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Double Bill Feature

Double Bill: Another Round & Riders of Justice

Whatever your very own personal take on the whole concept of travel in the pandemic/lockdown era, you will probably agree film is one of the safest and most rewarding ways to see the sights, out and about, out of yourself when you’re sick of your stinky boots. One of my favourite destinations in cinema year […]

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Fashion & Film Feature

Fashion & Film: Ryan Gosling’s Otherworldly Jacket in Drive (2011)

That’s Ryan Gosling at the wheel. After all the singing and dancing in La La Land, here is a little reminder that he can do tough, too (but then again, he can take on any role). Gosling is the Driver in Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 American debut. With uncanny skill, in league with cinematographer Newton Thomas […]

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Lost Classic Reviews

Lost Classic: Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009)

If “art is an act of violence” as the uncompromising Nicolas Winding Refn has attested, then his vicious Viking abstraction Valhalla Rising must surely belong in the Louvre. Cut to the bone in terms of narrative and dialogue, the only thing harsher than the inevitability of (often brutal) death in Refn’s powerful and primeval journey […]

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New Release Reviews

New Release: The Neon Demon

To give you an impression of how disappointing and utterly miscalculated Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon really is, let me say that it contains a scene in which a character engages in heartbroken sex with an iced-over corpse, and your gut response somehow turns out to be, “Is that honestly all you’ve got?” It […]