When Total Film saw Neill Blomkamp’s dystopian mindfuck District 9 (2009), we were blown away. A “stunning debut,” we called the epic fantasy that wrangled hot-button issues of racism, subjugation and segregation, “heralding the arrival of an exciting new action-cinema voice”. Neo-realist, gritty, innovative and boasting a gut-punch of an …
Read More »Taxi Driver review
In 1976, a film examining the redemptive power of violence won Oscars for Best Film and Director, albeit not for its committed star. Shame the winner was Rocky, not Scorsese’s masterpiece of urban alienation, which turns 35 this month. Though its iconic elements – De Niro’s unstable cabbie, Jodie Foster’s …
Read More »