Posts by Kambole Campbell

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – leaving behind an unexpected reinvention

By Kambole Campbell

The titular character goes his own way in a new anime that builds on the existing Scott Pilgrim canon, giving the supporting cast a chance to step up.

Isaac Nabwana: ‘We should tell our own stories in the way we want’

By Kambole Campbell

The wildly imaginative and highly resourceful filmmaker behind Uganda's ultra low budget studio Wakaliwood describes his own cinematic education, travelling to China to shoot Shaolin monks, and the next generation of African filmmakers.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem review – Turtle Power is alive and well

By Kambole Campbell

The pizza-loving, wisecracking anthropomorphic reptiles receive a substantial facelift in this charming animated outing, which embraces their adolescent spirit.

review LWLies Recommends

Emile Mosseri and Joe Talbot: ‘We’re just following the feeling of what we like’

By Kambole Campbell

To celebrate the release of Emile Mosseri's new album, he sat down with old pal and collaborator Joe Talbot for a chat about Tupac, George Constanza, and swimming in LA lakes.

Takehide Hori: ‘Everything started from my misunderstanding’

By Kambole Campbell

The writer, director, set designer, puppet builder, animator, composer and actor behind the dystopian stop-motion epic Junk Head discusses how he created a film almost single-handedly.

John Wick: Chapter 4

By Kambole Campbell

Keanu Reeves returns as the international assassin known as 'Baba Yaga', facing new enemies as he battles his way to redemption.

review LWLies Recommends

Why Inu-Oh deserves the Oscar for Best Production Design

By Kambole Campbell

Masaaki Yuasa's animated epic is more than worthy of consideration beyond the narrow restrictions of the 'Best Animated Feature' category.

Pinocchio

By Kambole Campbell

Guillermo del Toro finally realises his long-gestating passion project, with charming results.

review LWLies Recommends

The undersung talents of Yeun Biao – Hong Kong action star

By Kambole Campbell

As Dreadnaught and Knockabout receive new restorations via Eureka Video, it's time to put this Hong Kong martial arts star in the spotlight.

Escape from Mogadishu

By Kambole Campbell

Ryoo Seung-Wan’s action-thriller sees North and South Korean diplomats cooperate in order to escape the onset of the Somalian Civil War.

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Discover an anime treasure trove this spring at the BFI

By Kambole Campbell

As part of their Japan season, the BFI presents a programme of new and classic animation plus special events.

Ambulance

By Kambole Campbell

Michael Bay returns to the multiplex with a high octane thriller involving a bank robbery and a stolen ambulance.

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Turning Red

By Kambole Campbell

Domee Shi’s feature debut about a teenage girl with an unusual power is Pixar’s best film in years.

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Matt Reeves: ‘I didn’t know if Rob would want to come back to a blockbuster’

By Kambole Campbell

The man behind the return of Gotham’s favourite son reveals why Robert Pattinson was his first and only choice.

Mamoru Hosoda: ‘When it comes to the internet, reality has overtaken fiction’

By Kambole Campbell

As Belle hits UK cinemas, the acclaimed Japanese director talks Digimon, virtual cityscapes, and parenthood in the digital age.

Raging Fire

By Kambole Campbell

The final film by the great Benny Chan is a glorious throwback to the golden days of Hong Kong action flicks.

review

The End of Evangelion

By Kambole Campbell

Back in cinemas this week, Hideaki Anno’s feature-length finale breaks hearts, bodies, and the fourth wall.

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Mad God

By Kambole Campbell

Phil Tippett’s long-gestating stop-motion animation epic is a frenzied and frequently deranged Dantean odyssey.

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The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

By Kambole Campbell

The producers of Avatar prequel The Legend of Korra expand on Netflix’s dark fantasy series with a bloody “anime”.

review

Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist is an emotional look at a virtuosic director

By Kambole Campbell

Though light on the technique, this documentary offers a fascinating insight into the anime icon’s world.

A new documentary about a DIY stage version of Alien is an absurd delight

By Kambole Campbell

Alien on Stage tells the story of a pantomime troupe’s hand-crafted tribute to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic.

The Witches of the Orient

By Kambole Campbell

This riveting sports documentary tells the stranger-than-fiction story of the famed Japanese women’s volleyball team.

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Luca

By Kambole Campbell

Pixar’s fish-out-of-water fable on the Italian Riviera takes its cues from vivid imagination of Studio Ghibli.

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Terence Blanchard on composing the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s career

By Kambole Campbell

The legendary jazz musician and two-time Oscar nominee shares his creative process.

Anime Yasuke mixes African history with fantasy thrills

By Kambole Campbell

LeSean Thomas’ six-part animated series is an electrifying vision of a long-ignored legend.

Minari

By Kambole Campbell

This gorgeous semi-memoir filters the ragged glory of the American Dream through a family of South Korean immigrant farmers.

review LWLies Recommends

A new retrospective reveals the wonders of classic Chinese animation

By Kambole Campbell

The Wan brothers and Te Wei are among the pioneering artists featured in an online film season.

Why Millennium Actress remains one of cinema’s greatest love letters

By Kambole Campbell

Media, memory and film history collide in Satoshi Kon’s time-bending story of a faded screen star.

Wolfwalkers

By Kambole Campbell

An ancient Irish folk tale is brought to life in wondrous hand-drawn animation courtesy of Cartoon Saloon.

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Over the Moon

By Kambole Campbell

Long-serving Disney animator Glen Keane directs this visually inventive musical adventure.

review

Wolfwalkers – first-look review

By Kambole Campbell

The animation studio behind Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells return with a spellbinding revisionist fable.

Inside Satoshi Kon’s unfinished meta-nightmares

By Kambole Campbell

The anime master behind Paprika and Perfect Blue left behind several incomplete projects which could still be realised.

John David Washington: ‘I’m better acquainted with heights now’

By Kambole Campbell

The star of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet revels in the toil of making an experimental mega blockbuster.

Whisper of the Heart remains Studio Ghibli’s most moving outlier

By Kambole Campbell

The first and only film from Miyazaki protégé Yoshifumi Kondo stands among the studio’s best works.

Discover this avant grade war drama 40 years in the making

By Kambole Campbell

Hausu director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s penultimate film, Hanagatami, is as surreal as it is moving.

What’s old is new again in Lupin III: The First

By Kambole Campbell

The classic Japanese manga series makes the jump from 2D to 3D, and makes it look easy.

A new online anime festival promises to broaden horizons

By Kambole Campbell

Screen Anime will allow fans to discover more of Japan’s animation output, offering a wide range of films new and old.

Podcasts become strange adventures in The Midnight Gospel

By Kambole Campbell

The new show from the makers of Adventure Time filters personal experiences through psychedelic animation.

Color Out of Space

By Kambole Campbell

Nicolas Cage encounters an unholy cosmic terror in director Richard Stanley’s HP Lovecraft adaptation.

review

Only Yesterday is a masterful reflection on youth’s impermanence

By Kambole Campbell

With the release of Studio Ghibli’s back catalogue on Netflix, we look back at one of their unsung greats.

Weathering with You

By Kambole Campbell

Your Name director Makoto Shinkai returns with a riveting fantasy romance backdropped by environmental ruin.

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The Witcher review – An entertaining romp through bleak high fantasy

By Kambole Campbell

Netflix’s Andrej Sapowski adaptation is playful, violent, and enamoured with Henry Cavill’s chest.

Promare

By Kambole Campbell

Pyrokinetic mutants, shirtless firefighters and eco-fascists collide in the first feature film from Studio Trigger.

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Klaus

By Kambole Campbell

Netflix’s first animated feature production is a gorgeous looking festive heart-warmer.

review

Gemini Man, duplicates and crises of masculinity

By Kambole Campbell

Ang Lee’s sci-fi thriller explores male intimacy and dependency through a time-honoured trope.

Beanpole

By Kambole Campbell

Kantemir Balagov’s beautiful drama depicts the lasting wounds left by war, both physical and psychological.

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Meet the animation genius behind Ghost in the Shell

By Kambole Campbell

Director and designer Shōji Kawamori sees hand-drawn animation going the way of noh or kabubki in Japan.

Weathering with You – first look review

By Kambole Campbell

Makoto Shinkai’s blissful follow-up to his 2016 smash, Your Name, plants teen romance in a climate change disaster.

Color Out of Space – first look review

By Kambole Campbell

Shape-shifting aliens take on Nic Cage’s customary rage crescendo in this new horror film by the great Richard Stanley.

Science-fiction and songwriting find perfect harmony in Carole & Tuesday

By Kambole Campbell

The latest anime series from Shinichirō Watanabe is among his kindest and most soulful to date.

Do the Right Thing (1989)

By Kambole Campbell

Spike Lee’s magnum opus tells the story of a tense, sweltering summer day in Brooklyn, New York.

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Oldboy (2003)

By Kambole Campbell

Park Chan-wook’s revenge thriller mixes stylish thrills and perverse twists with a surprising amount of humour.

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Making Noise Quietly

By Kambole Campbell

This measured adaptation of Robert Holman’s stage play can’t quite escape its theatre roots.

review

Hollywood could still learn a thing or two from Tim Burton’s Batman

By Kambole Campbell

The director’s vision of Gotham City remains one of blockbuster cinema’s greatest creations.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

By Kambole Campbell

Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey becomes fused with a cosmic entity in this lacklustre series add-on.

review

Hail Satan?

By Kambole Campbell

Penny Lane’s head-spinning documentary charts the rise of The Satanic Temple.

review

Us

By Kambole Campbell

Jordan Peele’s second feature disturbs, provokes and tickles in its arch dismantling of the modern American family.

review LWLies Recommends

Netflix brings an appropriately weird adaptation of The Umbrella Academy to life

By Kambole Campbell

A disbanded superhero team reunites in this brisk and playful take on Gerard Way’s comic.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

By Kambole Campbell

Multiple Spider-Mans makes for outrageous fun in Marvel’s slick, constantly surprising multiverse animation.

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Why Netflix’s live-action remake of Cowboy Bebop is destined to fail

By Kambole Campbell

Shinichiro Watanabe’s singular ’90s show is yet another classic anime that should be left well alone.

Creed II

By Kambole Campbell

Michael B Jordan returns as Adonis Creed in this overly sentimental and uninspired rehash of Rocky IV.

review

The Hate U Give

By Kambole Campbell

With a breakout turn from Amandla Stenberg, this YA melodrama offers a fresh look at institutional oppression.

review

The Little Drummer Girl – first look review

By Kambole Campbell

Florence Pugh, Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Shannon star in this lurid, weird and impeccably designed new work from Park Chan-wook.

How BlacKkKlansman joins the dots between our racist past and present

By Kambole Campbell

Like Do the Right Thing and Bamboozled before it, Spike Lee’s film is a wake up call to white America.

A beginner’s guide to the films of Lynne Ramsay

By Kambole Campbell

To celebrate the release of You Were Never Really Here, we’ve put together a handy primer of the director’s short and feature work.

Six of the best Park Chan-wook scenes

By Kambole Campbell

From Oldboy to Stoker, here are some of the South Korean director’s most memorable moments.

Exploring black masculinity in Boyz n the Hood and Moonlight

By Kambole Campbell

John Singleton and Barry Jenkins’ films understand what it means to grow up young, black and American.

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Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.

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