★★★☆☆ One of the most unmistakable filmmakers currently working, Wes Anderson is the go-to stylist for A.I.-generated parodies. His distinctive colour palettes, flat, lateral camera moves, diorama scene design and starry deadpan performances of witticism clipped from The New Yorker mean that most can pre-visualise his films before they even buy a ticket.
★★★★☆ When asked why he called his novel How to Be Good, novelist Nick Hornby replied because having “how” in the title boosts sales significantly. We’re all looking for guidebooks, even when we read novels or see films. The world is a scary and confusing place, and we need someone to show us the way.
★★★☆☆ American director Todd Haynes returns to the Cannes Croisette with the recently Netflix-acquired May December, a Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore two-hander that asks the question: what if Brian De Palma remade Persona but as a comedy?
★★☆☆☆ Earlier this year, Chilean director Sebastián Silva premiered two films at the Sundance Film Festival. The first, Crystal Fairy, was a slight and inconspicuous road movie through Silva’s native country, staring Michael Cera. The second, Magic Magic (also starring...
★★☆☆☆ A German western starring the inimitable actress Nina Hoss, Gold (2013) follows up its Berlinale premiere with a showing at Edinburgh. A tale of greed and migration, Thomas Arslan’s ambitious genre piece sadly fails to rise above a gentle...
★★★☆☆ Confounding audiences and critics alike at the Rome Film Festival, Sofia International Film Festival and now the 67th Edinburgh Film Festival, Silent Souls director Aleksei Fedorchenko’s beguiling and perplexing expedition into the myths and rituals of the Russian Mari...
★★★★☆ Produced towards the end of the silent era, F.W. Murnau’s Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) was to be the legendary German director final film. A lyrical tragedy that imbues elements of factual and narrative filmmaking, Murnau’s...
★★★★☆ Kaneto Shindô’s Naked Island (Hadaka no shima, 1960) receives the Blu-ray treatment this week thanks to the UK’s foremost purveyors of highly acclaimed filmic artefacts – Eureka’s Masters of Cinema label. Presenting the intolerably difficult life of a peninsula-dwelling...
★★★★☆ Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan has explored a wealth of recurring motifs throughout his career thus far. These include repeated inspections of identity, performance and voyeurism amidst wider contexts such as familial anxiety and immigration. The first flex of his...
★★★★☆ One of the breakout hits from the controversial blaxploitation era, Jack Hill’s Foxy Brown (1974) (alongside Coffy from the previous year) helped solidify the then 25-year-old Pam Grier’s reputation as the queen of that since mythologised sub-genre. Producing a...
★★★★☆ Released into UK cinemas earlier this year around the announcement of former Pope Benedict’s XVI resignation, Alex Gibney’s hard-hitting Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) couldn’t have been more timely. An exactingly well-researched documentary, Gibney...