Film reviews and more
★☆☆☆☆ Messi (2014), a new film about diminutive Argentinian football icon Lionel Messi, has all the ingredients for a great sports documentary. A mass of archive material has been made available to director Álex de la Iglesia, apparently provided by Messi’s constantly videotaping father, there are interviews with influential figures in the player’s life including FC Barcelona team mates […]
This week, the world’s oldest and often most unpredictable film festival, the 71st Venice Film Festival, will unroll on the Lido. Twenty films will screen in competition, vying for the prestigious Golden Lion and a further fifty-odd films will show out of competition and in the various sidebars – all but one of which will be world premieres – […]
★☆☆☆☆ It’s hardly an ideal time to be marketing a film in which two average Joes abuse the civil justice system by imitating US police officers. With the tragic fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri still very much in the news, Luke Greenfield’s gross-out buddy comedy Let’s Be Cops (2014) now finds itself in the unenviable position […]
★★★☆☆ In January 2013, Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz committed suicide following a series of protracted legal battle over copyright infringement after downloading JSTOR articles. It was the tragic conclusion to years of persecution, frustration and innovation. The Internet’s Own Boy (2014) takes a close look at Swartz, both as a person and as an icon for the internet generation. […]
★★☆☆☆ Looking to marry the football hooligan punch ’em up with Daily Mail-baiting hoodie horror, Gabe Turner’s The Guvnors (2014) does at least prove that there’s still some vague spark of life in these two staples of low-budget British filmmaking. Whilst it often finds itself – knowingly or unknowingly – conforming to type, there are several commendable flourishes that […]