★★★★☆ In the run-up to a regional hairdressing competition, the leading entrant is found mutilated. British director Thomas Hardiman’s debut film is a gripping, dizzyingly stylish thriller. With a tightly-woven plot, dazzling cinematography and a razor-sharp cast of characters, Medusa Deluxe is Brit neo-noir at its knotty best.
★★★★☆ The first of a two-parter, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is bigger, bolder and grander than its predecessor, and with little serious competition from Marvel or DC’s live-action factories, looks set to be the best superhero film of the year.
★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
★★★☆☆ A film festival wouldn’t be a film festival without Chinese director Lou Ye. Ye’s been a regular feature at the Cannes Film Festival countless times and only last September was premiering his French language film Love and Bruises (2011),...
★★★★☆ French director Jacques Audiard’s last film A Prophet (Un Prophète, 2009) was a huge critical hit at Cannes 2009 (where it won the Grand Jury Prize), and so expectations were high for his follow-up Rust and Bone (De Rouille...
★★★★★ Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s wartime Technicolor masterpiece The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) returns to cinemas this week thanks to a timely – and sumptuous – restoration. Cited as a key influence by such contemporary directorial...
★★☆☆☆ For her latest project Even the Rain (2010), Spanish actress and director Icíar Bollaín has chosen to tackle the rather thorny issue of colonialism. Colonial guilt is certainly subject matter that British audiences can relate to, and it’s a...
★★★☆☆ Jewish-French director Radu Mihaileanu offers up his exploration of the patriarchal problems of traditional Islamic society in comedy drama The Source (La Source des Demmes, 2011). Set in an unnamed village, women are forced by their husbands to fetch...