Adapted from Blake Nelson’s best selling novel and shot masterfully in director Gus Van Sant’s hometown of Portland, Paranoid Park hinges on an act of acute violence. Alex (Gabe Nevins) is a confused schoolboy skater whose life hits the bricks following his role in the death of a local security guard. The film itself, then,…
An eerie yet gorgeous tapestry of lingering close-ups; parallels, cuts and slow-motion photography, Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist is a gruelling tale of mythical grandeur: a bizarre yet beautiful film chock full of sadism and shagging, Satanic dogma and similes. If you like your films light, clear and conservative, stay away. If, however, you’re a fan…
Disturbing yet allegorical, emotionally shallow yet erotically fierce, David Cronenberg’s crushingly warped world of sex, cars and sex in cars isn’t for those who like their films “middle-of-the-road”. Try “off- road”. James Spader plays horny TV exec’ James Ballard who, following a near fatal car crash with an equally horny Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter),…
Given the buzz and aftertaste of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s writing, it was only a matter of time before a second of the transgressive author’s books made that inevitable leap from page to screen. A matter of time, yes, but of all the tales to follow Fight Club, few could’ve expected Chuck’s riotously quaint…
Any film critic worth their spurs will tell you that the overall quality of a film is often determined by whether said film achieves what it ultimately set out to do. Whether that be to excite, scare, educate, entertain or inform. By this admission, Gareth Evans’ pulsating martial arts romp The Raid is a five…
You cant say Union Films don’t accommodate for everyone and this week just goes to show, we cover all bases. We begin the week with Moonrise Kingdom on Tuesday and it’s your classic Wes Anderson movie. Followed by Snow Flower and the Secret Fan on Wednesday as Phoenix’s world cinema screening. To top it all…
I shall save my full thoughts on the film Frankenweenie for my general review. This feature shall be devoted to a description of the press conference for the film and the behind the scenes animation masterclass presentation on the day of Frankenweenie’s Gala premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. After the press screening of…
Vindictive. Exploitive. Malicious. Audacious. Psychotic. Neurotic. Subversive. Oppressive. Impressive. Disturbing. Outstanding?…Perhaps. Pointless?….Perhaps. For esoteric and darring director Michael Haneke’s American based revamp of his own cult-classic does pack a punch, but why remake one’s own film? Why not? Another question, though- how does a violent film with no on-screen violence obtain an 18 certificate in…
Tim Burton’s return to stop motion animation is a terrific success. I am overjoyed to say that Frankenweenie is an endearing, beautifully made, genuinely intelligent little film that will charm both children and adults. It’s made with such love and care and dedication to detail, watching it is like falling into a wondrous and macabre,…
“A love story so impossible… it must be true” is the movie promo’s incredibly dreamy tagline which perhaps quite aptly describes the dream come true. From the directors of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ comes ‘Ruby Sparks’, an off beat romantic comedy with a touch of fantasy. Calvin’s a one time best selling novelist who’s suffering from…
Tzvetan Todorov’s model of narrative equilibrium and the action film go hand-in-hand. Harmony, disruption, restoration. Simple. Enter Taken; Director Pierre Morel kicks things off with some good old fashioned scene setting. Subtle, delicate and about as ordinary as a Nic’ Cage flick. Oh, and we’re also thrust onto the side of his protagonist in the…
Pusher started life as a Danish thriller directed by Nicholas Winding Refn. It then became a trilogy, was remade in Britain in 2010 as a Hindi language movie, and has now been remade once again, this time in English. It’s directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Prieto, and relocates the drug-dealing and violent confrontations to the…
Everyone (well, very nearly everyone) loves Christmas and Disney, so we thought the perfect way to launch a new series of film competitions for The Edge would be to team up with The Walt Disney Company and offer a DVD of Avengers Assemble and a PS3 game of Disney/Pixar’s Brave as a prize for one…
The Mist starts off as a routine horror flick, with deliberately-B movie style monsters, blood and screaming people running madly about. And, to be fair, it doesn’t pretend to be anything else at first. But as the film goes on, the viewer discovers that this powerful fantasy disaster from Frank Darabont, adapted from a novella…