No one is ready for this upcoming Spike Lee joint, especially with it being a reunion between Lee and Denzel Washington, as news has broken that Lee is turning to the work of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa as he adapts the 1963 film High and Low. Apple Original Films and A24 are partnering on Spike […]
Macbeth on Film: The Many Cinematic Adaptations of the Shakespeare Tragedy
Tom Jolliffe on the many film adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth… Shakespeare may have been the scourge of G.C.S.E students for many years, but it seems that the long standing fascination with his work is in no danger of passing. Whether its Hamlet, Othello, one of the Henrys, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear or many […]
Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo at 60
Chris Connor on Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo… Akira Kurosawa was one of the pioneers of world cinema in the 20th Century directing countless well-loved films particularly within the Samurai genre including Seven Samurai, Ran, Rashomon and one of the main inspirations behind Star Wars, 1958’s The Hidden Fortress. Many of Kurosawa’s films have been adapted in […]
Cinema’s Groundbreakers – Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon
Continuing a look back at some of the most ground-breaking films in cinema, Tom Jolliffe takes a look at Rashomon… When looking back through the work of Akira Kurosawa, it would be difficult to pinpoint only one film as particularly ground-breaking. The truth his, through his early career in a post-war boom for Japanese cinema […]
Akira Kurosawa’s Police Procedural Films
Tom Jolliffe looks at two classic crime thrillers from Akira Kurosawa, Stray Dog and High and Low… His reputation precedes him. Akira Kurosawa is one of the greatest directors of all time. A master of cinema, who took a degree of influence from old Hollywood gangster films and Westerns and refined them in his own […]
The Greatest Action Directors of All Time
Tom Jolliffe looks at the greatest action directors of all time… The action genre has never particularly had the greatest respect associated with it. Maybe there’s a feeling that they’re dramatically anaemic, or sometimes intellectually inferior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s a genre that doesn’t always have consistent specialists, because certain directors who […]
The Greatest Director of All Time?
Tom Jolliffe ponders the question: who is the greatest director of all time? One of the toughest of tough film related questions. Who is the greatest director ever? Think over all the icons throughout history. There have been countless, many who crossed from silent to sound, such as Fritz Lang, Carl Theodore Dreyer, D.W Griffith […]
How Seven Samurai created the blueprint for this year’s biggest film Avengers: Endgame
Tom Jolliffe takes a look back at Seven Samurai and its influence on modern action cinema, including the film event of the year, Avengers: Endgame… When everyone in the world within 50 miles of a cinema runs off to see Avengers: Endgame (myself included), I’d like you to bare something in mind; That is a […]
A Celebration of Janus Films
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at Janus Films, the iconic distributors of arthouse and World Cinema… It’s not often we as film goers pay much focus on film distributors. We all know the biggies. Those images that precede the big tent pole blockbusters almost seep into our synapses without much notice. Warner Bros., Universal, Disney, […]
The Problem With East Asian Action Cinema Today
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at recent trends in East Asian Action Cinema… I’ve seen a lot of action films in my time. From all over the world. From the biggest blockbusters, to the straight to VHS specials that used to regularly populate your nearest video store. Whether it was the latest mega budget Schwarzenegger […]
