By - Gareth Jones For fans of House Party, 90’s London, films about friendship If you were alive in 1999, your world was quite different as you approached New Year’s.  The Y2K hysteria was in full effect, Google was just starting to be a thing, flip phones with messaging had just started, and people actually tried to keep electronic pets called Tamagochi alive.  This era is expertly captured in humorous […]

By - Gareth Jones For fans of Hard to categorize films, coming of age films, Folk Horror, Australian Women directors Released in 1989, Celia has been a challenge for people to categorize. Initially, it was marketed as a coming of age story in Australia, but when it made its way to the United States it was misleadingly marketed at Celia: Child of Terror, in the same manner as The Bad […]

By Gareth Jones For fans of Au Hasard Balthazar, Animal perspectives, the Kuleshov Effect, Polish Film Although he lost this year’s Oscar for Best International Film to All’s Quiet on the Western Front, 84-year-old Polish master Jerzy Skolomowski’s has created an equally devastating examination of the inhumanity of mankind with Eo.  Instead of war, we get the perspective of the donkey, Eo, as he wanders in and out of relationships […]

By Gareth Jones For fans of intense, thought-provoking films as well as fantastic performances by women, and Sarah Polley I think it is safe to say that after four brilliant directed films, Sarah Polley is one of the best directors working today, regardless of her gender. However, her gender and perspective are vitally important to all of her work.  She started out as an actor in one of my all […]

By Gareth Jones For fans of “slow” cinema, Spanish film, photo-lyric realism or poetic realism Last week on Sleep In Cinema we talked about Victor Erice and his masterpiece Spirit of the Beehive. However, we could not help ourselves and also talked about his second film, which is equally a masterpiece. Released in 1983, ten years after Spirit, El Sur is an adaptation of the short novel of the same […]

By Gareth Jones For fans of screwball comedies, post code but still spicy Hollywood, Irene Dunne, and fans of the name Mervyn Released in 1936, a couple of years after the implementation of the Hays Code, Theodora Goes Wild is a commentary on the self-censorship of Hollywood and the hand-wringing of American society.  It tells the story of youngTheodora Lynn, member of the namesake family of conservative small town Lynnville.  […]

By Gareth Jones For fans of Andrei Tarkovsky, Experimental Documentaries, Nuclear Waste concerns (who isn’t concerned?) Released in 2022 (not to be confused with the horror film with the same title) this experimental Lithuanian documentary is directed by Emilija Škarnulytė.  It has the pacing of Tarkovsky as well as his immersive cinematography.  It focuses on the Ingnalina Power Plant in Lithuania which was the sister power plant to Chernobyl.  After […]

By Gareth Jones   For fans of J-Horror, Atmospheric Ghost Stories, Japanese Folk Horror Released in 1968 (the same year as Witchfinder General, one of the Unholy Trinity of Folk Horror and to which there are many similarities) Kuroneko is Kaneto Shindo’s second horror masterpiece.  Set in war-torn medieval Japan (mirroring the post-WWII economic chaos) it tells the story of a mother and daughter-in-law who are brutally raped and killed […]

By Gareth Jones For the first time since 2020, Sundance held an in-person festival and it was a wondrous return.  There was an energy and level of excitement that was palpable.  Seeing great films in a theater with a collection of film-lovers is the best way to experience films.  It is unmatched. Film festivals are still a vital part of the cinematic ecosystem and Sundance is the first of the […]