After years working in comic book publishing, Owen retrained and began freelancing as a journalist. He has written film, TV and culture pieces for The Guardian, New Statesman, local papers like the South London Press, plus other sites and magazines. He is currently studying for a Master's degree in Film History at Birkbeck, University of London. You can read more of his writing over at his own blog smokescreenlondon.com.
We have 239 reviews by Owen Van Spall in the database:
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Ganatra’s film falls short in many ways despite having the best of intentions.
A late-night talk show host’s world is turned upside down when she hires her only female staff writer. Originally intended to smooth over diversity concerns, her decision has unexpectedly hilarious consequences as the two women separated by culture and generation are united by their love of a biting punchline.
A look at the intersection of religion and activism, tracing the rise of The Satanic Temple: only six years old and already one of the most controversial religious movements in American history. The Temple is calling for a Satanic revolution to save the nation’s soul. But are they for real?
What does leave an impression is the acting, the use of locations, and the intensity of the experience; this is a bloody, angry and sad film about oppression and the consequences of it.
Rarely becoming laugh-out-loud funny to compensate for any sophistication in the conceit, Corporate Animals is at its best when it takes the ludicrous scenario into the craziest, ickiest areas.
Disaster strikes when the egotistical CEO of an edible cutlery company leads her long-suffering staff on a corporate team-building trip in New Mexico. Trapped underground, this mismatched and disgruntled group must pull together to survive.
Wang proves adept at slowly and gently building up the onion layers of this family as more and more of them come into each other’s orbit.
A headstrong Chinese-American woman returns to China when her beloved grandmother is given a terminal diagnosis. Billi struggles with her family’s decision to keep grandma in the dark about her own illness as they all stage an impromptu wedding to see grandma one last time.
Despite knowing, thanks to the consumption of a dozen or so books, how things would play out...I still found myself tensing up when we see the Eagle lunar lander begin its descent
A purely archival reconstruction of humanity’s first trip to another world, featuring never-before-seen 70mm footage and never-before-heard audio from the mission.
Jackson’s interventions into archive material are often startling and sometimes very transporting and moving, but in my view this film is best approached as more of a well-intentioned artistic reinterpretation.. than a restoration.
Archive, colourised footage tells the story of the First World War.
Going along with a bonkers plot and lashings of melodramatic confrontations between the characters is a hell of a lot easier to do when you have a well-done Wuxia spectacular to delight your eyes.
The story of a great king and his people, who will be expelled from their homeland and will aspire to claim it.
Though the film feels too smart and too busy for its own good at times, the story remains fascinating (though troubling), and the cinematography always striking.
An old mining town on the Arizona-Mexico border finally reckons with its darkest day: the deportation of 1200 immigrant miners exactly 100 years ago. Locals collaborate to stage recreations of their controversial past.
