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Author Archives: Ross Birks
The Canyons (2013)
Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis’ Lifestyles of the Rich and Dangerous. An underrated and frequently misunderstood exercise in surfaces and cosmetics. The Canyons feels like an episode of an LA reality TV show as seen through a shattered black mirror. Everything looks … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, Rewatch
Tagged 2013, bret easton ellis, james deen, lindsay lohan, paul schrader
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Batman Returns (1992)
A masked ball-cum-circus/superhero freak show contained within a Halloween snow globe and wrapped in a black Christmas ribbon. One of the great examples of 90s studio/auteur hubris, which seemed to be a totally misjudged disaster upon release but now looks … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, Rewatch
Tagged 1992, Christopher Walken, Danny DeVito, Danny Elfman, Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tim Burton
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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
The most in tune Tim Burton has been with a piece of material in years. There are dashings of imagination here, from full set-pieces to instances of scenic finesse, that see the famously design-orientated director fully engaged and present with … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged 2016, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Kim Dickens, Rupert Everett, Samuel L. Jackson, Terence Stamp, Tim Burton
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Set It Up (2018)
A delightfully old-school rom-com amplified by its quartet of charming and attractive leads and knowing screenplay. The fact it feels so bright and sitcommy keeps reminding you this was made for Netflix and not a proper big screen, but the … Continue reading
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Tagged 2018, Claire Scanlon, Glen Powell, Lucy Liu, Taye Diggs, Zoey Dutch
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Mandy (2018)
A psychotronic potion so committed to its own combination of high/low/trash/art aesthetics, it’s no wonder us carnivorous cinephiles eat this up like a hallucinogen-tinged three course dinner. Cosmatos’ loyalty to his own metronomic sense of drone pacing might turn a … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged 2018, Andrea Riseborough, Johan Johannson, Linus Roache, Nicolas Cage, Panos Cosmatos
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Batman (1989)
You don’t need me to tell you that comic book movies are a dime a dozen at the moment, but none of them look like Tim Burton’s Batman. Overwhelmingly physical in its environs and effects and visually uncomplicated; edited cleanly and … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, Rewatch
Tagged 1989, Danny Elfman, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Michael Keaton, Pat Hingle, Tim Burton
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
A terrific subterranean thriller with a primo cast of shaggy dog stars, the kind who seemed to go extinct once the 70s drew to a close. Owen Roizman’s moody photography is soaked in darkness and shadow, with striking anamorphic lens … Continue reading
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Tagged 1974, Joseph Sargent, Martin Balsam, Robert Shaw, Walter Matthau
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Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
This rewatch has been a long time coming. Zero Dark Thirty is one of those movies that is so dense with information that it’s difficult to penetrate and engage with, especially on first viewing. It’s a slow-burning procedural which spans a decade, … Continue reading
Slice (2018)
Slice attempts to draw a high-concept universe that never really comes together. It feels indebted to EC comics as much as it does 80s horror-comedies like Ghostbusters which it cribs from freely. Weirdly though, it has a very cheap aesthetic with make-up effects … Continue reading
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Nowhere near as classy or as deliberately shot as the first Sicario, which had a visual elegance to offset any iffy screenplay quibbles. In fact, that very style led it to being at the top of my favourite movies of 2015. Day … Continue reading
"This Film Should Be Played Loud" 