★★☆☆☆ A sun-kissed adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name from Drive (2011) scribe Hossein Amini, The Two Faces of January (2014) has dapper suits and glorious Greek vistas in abundance, but is found surprisingly lacking in both psychological complexity and genuine cat-and-mouse thrills. Kirsten Dunst, Oscar Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ In Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely (2013), a massage therapist and holistics enthusiast finds herself developing a mysterious aversion to bodily contact. Eschewing the narrative intensity of the mumblecore sub-genre in favour of a more corporeal approach, Shelton’s latest attempts to elevate her middle-class narrative into something more transcendent and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ A searing shot to the gut at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (what a shame it’s taken this long to make it to UK shores), Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s confrontational new feature, A Touch of Sin (2013), thematically intertwines four engrossing narratives into one stark and unmissable whole. It’s Continue Reading
★★★★☆ “It’s [in] the mountains where the pure, raw talent comes out,” states ex-cyclist Greg LeMond as he discusses the monumental inclines that punctuate the world’s most famous bike race, the Tour de France. They were where the hugely popular rider Marco Pantani – known affectionately as ‘Il Pirata’ after Continue Reading
★★★★☆ It’s been sixty years since the release of Ishirō Honda’s monster movie classic Godzilla (1954), and the fearsome reptile has gone on to become an icon of pop culture spawning no fewer than 28 iterations, the last of which is widely regarded as a failure. Only the sophomore effort Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ The fast-track to rock superstardom is an alluring proposition for the fame-hungry X Factor generation, and the trajectory of Ramona S. Diaz’s entertaining Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey (2012) feels like it’s been ripped from a Hollywood narrative feature. The publicised search for a replacement singer certainly isn’t new. Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Stacie Passon’s debut film Concussion (2013) explores the modern ennui suffered by liberal cookie-cutter wives – with a twist that the female in question is a lesbian with her own partner and children. Beginning with a slightly satirical opening featuring a gaggle of middle-aged Stepford Wives doing a spinning Continue Reading
★★★★★ Familial ties and their effect on our lives were always a chief concern of Japanese master Yasujirô Ozu, specialising as he did in shomin-geki: realist films about ordinary people. His final film, An Autumn Afternoon (1962), is a fittingly contemplation of the passage of time; the dangers of holding Continue Reading