Author: Rob Williams
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Indie Movie Review – Bad Witch
I don’t know if it was meant to be intentional misdirection or a case of “let’s make this kind of open ended and see where we go,” but Bad Witch starts in a very dark place. The opening scene is of an unconscious man being dragged through a wood and then cutting to another/the same guy…
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Indie Movie Review – The Inheritance
I’ll be honest, The Inheritance left me more than somewhat confused. The story, such as it is, revolves around Sasha (Natalia Ryumina) and Peter (Nick Wittman), who are living in Chicago. Sasha hears her father has died and she inherited everything. Everything includes a rather spiffing house in the centre of Kyiv, capital of the Ukraine,…
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Indie Movie Review – Crappy Mother’s Day
You only need to see the title – Crappy Mother’s Day – and you know that this film is aiming at being a comedy. Now I’ve spent in excess of six decades on this planet and know that, just because a film or TV programme describes itself as a comedy, that is no guarantee of there being…
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Indie Movie Review – Sacrilege
Sacrilege is one of those films which could have been a reasonable way to kill an hour and a half, in the tradition of the old Hammer horror films, which I remember fondly from sitting up with my father until all transmissions shut down… usually between half eleven and twelve. We’d sit in the front…
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Indie Movie Review – Death Trip
Death Trip is not a good film. It’s disjointed, overlong, and unengaging. There are a range of mistakes ranging from the small (the four of them draw straws to see who’ll have to sleep in the “haunted” room but, after one person has picked one, he still has four in his hand) to the whole…
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Indie Movie Review – The Parish
I don’t think it’s any secret that a film like The Parish isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. It’s funny how I can happily accept and appreciate a make-believe world that has room for superheroes and super spies, but struggle with a world that has the supernatural running through it. Maybe it’s because the fantasy world…
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Indie Movie Review – 86 Melrose Avenue
86 Melrose Avenue starts with a bloody and battered Travis (Dade Elza) staggering down a street while sirens are blaring in the background and red & blue lights are flashing. Desperate for somewhere to hide, he stumbles across one of the few places that are open, the eponymous 86 Melrose Avenue, where he pulls out his gun…
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The Giant James Bond Rewatch – Casino Royale (1967)
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Hopelessly outdated, arguably non-canon, wildly over budget, classic song, clashing egos… what stops 1967’s Casino Royale from being a full blown 007 film? Probably the grown ups arguing over adult things like distribution rights. Anyway… it’s over fifty years old so there may be spoilers here… I’ll be honest –when the plan to do a…
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Indie Documentary Review – Hit Record
In the world of indie films, the documentary is probably the easiest to make look like a full budget outing; there’s no need for expensive visual effects, top quality acting, or high priced music and sound effects. The audience expects the speaker to be aware and nervous that they’re being filmed, as opposed to the…
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Indie Documentary Review – Sex, Drugs & Bicycles
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Buy one, get one free! Yes, you can have a political documentary AND a comedy. Ok, maybe it’s not screamingly funny but wryly amusing, observational humour can definitely be used as a description. What we have in Sex, Drugs & Bicycles is an American, Jonathan Block — Writer/Director/Narrator — who fondly remembers a trip to The…