Film Review: ‘Pasolini’
★★★★☆ Pasolini (2014) is another key work in Abel Ferrara’s terrific late master period. A biopic of the final days of Italian polymath Pier...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★★☆ Pasolini (2014) is another key work in Abel Ferrara’s terrific late master period. A biopic of the final days of Italian polymath Pier...
★★★☆☆ There has always been a wide appeal to the myth of the Kray brothers, who ruled London’s underworld in the Swinging Sixties. Now...
★★☆☆☆ As yet another slinky jazz number kicks in and that all-too-familiar credit typeface appears, there’s still something undeniably comforting about slipping back into...
★★★★☆ Old hags, horned deceivers and scary forests have all been done to death and it’s easy to see why audiences might tire of...
★★★★☆ Despite eschewing colour in favour of the rich textures of monochrome, Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent (2015) manages to be one of...
★★★★☆ Actor Jake Gyllenhaal has recently proved himself more than capable of carrying a film on his alternately emaciated (Nightcrawler) or buffed-up (Southpaw) shoulders....
The red carpet has been walked upon, the Spritz has been supped and the lion has roared. This year’s Golden Lion selection is yet...
★★★☆☆ Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion at Venice this year, Lorenzo Vigas’ debut film From Afar (2015) is a tightly controlled tale of...