Toy Story 5
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Bullet In The Head (4K Review) — Brotherhood Under Fire
Arrow’s superb run of John Woo restorations continues with the criminally underseen Bullet In The Head. Inspired by The Deer Hunter, it sounds like a project that should have been beyond his comfort zone. Instead, the result is one of his most disturbing, thematically ambitious, and emotionally resonant films, and very different from his usual brand of sensational shoot-em-ups.
The 10 Best Hitchcockian Thrillers
There’s a special kind of prestige reserved for directors whose names have become part of the cinematic lexicon. Most of us know what to expect when a film is described as “Lynchian” or “Kubrickian” but there’s no director who has been emulated more than Alfred Hitchcock. “Hitchcockian” has become a shorthand for unbearably tense thrillers that feature voyeurism, mistaken identities, McGuffins, icy blondes and elaborate set-pieces.
Charade Review (Criterion Collection)
Famously described as “the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made“, Stanley Donen’s Charade has spent more than sixty years being either mistaken for the work of another director or measured against his filmography. The comparisons are understandable – there is a dead man, a missing fortune, a glamorous heroine pursued across Paris, a MacGuffin everyone is desperately hunting, and enough twists to keep audiences guessing until the final reel.
Toy Story 5 Review
It’s not exactly an original observation, but the first three Toy Story films remain one of cinema’s great trilogies. The so-called “Andy Trilogy” charts a natural progression, following Andy as he grows up and gradually leaves the trappings of childhood behind him. More importantly, Toy Story 3 provides an emotional, near-perfect conclusion, bringing closure to both Andy’s story and the toys’ journey.
Sarah Friedland on Familiar Touch - “This isn’t a tragedy of loss”
Sarah Friedland has spent the last few years answering questions about Familiar Touch, but it’s easy to see why people keep wanting to talk to her about it. Her debut feature is a fascinating, poignant, overwhelmingly kind film that defies easy characterisation, and takes an unapologetically nuanced approach to dementia, neither overly sentimental nor relentlessly bleak.
Familiar Touch (Film Review) - Tender, Thoughtful, and Deeply Moving Debut
Most films about dementia are built around loss. Whether it’s the psychological horror of The Father or the devastating emotional realism of Amour, the condition is usually depicted as a tragedy already in progress. Sarah Friedland’s feature debut, Familiar Touch takes a different approach. Friedland has described it as a “coming of old age” story, and this perspective shapes the entire film.
Body Heat Review (Criterion Collection)
It feels like Criterion is skimping on the extras a little nowadays, focusing more on the picture quality and restorations than the supporting materials, which is a little galling considering how much the price of these has risen. A lot of the special features included here were available on the Premium Collection release – these include deleted scenes, featurettes on the making of, and archive interviews with Hurt and Turner. The new features include an in-depth interview with Kasdan, and a con...
Body Heat Review (Criterion Collection)
It feels like Criterion is skimping on the extras a little nowadays, focusing more on the picture quality and restorations than the supporting materials, which is a little galling considering how much the price of these has risen. A lot of the special features included here were available on the Premium Collection release – these include deleted scenes, featurettes on the making of, and archive interviews with Hurt and Turner. The new features include an in-depth interview with Kasdan, and a con...
The Chronicle Film Podcast Ep58 Reviewing Obsession & Hokum
If you love movies, you’re in the right place — welcome to The Chronicle, the official film podcast of The Peoples Movies! In episode 58, Paul and Nick Bartlett dive into two unsettling new horror films, Curry Barker’s Obsession and Damian McCarthy’s Hokum.
The General (4K Review) — A Masterpiece Of Silent Comedy
Having released almost all of Buster Keaton’s filmography on various Blu-ray boxsets, Eureka Entertainment are marking the centenary of his masterpiece, The General, with this beautiful UHD release. Co-directed with Clyde Bruckman, this remains not only one of the defining works of silent cinema, but arguably the first true action-comedy: a perfect fusion of gags, spectacle and pathos that still feels startlingly modern a century later.
10 Revenge Thrillers influenced by John Boorman’s Point Blank
With the Criterion Collection releasing a new 4K UHD Blu-ray of Point Blank, now feels like the perfect time to revisit the influence of the film on modern cinema.
Normal Review
The premise of Normal, the latest film from Ben Wheatley, sounds incredibly promising. A snowbound neo-western from the director of Free Fire and Kill List and co-written with John Wick and Nobody scribe Derek Kolstad, it emerges as a curious hybrid of Assault on Precinct 13, The Last Stand, and Hot Fuzz, with characteristically fluid fight scenes, but anyone expecting the wit and humour of Wheatley’s own scripts is going to be disappointed.
Obsession Review
With his sophomore feature, Curry Barker takes a premise we’ve seen countless times before in sitcoms, teen comedies and science fiction for decades, from Buffy The Vampire Slayer to The Twilight Zone and even Rick & Morty. What happens when you wish for your unrequited love to fall hopelessly in love with you? What makes Obsession so effective is the way it refuses to treat this ostensibly light-hearted premise as a joke. Instead, Barker simply follows the idea to its logical, grisly conclusion...
Point Blank Review (Criterion Collection)
There’s never been another movie icon like Lee Marvin. He’s tougher than McQueen, more sadistic than Eastwood, and more charismatic than Bronson. Critic Howard Hampton once compared him with other stoic screen icons, arguing that where you can see them play at being cool, Marvin embodies “an icy intractability all the more persuasive for the shards of pain and doubt and exhaustion you glimpsed around his razor sharp edges.”
Cronos review: Dir. Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro’s directorial debut is a startlingly assured gothic fable that fuses vampirism with the director’s now-trademark fascination with arcana, alchemy, clockwork machinery and an underlying sense of the macabre. There are better debuts out there, but very few that come with the director’s sense of style and tone already so clearly cemented. From the very start, you can see the style that will be present in every subsequent del Toro film.
Trouble In Paradise Review (Criterion Collection)
One of the most important film directors of all time, Ernst Lubitsch, was hugely influential in shaping cinema as we know it, particularly the musical and the screwball comedy, and yet most modern cinemagoers won’t know his name. In the golden age of Hollywood, Lubitsch’s name was second only to Alfred Hitchcock in being synonymous with a distinct style of filmmaking. There was even a term for it: the Lubitsch Touch.
The Stranger (L’Étranger) Review
Albert Camus’ The Outsider, or The Stranger (or L’Étranger) has long been considered difficult, if not outright impossible, to adapt. Not because the plot is particularly complicated, but because so much of the novel unfolds within the mind of its outwardly emotionless protagonist.
California Schemin’ review: Dir. James McAvoy
A blend of Kneecap and Sorry to Bother You, James McAvoy’s directorial debut, California Schemin’, is a refreshingly upbeat tale of the pitfalls of fame. It features a pair of winning performances at its centre, irresistibly infectious musical numbers as well as a playful energy that carries it through the more conventional plot points.
Hard Boiled 4K Review (Arrow)
Even if you haven’t seen Hard Boiled, you’ve almost certainly seen the promotional image of Chow Yun-Fat, decked out in full tactical gear, shotgun in one hand, a very confused-looking baby in the other. It’s instantly iconic, equal parts absurd and deadly serious, and perfectly captures the film’s tone. This is action cinema pushed to its most operatic extreme, but with just enough self-awareness to prevent it from collapsing under its own intensity – never taking itself too seriously.
Salem's Lot Review (Arrow Films)
In his introduction to the paperback release of Salem’s Lot, Stephen King described his lofty ambitions for what was only his second novel: to combine the gothic terror of Dracula with the sensationalism of EC Comics and the naturalistic fiction of Frank Norris. The result is one of his most overt works of horror – a traditional vampire story transposed into small-town New England – and it remains one of his most genuinely frightening books.
More Than Cosy: The Quiet Brilliance of Foyle’s War. - The Custard TV
It’s easy to see why the Foyle's War has acquired a reputation as being comfort television. Period costumes, polite dialogue, a softly spoken detective solving murders in a picturesque coastal setting – it all feels so familiar. However, now that the series is available on Netflix and mercifully uncensored, it’s easier to see that this reputation is wildly misleading. Beneath the polite manners, plummy British accents and idyllic rural setting lies one of the most interesting and morally layered procedural dramas that British television has ever produced.
The Magic Faraway Tree Review
Any adaptation of Enid Blyton seems a questionable prospect in the 21st century. Like Roald Dahl, her work has gone through re-evaluations in recent years, and even if the frequently xenophobic, sexist, and classist attitudes of her books weren’t an issue, her stories are so rooted in the past that any adaptation would face an uphill battle in order to remain faithful and still appeal to modern audiences, especially children. That The Magic Faraway Tree manages to feel both warmly nostalgic and...
The Magic Faraway Tree Review
Any adaptation of Enid Blyton seems a questionable prospect in the 21st century. Like Roald Dahl, her work has gone through re-evaluations in recent years, and even if the frequently xenophobic, sexist, and classist attitudes of her books weren’t an issue, her stories are so rooted in the past that any adaptation would face an uphill battle in order to remain faithful and still appeal to modern audiences, especially children.
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