Our Most Anticipated Films of 2016
Hopefully you’ve had time to peruse our Best of 2015 rundowns (Part One and Part Two), but now that we’ve officially reached 2016 it’s...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ 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.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
Hopefully you’ve had time to peruse our Best of 2015 rundowns (Part One and Part Two), but now that we’ve officially reached 2016 it’s...
★★★★★ “Chewie, we’re home” states Han Solo as he reunites with the Millennium Falcon, at the same time neatly summing up JJ Abrams’ seventh...
★★★★☆ Tina Fey and Amy Poehler pair up once more for the raucous quasi-Christmas comedy Sisters (2015). Penned by Saturday Night Live writer Paula...
★★★☆☆ Yarns don’t get more ripping than the story of Moby Dick – a fictional tale inspired by the real-life exploits of an early...
★★☆☆☆ An actor who has made something of a fruitful living repurposing his wide-eyed brand of comedy to a string of one-note premises, Will...
★★★★☆ There’s a moment mid-way through Jennifer Peedom’s Sherpa (2015) which sees the Buddhist mountain guides offering prayers to Mount Everest in order that...
★★☆☆☆ During its nascent years serious persuasion was needed to convince sneering cultural sceptics that the cinema merited recognition as an art form. For...
★★★☆☆ At its heart, Nicolas Vanier’s Belle & Sebastian (2013) was a charming story of the loving bond forged between a young boy and...