Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Retribution remains one of the most overlooked of his recent films, despite feeling like a culmination of so many of the ideas that run through his work. I feel it deserves to be spoken about in the same breath as Cure, not simply because it revisits similar themes, but because it pushes his particular obsessions with moral and psychological decay even further into abstraction. The ghost at the centre of the film is unmistakably one of Kurosawa’s spirits.…

I'm genuinely happy that so many folks have gone to the cinema to see Sam Raimi's latest film. I have a lot of goodwill for that man, and I can see why audiences have responded to his particular brand of carefully calibrated gore and humour. He does 'fun-time at the movies' better than most. However, for me, it is all just too broad, on-the-nose, and too often I found it undercut some potentially strong scenes with corny, televisual dialogue. I…

Andrzej Żuławski's beautiful and enigmatic On the Silver Globe (‘Na Srebrnym Globie’) once again proves that he is more than just Possession. A lot of negative reviews for this masterpiece seem to focus on the script, in particular the long and florid eulogies that characters deliver to the camera. I think some audience members prefer their hard SF to be either like 2001, with its detached, austere tone, or they want something more realistic, like Alien. These more classical approaches…

The power of restraint! Sometimes, and all too rarely, a film comes along that restores your faith in the power of visual storytelling to tell a subtle, moving story with the gentlest of touches. Aftersun is a great example of this, and a welcome addition to the Father/Child drama genre. Charlotte Wells demands the full attention of her audience to closely watch her film that deals with themes of memory, nostalgia, and depression, with the least amount of exposition or…