This theme is a chance to look back at what to me was one of the best films of 2009. Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s most mainstream effort since the Pusher trilogy is a surrealist portrait of one of Britain’s most notorious prisoner, Michael Peterson or as he liked to be called, Charles Bronson, whose miserably comical attempt at robbing a post office in 1974 lands him in prison. Originally meant to serve a seven-year sentence he is still behind bars, and has spent 30 of those 36 years in (...) Continue Reading »

I want to silently sew up every orifice of my body to violently impede my ingestion or production of any sub-atomic particle of matter. Terminate. (Vagina Eyeliner will return to this postcolonial nightmare when we’re ready to remove the stitches and inhale.) Now for some corporal haberdashery… Dir: Michael Patrick King, 2010 Continue Reading »

Here begins Zk’s mapping of the final series of Big Brother UK: DAY ONE DAY ONE IN THE BIG BROTHER HOUSE the creative director saying there would be EIGHTY of them. I think he said EIGHTY. All day I run through the practicalities and possibilities of this variation in format. Can Endemol guarantee our trust? Do they really have the resources? THE FIRST RITUAL OF BIG BROTHER, as with any suburban do, is a tour of the house. Minor format changes are now inbuilt in the format. There (...) Continue Reading »

This is a special review of two of my coups de coeur from the recent International Human Rights Festival in Paris. This post is a little outdated as the festival took place in March, but many of the films have yet to be distributed on a larger scale and hopefully, some will be showing at cinemas or TV screens near you soon enough. The films are basically documentaries, but they are selected and awarded prizes in large part for their cinematic qualities; the manner with which they cover (...) Continue Reading »

A doctor connects three people arse to mouth. A doctor connects three people arse to mouth. If I read that somewhere I think my initial reaction would be to laugh. I watched the film and didn’t laugh. One thing’s for sure, it’s not for the faint-hearted. Technically less torture-heavy than, say, the Saw franchise, I found it more stomach churning. It left me unsure whether I liked it or not. Where to begin? The premise is straightforward: somewhere in Germany, two hapless American girls and (...) Continue Reading »