U (BBFC)

ComedyFilmReviews

The Films That Made Me: The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup (1933, USA)

Ren Zelen

The Films That Made Me: The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup (1933, USA)

Duck Soup is a 1933 pre-Code Marx Brothers film universally acknowledged as a comedy classic. It’s a movie which ridicules the leader of a country whose narcissism and rivalry manages to horrify, amuse or infuriate the international community and pushes him to create division and conflict.

Hmm… I guess some topics are simply evergreen. Yet, like so many film ‘classics’ Duck Soup hasn’t necessarily been viewed by people who consider themselves cinephiles, comedy fans or movie buffs.

“War is swell…when the Marx Brothers are in it. They’ll be out of the trenches by Christmas…if the food doesn’t improve!”

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FantasyFilmHorrorReviewsThriller

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Germany) Review

Tashya Campbell

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Germany) Review

It is safe to say that this is cinematic artistry at its very best. This horror, although silent, screams of an unhinged nightmare full off vivid expressionistic imagery. From the beginning the film’s soundtrack alerts the viewer that something dark and sinister is on the cards. The set is the work of a mastermind and with the scenery being uneven and far from any utopian environment, this is reflected in the twisted music.

“Dr. Caligari and his mysterious slave – the black and white phantom who lives in a cabinet and goes forth in his sleep to do his master’s bidding.”

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DocumentaryFilmReviews

Apollo 11 (2019, USA) Sundance London 2019 Review

I. Seymour

Apollo 11 (2019)

“Hey, we missed the whole thing!” was Buzz Aldrin’s quip to Neil Armstrong as the first men to walk on the Moon watched a recording of the TV coverage of the Apollo 11 mission while sitting in quarantine following their return to Earth. Now, fully half a century after the event, Mr Aldrin and the rest of us can see more of “the whole thing” than ever before thanks to Apollo 11, director Todd Douglas Miller’s astonishing new documentary. Miller and his team have created a cinematic experience whose scale and impact are worthy of the momentous events it depicts.

“A cinematic event 50 years in the making.”

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