DVD Review: ‘What Maisie Knew’
★★★☆☆ An adaptation of Henry James’ bestselling 1897 novel – uprooted to modern New York – Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s What Maisie Knew...
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.
★★★★☆ In Alex Garland’s Civil War, a group of journalists embark on a road trip to interview the US President amidst a second American Civil War, while exploring media’s dehumanizing relationship with violence.
★★★★☆ Having won the Jury Prize in 2013 for Like Father, Like Son and the Palme d’Or in 2018 with Shoplifters, Cannes favourite and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with Monster, a masterful work of intricate storytelling, complemented by a lovely score by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.
★★★★★ Theodor Adorno famously wrote that poetry was not possible after Auschwitz, but is cinema? Billy Wilder certainly thought so, getting footage from the camps as evidence as much as anything else. Steven Spielberg, Claude Lanzmann, Alain Resnais and Roberto Benigni have all with differing degrees of success tried their hands.
★★★☆☆ An adaptation of Henry James’ bestselling 1897 novel – uprooted to modern New York – Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s What Maisie Knew...
★★★★★ Shane Carruth’s second feature, Upstream Colour (2013), following an almost decade-long gap since his debut, the enigmatic time-travel film Primer (2004), is a...
★★☆☆☆ No stranger to tales of domestic intrigue, South Korean director Im Sang-soo follows up 2010’s well-received The Housemaid with the not-so-well-received The Taste...
★★★★☆ Dancing its way into a multitude of top ten lists at the end of last year came Noah Baumbach’s monochrome marvel Frances Ha...