REVIEW: Bad Education [LFF 2019]

It may share its name with a Jack Whitehall classroom sitcom and its 2015 big screen spin-off, but Bad Education (sans the “The Movie” subtitle) is all the more troubling in the fact that it’s based on a real-life incident.

When Deputy Superintendent Pam Gluckin (a leonine Allison Janney) is found to have embezzled funds from the Roslyn school district, Superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman, clean as a freshly-plucked chicken) makes the case against the calling police.…

REVIEW: The Peanut Butter Falcon [LFF 2019]

By Rob Daniel

 

 

A contender for 2019’s best crowd-pleaser, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a celebration of friendship and adventure. A joyous movie leaving you with an aching face after ninety-minutes of smiling.

Alongside the delight is an admiration for the skill with which writer/directors Tyler Nilson and Mike Schwartz (under the banner Lucky Treehouse) put their movie together.…

REVIEW: Waiting For The Barbarians [LFF 2019]

Ciro Guerra’s Waiting For The Barbarians is a finely tempered adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s elegantly allegorical novel about the brutal, self-defeating ironies of colonial oppression.

The Magistrate (Mark Rylance) is, despite his grand title, an administrator, whose unobtrusive care-takingof a small nameless settlement on the frontier of The Empire gives plenty of time for pastimes.…

PODCAST: FrightFest 2019 Round-Up and London Film Festival 2019 Preview [Electric Shadows]

Episode 68 of The Electric Shadows Podcast sees Robs Daniel & Wallis look back at the Arrow Video FrightFest’s twentieth anniversary festival and run-down their top 10 films. Gems such as Rabid, The Dark Red, Ready or Not and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark all get warm words.…

REVIEW: FrightFest 2019 – Day 3 (August 24th)

Ghost Killers vs. Bloody Mary

After a supposed possession in a local school, four online paranormal investigators are brought into perform a sham exorcism to dispel the spirit.

But, Jack (Danilo Gentili), Fred (Leo Lins), Tulio (Murilo Cuoto) and Caroline (Dani Calabresa) are in for a night full of surprises.…

REVIEW: FrightFest 2019 – Day 2 (August 23rd)

Dark Encounter

By Mike Jefferson
Dark Encounter is a sci-fi horror with all the alien menace you could ask for, but not much actual drama.

A year on from the disappearance of eight-year-old Maisie, her family gather in commemoration at the house of her parents Ray (Mel Radio) and Olivia (Laura Fraser).…

REVIEW: FrightFest 2019 – Day 1 (August 22nd)

Come To Daddy

You might expect a film with a title like Come To Daddy to be fraught with a certain amount of Freudian psychodrama.

You might not be prepared, though, for one of the oddest, bloodiest, and most strangely poignant horror-comedies you’re likely to see all year.…

REVIEW: Pain & Glory

In Pain & Glory, Pedro Almodóvar strips away the kitsch and melodrama for an understated study of what can happen when pain interferes with passion.

Even if you have only a passing knowledge of Almodóvar’s work – mine is pretty much limited to his greatest hits – or his upbringing, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas, in their eighth collaboration) is in inescapably his proxy.…