Film Review: ‘Fruitvale Station’
★★★★☆ First-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler’s Sundance phenomenon Fruitvale Station (2013) opens with mobile phone footage of Oscar Grant’s shooting by Bay Area police. During...
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.
★★★★☆ First-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler’s Sundance phenomenon Fruitvale Station (2013) opens with mobile phone footage of Oscar Grant’s shooting by Bay Area police. During...
★★★★☆ Bringing subjects such as teenage bullying and, more controversial still, high school massacres to the big screen is always a perilous affair. As...
★★★☆☆ How low would you sink for just £10? How about £100? What type of degrading act would you perform for £1000? In E.L....
★★★☆☆ The fickle music industry merry-go-round is lampooned once again in Jamie Adams’ funny and heartfelt debut Benny & Jolene (2014), an also-rans’ tale...
★★★★☆ When Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum tumbled onto screens in 2012’s 21 Jump Street, a movie reboot of the TV show that launched...