In a world where retaliation is king many cruel things abound – from those believing they have all the power and from those trying to teach them otherwise. Conflicting opinions of what is right and wrong often create cause for argument, and when put into context under extreme circumstances you create a much stronger story. That’s what In A Better World gives us – a somewhat subtle confrontation of mindsets [...]

If Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar winning wartime thriller The Hurt Locker illustrated how “War is a drug”, Danish filmmaker Janus Metz Pedersen’s gripping documentary Armadillo proves it.  Showing incredible courage and devotion to his craft, Pedersen and his talented cameraman Lars Skree put their lives on the line to document the ongoing war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban still maintain a strong and deadly presence.

The marketing team behind Catfish, a film that has nothing to do with actual catfish, have been placed in a bit of a pickle. Essentially, it’s their job to try and sell a film to the widest audience possible, but in promoting this startling handycam documentary by first-time filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, they’ve been given one crucial rule: do not, under any circumstances, reveal what the film is [...]

Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech is one of the funniest, most compelling and richly fulfilling cinematic experiences of the year, but I understand completely if you don’t believe me. Heck, had someone told me that prior to seeing the film, I probably would have fetched myself a cup of tea just for the sake of dramatically spitting it out mid-sip. After all, regal dramas have a habit of [...]

For some time now, Disney have shunned their traditional fare of fairytale retellings in favour of CGI animation with the Pixar partnership and what are arguably male-dominated stories (Chicken Little, Bolt). But their fiftieth animated feature as a solo studio continues the re-emergence of the romantic fable after 2009’s The Princess and the Frog, and marks a return to the big tales that guarantee big success. That is, [...]

For too long, horror movies has been typified by senseless levels of gore, irritating jump scares and bimbo characters with more botox than brains. But change is in the air. Thanks to the success of films such as The Blair Witch Project, [REC] and Paranormal Activity, the handy-cam style of filmmaking has effectively helped revive the genre into something worth screaming about.

For [...]

Compelling cinema in the form of a documentary can be hard to come by when it’s not arguing a provocative social or political issue currently in vogue.  Typically, biopics are rarely reserved for anything more than a midday movie time-slot with the sole intent of selling rags-to-riches story to bored housewives. Thankfully, first-time documentarians Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont have crafted an insight into the life of musical [...]