Flamboyant British filmmaker Ken Russell has passed away in his sleep on Sunday evening, aged 84. Born in Southampton in 1927, Russell started his career in the industry as a photographer and independent documentary filmmaker after spells in the Merchant Navy and Royal Air Force. His attention turned to the small screen in 1959 when […]

Magic Trip, 2011. Directed by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood. SYNOPSIS: A documentary following famed author Ken Kesey and ‘The Merry Band of Pranksters’ on their acid-fuelled cross-country road trip across America to the 1964 New York World’s Fair. This documentary of novelist Ken Kesey (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) and his band of […]

D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die… Battle Royale, 2000. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Starring Kenta Fukasaku and Takeshi Kitano. Battle Royale is a Japanese horror film based on the novel of the same name written by Koushun Takami. It follows a class of children who […]

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, 2011. Directed by Bill Condon. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Julia Jones, Billy Burke, Maggie Grace and Michael Sheen. SYNOPSIS: The new-found married bliss of Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen is cut […]

Commenting on the critics with Simon Columb… Alex von Tunzelmann writes in The Guardian about accuracy of My Week with Marilyn: “Historically, the film’s main problem is that its source for the alleged Clark-Monroe liaison is Clark’s diary. In the film’s key sequence, Monroe takes too many pills, locks herself in her bedroom, and collapses. […]

Commenting on the critics with Simon Columb… Scott Mendelson writes about the log-jamming nature of prestige pictures pre-Oscar Season in the US: “Part of the problem is that there are just too many movies to see around this time of year. For reasons that still baffle me, the studios choose to unleash every single major […]

Commenting on the critics with Simon Columb… Ben Childs managed to see some sort of preview of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the BFI Imax at Waterloo: “Judging by the quarter-full auditorium at the Waterloo IMAX this morning, studio Paramount’s most difficult mission – should they choose to accept it – will be to […]

The Skin I Live In (Spanish: La piel que habito), 2011. Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo and Blanca Suárez. SYNOPSIS: A genius plastic surgeon, haunted by the tragedies of his past, creates a type of synthetic skin, tested on an imprisoned patient, that can withstand […]

Legendary two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks returns behind the camera for the only the second time in his distinguished feature film career. Arriving fifteen years after his directorial debut, That Thing You Do!, Larry Crowne sees Hanks take the title role – a blue-collar divorcee who finds himself laid off from his store job in […]

D.J. Haza presents the next entry in his series of films to watch before you die… Napoleon Dynamite, 2004. Directed by Jared Hess. Starring Jon Heder, Jon Gries, Efren Ramirez, Tina Majorino, Aaron Ruell, Diedrich Bader and Haylie Duff. Napoleon Dynamite is the story of Napoleon, a down and out loner high school kid with […]