European Movie Reviews »
New On Blu-Ray/DVD: Bullhead (2011)
Michael R. Roskam’s Oscar-nominated crime film “Bullhead” begins with a voice over prologue. This one line sums things up: “One thing is for sure, you’re always fucked.” With that single statement the mood is...
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SIFF ’12 Review: Citadel (2012)
Writer/director Ciaran Foy’s “Citadel” is the creepiest, most affecting horror movie I’ve seen in quite some time. The film draws strength from a variety of sources, leaning heavily on supernatural and religious overtones. The...
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SIFF ’12 Review: Game Of Werewolves (2011)
Mixing horror and comedy is a tricky proposition. Leaning too heavily on one element over the other can lead to an imbalance, and too many attempts to synthesize the two genres result in movies...
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Piggy (2012) Movie Review
“Piggy” is a gritty British revenge thriller, which marks the feature debut of writer director Kieron Hawkes. Martin Compston (“The Disappearance of Alice Creed”) stars as Joe, a socially awkward, shy young man sleep...
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Urban Explorers (2011) Movie Review
“Urban Explorers” offers a horrific twist on the apparently popular new pastime of urban exploration (also referred to by the particularly hip as Urbex or UE), in which practitioners make their way through abandoned...
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King Of Devil’s Island (2010) Movie Review
A few minutes into Norwegian director Marius Holst’s “King of Devil’s Island” you can guess the direction the story will go. That isn’t to say the film is bad or boring, it is in...
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) Movie Review
Based on John le Carre’s 1974 spy novel of the same name, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” has a lot going for it. Chief on this list is the cast, led by Gary Oldman, who...
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Tyrannosaur (2011) Movie Review
Paddy Considine is known primarily as a character actor, with some small parts in some big movies, like “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Cinderella Man”, some bigger parts in smaller films. He also has a...
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The Baron (2011) Movie Review
“The Baron” is a Portuguese film shot in retro-modern-scope, in glorious high contrast Black and White, boasting to be “a 2-D film by Edgar Pêra”. One could say that it is modern precisely in...
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BFI London Film Festival Review: The Awakening (2011)
Marking the big screen debut of television director Nick Murphy, “The Awakening” is an old fashioned British ghost story following the usual creepy goings-on in a countryside boys’ boarding school. With a script by...
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BFI London Film Festival Review: Headhunters (2011)
The current wave of popular Scandinavian cinema continues with “Headhunters” from director Morten Tyldum, previously responsible for “Buddy” and “Fallen Angels”. The film was adapted from a novel by award winning and hugely successful...
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BFI London Film Festival Review: The Monk (2011)
French-Spanish production “The Monk” is the third feature from writer director Dominik Moll (“Harry, He’s Here To Help”, “Lemming”), and is an adaptation of the 1796 novel by Matthew Lewis, itself renowned as being...
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BFI London Film Festival Review: Carnage (2011)
Roman Polanski returns with “Carnage”, an adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play “The God of Carnage”, a sharp satire which digs at the hypocrisy that often lurks behind the façade of middle-class liberalism. For what...
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British Horror Film Festival ’11: The Holding, Stalker, and The Hike
The British Horror Film Festival, now in its second year, took place in London and Bournemouth over October 14th and 15th 2011, boasting a line-up of new home-grown genre fare. As well as the...
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London Film Festival Review: 360 (2011)
“City of God” and “The Constant Gardener” director Fernando Meirelles returns with “360”, his highly anticipated new outing, fittingly chosen as the opening film of the 2011 London Film Festival. Using Arthur Schnitzler’s classic...
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Film Shots: Atrocious, Wreckage, Blood Runs Cold, and Cannibal
ATROCIOUS The found footage subgenre refuses to die, with “Atrocious” arriving as one of the latest attempts to wring what must surely be the last drops of creativity from the tiring form. Written and...
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MIFFF Short Films Reviews
One of the coolest things about the Maelstrom International Fantastic Movie Festival is the shorts program. There were an absurd number of them, almost fifty, broken up into genre-specific chunks—a fantasy, animation, horror, and...
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The Last Circus (2010) Movie Review
Okay boys and girls, it’s time to put on our bat-shit-crazy-pants and get a little bit nuts. And by a little bit nuts, I mean a lot bit nuts. This is really the only...
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The Guard (2011) Movie Review
What do you get when you throw together a crotchety Irish cop and a straight shooting, by-the-book FBI agent? You get a damn good time, that’s what. And director John Michael McDonagh’s new film...
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Film Shots: Julia’s Eyes, Mother’s Day, and Attack the Block
MOTHER’S DAY (2010) The latest in the never ending stream of (arguably) needless Hollywood horror remakes sees “Saw” franchise director Darren Lynn Bousman serving up an all new version of the 1980 Charles Kaufman...
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