Pop stars Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, known internationally as the Pet Shop Boys, take a melancholic stroll through a warped, deteriorating England in Jack Bond’s surreal art film It Couldn’t Happen Here. It was a commercial failure on release … Continue reading REVIEW: It Couldn’t Happen Here (1987)
‘Very few cartoons are broadcast live,’ said the animation producer to Homer Simpson, ‘it’s a terrible strain on the animator’s wrists.’ This advice clearly went unheeded by the cast of Anime Supremacy!, a Japanese workplace drama in which rival teams of … Continue reading REVIEW: Anime Supremacy! (2022)
Gigi (Miriam Yeung) is a travel agent yearning to undertake more travel herself but is instead stuck in Hong Kong thanks to her workaholic architect husband Shing-Wah (Jan Lamb) – who may be cheating on her. A class reunion causes … Continue reading REVIEW: She Remembers, He Forgets (2015)
The late film critic Roger Ebert once observed that ‘nine out of ten children’s movies are stupid, witless, and display contempt for their audiences, and that’s why kids hate them’, which seems terribly unfair but which is also probably true. … Continue reading CHIFF: Dragon Princess (2021)
Three orphaned sisters break out of their foster home for a day at the beach, only to be swept out to sea on the back of a surfboard and marooned on a rocky island full of seals. This premise, for … Continue reading CHIFF: The Island of Lost Girls (2022)
A mermaid princess named Ariel (Halle Bailey) goes against the wishes of her father Triton (Javier Bardem) to investigate the world of humans, only to fall in love with the dashing Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King). To go on land to … Continue reading REVIEW: The Little Mermaid (2023)
Here is the weirdest thing that happens in Eiji Uchida’s feature Love and Other Cults. Three teenage boys have called a telephone number that was scrawled onto a bathroom wall and are expecting a young woman to turn up to … Continue reading REVIEW: Love and Other Cults (2017)
Two women climb a 600-metre abandoned television tower, only to get stuck at the top with no way of getting back down. There is something nice about these human-versus-nature stories, which by their very construction use a minimum of locations, … Continue reading REVIEW: Fall (2022)
Over the course of 2023, FictionMachine has been celebrating the best films of the 1990s. Today we’re counting down from 225 to 201, a group that includes franchise blockbusters, literary adaptations, and a couple of the most quotable cult comedies … Continue reading Favourites of the 1990s: #225-201
I think there is a point at every trip to the funfair when you take one too many rides on the rollercoaster, and wind up vomiting your hot dog and soda onto the pavement. The rides were great, and you … Continue reading REVIEW: Fast X (2023)
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