Donor Unknown is one of the most fascinating documentaries I’ve seen. It has characters as fascinating as any found by Louis Theroux, a story as unlikely as Searching for Sugar Man, and moral dilemmas as chewy as a Nick Broomfield’s secret toffee stash. The film follows the story of 20-year-old JoEllen Marsh …
Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist and filmmaker whose work especially concentrates on the fallout from the ‘war on terror’. He has written several books, including Dirty Wars, which was turned into an Oscar-nominated documentary film. The quantity of research required for this interview paid off, Jeremy had some fascinating, if controversial, things to …
When Network Distributing started re-releasing a number of old British sex comedies (as well as horror films and common-or-garden comedies), they contacted David McGillivray to give interviews about the subject. Mr McGillivray is described on his Wikipedia page as “an actor, producer, playwright, screenwriter and film critic”. He wrote a …
The 1960s Japanese crime movie Branded to Kill is one of the strangest I’ve seen. It is arty and odd, but luckily it does not take itself too seriously either. Directed by cult Japanese director Seijun Suzuki and starring the unusual-looking Joe Shishido, the film has gone on to influence a number of …
Based on a cult novel by American Muslim convert Michael Muhammad Knight, The Taqwacores is an indie film with an independent-mind. Sent to study in America, innocent Pakistani student Yusuf finds that the Muslim shared house he has been placed in by his pious parents is filled with some very unorthodox co-religionists. His housemates are …
Richard Gere’s performance in Arbitrage was heralded as a return to form after many years of playing the romantic hero. As Robert Miller, Gere played a suave, but dodgy billionaire who finds his carefully constructed world is about to come crashing down on his head. I was lucky enough to interview the …
Martin Scorsese is one of the most popular and artistically acclaimed film directors on the planet. Influenced by the greats of American and Italian cinema, his films have gone on to influence filmmakers across the globe. What is less known is that Scorsese counts British film as the third most important …
Of all the articles I wrote for TheFilmReview.com, Documenting the Buddhas of Aynak is probably the one I am most proud of. The article looks at American documentary film maker, Brent Huffman’s efforts to make a film about Afghan archaeologist Qadir Temori as he races against time to save a 5,000-year-old archaeological site in Afghanistan …
