Film Review: ‘A Lonely Place to Die’
★★☆☆☆ Julian Gilbey’s A Lonely Place to Die (2011) – starring Melissa George, Ed Speleers, Eamonn Walker and Sean Harris – is yet another example...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★☆☆☆ Julian Gilbey’s A Lonely Place to Die (2011) – starring Melissa George, Ed Speleers, Eamonn Walker and Sean Harris – is yet another example...
With the film world’s attention currently focused on festivals in Venice and Toronto, the curtain quietly closed last week on a smaller, specialist festival...
Tony Scott’s action classic Top Gun (1986) – starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer – was the centre piece for the second...
★★★★☆ Memories of director William Friedkin’s former glories, specifically The Exorcist (1973) and The French Connection (1971), have made sitting through past tripe like...
★★★★☆ British director Steve McQueen was first in Venice back in 2009, donning his artist’s hat and representing the UK at the Biennale Art Exhibition....
★★★☆☆ André Øvredal’s Norwegian monster movie Troll Hunter (2010) has been reviewed to death already and if you want to check out our editor’s...
★★★★★ Cary Fukunaga’s invigorating new version of Jane Eyre (2011), starring Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska, should appeal to Charlotte Brontë purists as well...
The BFI today announced the full programme for this year’s 55th BFI London Film Festival, which takes place between 12-27 October. The undoubted highlights...