Category Archives: Rewatch

Tideland (2005)

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Ross Birks

The deranged lovechild of Lewis Carroll, Gummo, Nekromantik and Malick nobody asked for. Endlessly icky and puzzling but one of those hard Gilliam tonal swings you wouldn’t want to be without. The mix of innocence and perversion soon becomes tiresome but there are … Continue reading →

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Snatch (2002)

Posted on November 7, 2018 by Ross Birks

Probably the definitive distillation of Guy Ritchie’s brand. Overly stylish and cocky yet totally controlled and entertaining. The attempt at zingy dialogue is certainly too clever for its own good but Ritchie does have an ear for rhythm. The constant … Continue reading →

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Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

Posted on November 3, 2018 by Ross Birks

This has certainly lost a lot of its spark in the twenty years since its release, diluted no doubt by the gamut of imitators which continue to plague the UK genre and STV markets in its wake. Still, Lock, Stock remains an … Continue reading →

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Candyman (1992)

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Ross Birks

This is a far more grotesque and elegantly told work than I initially gave it credit for. For as much as we recognise Candyman as part of the Clive Barker canon, it’s actually writer/director Bernard Rose who’s responsible for the film’s most … Continue reading →

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The Canyons (2013)

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Ross Birks

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 →

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Batman Returns (1992)

Posted on September 19, 2018 by Ross Birks

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 →

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Batman (1989)

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Ross Birks

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 →

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Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Ross Birks

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 →

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Slice (2018)

Posted on September 12, 2018 by Ross Birks

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 →

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Predator 2 (1990)

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Ross Birks

A lurid buffet of scraps and bad habits left over from the 80s jacked up and saturated like a crazy Frank Miller splash page. The cast makes it feel like Predator 2 unfolds in some kind of Richard Donner/James Cameron shared universe … Continue reading →

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