★★★★☆ It’s always heartening to witness a triumphant return to filmmaking form, and David Gordon Green’s Joe (2013) represents something of a double whammy. The American director’s strong grasp of character and setting was evident in his other feature from last year, Prince Avalanche (2013), but Joe sees Green masterfully Continue Reading
When Ken Loach’s Jimmy’s Hall (2014) premièred at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, there were murmurings that after fifty years of executing his own Loachian brand of social realism, the director had opted for a softer approach. When we spoke to Loach and his longtime screenwriting partner Paul Laverty, their Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Nuance might be a feature of Ken Loach’s work that has long since left the building, but that’s not to say his latest work doesn’t fail to charm. The story of James “Jimmy” Gralton, the only Irishman to be deported from his own country, has Loach on tempestuous, didactic Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Early on a Thursday morning in the depths of the Buckinghamshire countryside, the Travelling Post Office train en route to London Euston stopped at a red signal. The engineer and train driver Jack Mills were overpowered, with Mills being clubbed by one of the fifteen robbers attacking the train. Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Early on New Year’s Day, 2009, 22-year-old Oakland, California resident Oscar Grant was shot in the back by a police officer following a disturbance on a packed train. The incident led to widespread rioting, with the African-American community and its sympathisers in arms against this apparent heinous crime. Even Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ After numerous attempts at translating its time-sensitive story from the small screen to the multiplex fell through, Kiefer Sutherland’s battle-hardened Jack Bauer makes his long-awaited return in the poorly titled 24: Live Another Day, a miniseries that acts as both a standalone outing and a continuation of the relentless Continue Reading
