michael pattison Archive

Bradford International Film Festival 2013 Preview

This year’s Bradford International Film Festival kicks off on Thursday 11 April, and runs until 21 April at the National Media Museum and other venues across Bradford and West Yorkshire in partnership once again with Virgin Media. Now in its 19th year, the annual event boasts an exciting range of world- and UK-premieres, special weekends, [...]
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Vito DVD Review

As its title suggests, Vito (2011) is concerned primarily with the biographical details of its subject as related by those who knew him on a first-name basis – friends, family, colleagues, biographer, fellow activists. Originally made for HBO and released for the first time on DVD by Peccadillo Pictures, the film is an effective and [...]
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Broadchurch Episode One Review

British teledrama has another scrape of the long-empty creative barrel with dramatic dregs-heap Broadchurch, the latest in a long line of rock-bottom miserablist productions that are over-funded and offensively marketed. As its tagline (“A Town Wrapped in Secrets”) and its premise (small town rocked by murder!) suggest, this new eight-part series sails to shore brimming [...]
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Broken City Review

Though it feels like a messily produced adaptation of a mediocre novel, Broken City is the product of an original screenplay by feature scriptwriting debutant Brian Tucker; it is also the first solo directorial effort by Allen Hughes, whose previous credits as director (1993′s Menace II Society, 1995′s Dead Presidents and so on) have all [...]
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Breath of the Gods Review

When, towards the end of his Breath of the Gods, director Jan Schmidt-Garre performs the “life-saving” routine practiced by the father of modern yoga Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya until his death in 1989 aged 100, there is an appreciable quietude to proceedings, whereby the distant car horns and engine revs of a busy city beyond the [...]
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From the Sea to the Land Beyond DVD Review

Introducing Mitchell and Kenyon’s 1901 film SS Saxonia in Liverpool, one of the several shorts included as extras on this BFI DVD release, director Penny Woolcock speaks of the historical currents that informed its production. More specifically, Woolcock notes that because this context and its social implications are not immediately knowable from the film itself, [...]
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