The Deep Focus

This Iranian film (directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf) was heavily censored by the authorities when it was released in 1990, with about 37 minutes being excised. Barely released at all, it…

I could trip up on the way to the cinema I could trip up on the way back from the cinema

I left home at dusk tonight, I returned when it was pitch black. It seems I’ve developed a habit of only going out after dark; a habit that’s grown out…

We live in an age where everyone has mobile phones, and cinemas now have a notice come up on the screen to remind people to switch their phones off. At…

One of the perennial annoyances of film criticism and reviews is the habit of giving plot-points away. Sight and Sound being the worst example of this. Why do they have…

My favourite cinema is HOME in Manchester. As a longstanding visitor to The Cornerhouse (HOME’s predecessor) I was actually grieving its demise a couple of years ago, thinking nothing could…

We live in an age when people love to rate a film, whether by giving it marks out of ten, or one to five stars, and so on. In this…

Wow. Just wow. This film has to be Park Chan Wook’s masterpiece. It’s like everything he’s made before has been leading up to this film. Whilst I enjoyed Stoker, one…

Some people prefer to see a film once and leave it at that, regardless of how good the film is. Personally I often like to see a film more than…

It seems to be an unwritten law of the film universe that when someone falls out of a window, there is a car parked directly beneath and they will land…