Cinema Review

The first month was great – too good, in fact – and there I was parading the virtues of online DVD rental and how perfect my supplier Love Film was. Oh dear, how wrong was I. Don’t let the ‘2 weeks free trial’ con you into thinking you’re getting a good deal!

I was with them for four months (using their £12.99 a month package which allows you to receive an unlimited amount of DVDs with two at home at any given time), and for the final three months, I never once received a film I actually wanted.

At one point I received DVDs in the post, checked to see what they were, and sent them back immediately because I simply didn’t care to watch them. Part of the problem with renting films is that you have to watch them within a given time frame. Sometimes this can work out for the better, but the way online rental works - with your next DVDs sent out once you’ve returned your last ones - you only get your moneys worth if you power through around 4 films a week. Two things: 1) Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the week to get through 4 films, but more importantly with Love Film, it’s even harder when the films aren’t ones you actually want; and 2) you are relying on Love Film to post out your DVDs promptly to beat Sunday’s lack of post.

Love Film pander to the needs of new customers leaving monthly subscribers out in the cold. For the first few weeks I received all the DVDs I wanted, promptly and in good condition. After my first month’s payment had been taken, I stopped receiving the films I wanted and only got films they force you to add to a wish list. Basically, if you don’t have twenty films on a list, they won’t send you a single film – or at least, I didn’t receive one when I struggled to list twenty. My problem with the list is that I only wanted brand new releases, perhaps two per week. I have a huge collection of DVDs at home, I wasn’t interested in catalogue titles. After a month, I’d run out of catalogue titles I wanted. When my list dwindled to less than the ‘recommended’ (actually read: necessary) twenty titles, nothing was sent out until I replenished the list, essentially, with films I didn’t want. I was left paying for a service I wasn’t getting.

Essentially, Love Film wants to be bigger than it can manage, at least at the present time, and I wouldn’t recommend using them as your online rental company. Their customer service is very poor (although they have tried to improve it), their inability to deliver on the customer’s need is even more damning, and they have a poor policy for customers who want to leave. I had to pay for another month of zero service because after ringing their customer service team (you have to phone them to cancel membership, you cannot do it online) I was told (a complete lie) that near the time of my next payment I could officially cancel my membership online. This was not the case. I called up on the day of my payment for the following month and because I had DVDs at home (they’d sent more out even though I’d notified them that I wanted to cancel my membership), I had to pay for another month. Terrible.

I won’t be ignoring the huge amount of unhappy user reviews on ciao.co.uk ever again.

A retrospective review of John Landis' first feature film after the tragic deaths during the production of The Twilight Zone movie in 1982. This review investigates Into The Night's fascination with the fake reality we build for ourselves and what happens when it breaks down. It also looks at how a director battling inner-turmoil places his feelings on film. CLICK HERE FOR FULL REVIEW

CLICK HERE for further info on Into The Night inc. bios, DVD information, and more reviews.

[extract]The genre has failed for years to get recognition from a critical standpoint. Much of the recognition it did receive was negative – throughout the 1930s and 1940s, horror movies were thought to be harmful to society and many local authorities banned films they deemed unsuitable. During the 1950s, Hammer Studios used negative press and liberal scare tactics to promote their films, and it was as much the backlash from politicians and critics that helped cultivate underground following for the genre. However, by the late 1960s, there was a trend beginning in France that saw critics warming to the genre, and by the time Carlos Clarens and Ivan Butler’s books were released, there was a new feeling that looked at the films as serious art forms. Instead of lambasting horror movies as detrimental, even dangerous, to society, writers were beginning to look at the long literary traditions that had first inspired these films. And they also investigated the history and transformation of the genre since the first examples were seen in such German expressionism as Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.[extract]

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Have a look at the list: Top 10 - CLICK HERE

'For Your entertainment' by Kira Cochrane
Mainstream movies are getting darker and more violent. And as Quentin Tarantino's latest project, Grindhouse, demonstrates, the worst of the violence is often directed at women. Kira Cochrane on the rise of 'torture porn'

[extract]Talking about his upcoming film Hostel II at a press junket recently, the young director Eli Roth couldn't contain his enthusiasm for the poster devised by the film's marketing team - a close-up of some sinewy, gleaming boar meat. "Any time people see women in a horror film," he noted, "they say, 'Oh, these girls are just pieces of meat.' And, literally, in Hostel Part II, that's exactly what they are. They are the bait, they are the meat, they are the grist for the mill. So I thought it was actually a really smart poster ... and really, really disgusting! I love it."[extract] (READ FULL ARTICLE)

Several articles that look at short film in the UK. Click the below titles to read/navigate between each individual article:

1. Short Film: A brief critical history

2. Short Film In The UK: Screen Yorkshire and the Independents

3. Short Film In The UK: Film Festivals and Competitions

4. Short Film In The UK: Technology and the Tiny Screen

5. Short Film In The UK: Availability, Audience, and the Future

6. Short Film In The UK: Recommended Links

Written by James Rose (READ FULL ESSAY)
Offscreen: Vol 10, issue 10
Representations of the Modern Male in Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes

[extract] Although twenty-nine years have passed since its first release, the possible interpretations of Craven’s narrative are as relevant now as they were back then. Given this Aja and writer Grégory Levasseur choose not to drastically alter Craven’s original story for their recent remake. This adherence is in some ways a hindrance for they change very little in terms of narrative structure and so the critical readings of Aja’s film are, to some extent, as equally applicable to Craven’s original. But, to their credit, Aja and Levasseur do make minor alterations, most notably to Doug Wood’s narrative. In addition to changing his surname, they place Doug into more psychological and physically gruelling conditions and so amplifying his violent transgression. In a responsive balance to this, the mutant family is given a greater identity by living in a semblance of a normal home, a nuclear test site village. Both changes lend weight to the film’s critical readings, predominately making the growing similarities between the two families, as much as their initial difference, more obvious. [extract]

(CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ESSAY)

Written by Donato Totaro (READ FULL ESSAY)

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film Meets The Sandman

[extract]For those interested in more documented analysis on the stalker/slasher film, a recent television documentary series called On Screen, which devotes single hour programs to examining important Canadian films, looked at Black Christmas in its first season (it is now in its second season), interviewing many of its cast, crew, and notable film critics. The question of the film’s pedigree as the first stalker/slasher film, and its influence on John Carpenter is touched on briefly toward the end of the documentary. (Information which was previously stated by Clark in his commentary track to the 2002 Critical Mass special edition release of the DVD, which reveals that Carpenter, who had seen and admired Black Christmas, asked Clark if he was considering making a sequel to Black Christmas. When Clark replied in the negative, Carpenter asked him, rhetorically, that if he were to make a sequel what would he call it? Clark replied with the title “Halloween” and added the plot fragment of the killer being caught and institutionalized at the end of the first film, and the sequel picking up with the killer escaping and returning to the same location to continue killing. To set the record straight, the self-effacing Clark has never made much of this handed down story information, and is quick to point out that Halloween has many more differences than similarities to Black Christmas and stands as its own film.)[extract]

(CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ESSAY)

Dir. Robert Altman; Year - 1973

I wrote a few paragraphs about Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye nearly a year ago, when I knew even less about movies and writing about them than I do now and before I realized any one else would see my drivel. I was perceptive enough then to guess that an additional viewing would greatly enhance my appreciation of the film and my instincts proved accurate. As with Altman’s subsequent teaming with Elliott Gould, California Split, the director’s update of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe mystery improved dramatically on a second screening. Seeing both in fine-looking theatrical prints surely helped, but it was just as important to sit down and relax with the film, enjoying its little inspired touches instead of focusing on the advancement of the story. (READ FULL REVIEW - CLICK HERE)

Source: Clydefro - filmjournal.net

[extract] I’ve heard Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s 2002 Oscar-nominated film to be likened to Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Much like Antonia Bird’s drama Priest (2004) been likened to The Exorcist because they both feature members of the church questioning their own faith, the two films couldn’t be more dissimilar. Take away the theme of crime and the time-switching narrative and you’ve got two films as far apart as the geographical regions where they were filmed. City Of God isn’t interested in over-stylised characters that overplay the merits of the metric system or theatrical violence and pop-culture references, it cuts far closer to the bone than that. And perhaps most importantly, unlike Pulp Fiction, City Of God seeks to tell us something we didn’t already know – and I’m not talking about the French new wave. [extract] (READ FULL REVIEW HERE)