Arrugas) Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m UK release […]

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Animation Features Movies

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014. The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi Et L’Oiseau) Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m UK release date 11/04/2014 ***** Wrinkles (Arrugas) Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m UK release […]

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Animation Features Movies

The Wind Rises
(Kaze Tachinu,
風立ちぬ)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014. The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi Et L’Oiseau) Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m UK release date 11/04/2014 ***** Wrinkles (Arrugas) Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m UK release […]

Categories
Animation Live Action Movies Shorts

Letter to a Pig

Director – Tal Kantor – 2022 – France, Israel – 17m ***** Under the watchful eye of an authoritarian teacher, as a class of bored teenagers listens to a visiting Holocaust survivor recount his experiences, one of their number daydreams about the pig with which the survivor shared a barn – nominated for Best Animated […]

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Dear Pyongyang

Director – Yang Yong-hi – 2005 – Japan – 107m **** The return of a Japanese-Korean woman’s brothers to North Korea, encouraged by her parents, causes her considerable grief over the years – online in the UK as part of Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) from Monday, January 17th to Sunday, February 6th, 2022. […]

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Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies Series Shorts Television

Greenaway
By Numbers

How Peter Greenaway’s obsession with various numeric and other cataloguing systems has led to the creation of highly complex, multi-layered film pieces that joyfully play with audiences If ever anyone were to make a film about the Dewey Decimal System, it would be Peter Greenaway. He is obsessed with ways and means to classify the […]