A shudder of worry ran up my spine as Jalmari Helander’s ‘Sisu’ (2023) opened with an obvious Tarantino reference appearing before my eyes as chapter headings crashed onto the screen in bright, bold yellow coloured lettering. Hmm, that’s not a promising sign. The good news is that despite the direct…

Italy, 1943, and the young, beautiful Anna (Belinda Lee) is feeling trapped as she spends all her days stuck behind the counter of her husband’s pharmacy whilst he sits at his upstairs window bitterly name-calling every resident of the town of Ferrara that happens to walk by, a bitterness stemming…

Ten minutes into ‘The Reckless Moment’ (1949) I found myself wondering what sort of movie I was watching: Was it a noir? A melodrama? A ‘woman’s picture’? A thriller? …

Sitting in the cinema waiting for ‘Book Club: The Next Chapter’ (2023) to start this morning I was suddenly gripped by an intense fear — “But I’ve not seen the first chapter,” I thought to myself, “so how the hell will I know what’s going on or what any of…

Ask any fan of Enzo G. Castellari what’s the appeal of the director and their response will invariably be “pacing” because no other filmmaker in history made movies that blasted along at such a delirious rate of knots as this guy and his 1978 war flick ‘The Inglorious Bastards’ is…

Did something happen to Gregory Peck in the mid-70’s that generated within him a deep-seated hatred for children and dogs because re-watching ‘The Boys from Brazil (1978) it struck me this was the second film he made in two years where he played a surrogate father figure to dark-haired evil…

Look, before I go any further I need to have a quiet word with you about your expectations because when I tell you that Junya Satō’s ‘The Bullet Train’ (1975) is the film that directly inspired Jan de Bont’s ‘Speed’ (1994), the overly smug Brad Pitt action flick ‘Bullet Train’…

Have you ever watched ‘The Wild Geese’ (1978) but thought it wasn’t violent or stupid enough and that its climax needed to descend into a nihilistic, morally irresponsible nightmare? You have? Then the Shaw Brothers’ ‘Mercenaries from Hong Kong’ (1982) is the film for you! The plot revolves around… okay…

A sleazy architect is found bludgeoned to death with a giant stone phallus. The primary suspect is a bored, wealthy housewife, Anna (Jacqueline Bisset), after a letter she wrote to her gay best friend, Massimo (Jean-Louis Trintignant), suggesting they get rid of the lecherous pervert is handed over to Inspector…