Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Beyond the Black Rainbow 2010

  ★★★★ Added

  Panos Cosmatos’ “Beyond The Black Rainbow” already has a cultish following among film critics. So, it’s only right that we spread the word and help others appreciate this most excellent retro sci-fi horror flick about a mad doctor obsessed with a female psychic patient, who he keeps locked in a brightly-lit room and subjects to endless therapy sessions.

  (Review by Martyn Conterio).

  Part of an article about films destined for cult status:
  illusion.scene360.com/movies/59370/10-films-destined-for-cult-status/

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  You and the Night 2013

  ★★★★ Added

  Starring former Man Utd legend Eric Cantona, as a melancholic poet “cursed” with a huge penis, the son of Alain Delon and the iconic Beatrice Dalle, in a truly demented cameo, plus a gorgeous score by electro dancesmiths M83, and “You and the Night” is a keeper. Inspired by 1970s erotic and trash cinema (think: Jean Rollin and Jess Franco), Yann Gonzalez’s debut is both sexy and sleazy.

  (Review by Martyn Conterio).

  Part of an article about films destined for cult status:
  illusion.scene360.com/movies/59370/10-films-destined-for-cult-status/

Popular reviews

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  Only God Forgives 2013

  ★★★★★ Added 5

  [...] “Only God Forgives” will be termed incoherent. It’ll be shouted down as pretentious. It’ll be labelled with patronising generosity as an “interesting failure.” “Only God Forgives” is a granite slab of cinematic awesomeness that sidesteps, no, it belts audience expectation right in the kisser. And like “Drive,” it shows a world where evil cannot go unpunished and villains must taste their own wickedness. The plot involves a cop torturing and wiping out criminal scum with steel chopsticks, a sword he produces from his back—mysteriously, without a holster—and even sharper fist-fighting skills. He’s another of Refn’s celestial punishers.

  (Review by Martyn Conterio)

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  The Lives of Others 2006

  ★★★★★ Added

  This film won The Academy Award (Oscar) for “Best Foreign Language Film” and all sorts of other European film awards, back in 2006 when it was released … and I missed it; until now.

  In 1980′s German Democratic Republic (a dictatorship), East German Secret Police a.k.a. Stasi surveillance agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Muhe) is sent on a mission to keep tabs on potentially-radical playwright Georg Dreymann (Koch) and his live-in lover actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Gedeck).

  (Review by Mike Philbin)