Film reviews and more
★★★★☆ Their Finest is a nostalgic, jolly hockey sticks moving picture. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. “Authenticity informed by optimism” is the name of the game for British propaganda productions concerned with the morale of a blitzed public […]
★★☆☆☆ A public bathroom. Noises are coming from one of the stalls. Sucking and slurping sounds. A man takes a peek underneath and makes a quick exit. It’s revealed that Milo (Eric Ruffin), a black youth in Queens who believes […]
★★★☆☆ Howard Hughes has long been an object of fascination for Hollywood. The reclusive mogul carved a trajectory from youthful genius to self-watering stuff of legend as clear and elusive as the vapour trails of one of the airplanes that […]
★★☆☆☆ Viewed in its entirety, perhaps the most striking element of Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad is a mildly galling sense of history repeating itself. Contemporary Western excursions, military offences and ulterior motives in the Middle East […]
★★★★☆ The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki is Juho Kuosmanen’s chronicle of a Finnish pugilist. A unique and beautiful boxing movie shot on 16mm in black and white, it’s like Wild Strawberries meets Raging Bull – although […]
★★★★☆ Chief in the accomplishments of Mohamed Diab’s hard-hitting sophomore feature Clash is the director’s decision to conduct, and construct to astonishing effect, his entire film from the back of a police van. Perhaps eight foot wide and a dozen […]
★★★★☆ Great music documentaries capture bands in the ups and downs of their profession: glorified and cheered in the stage lights one moment, sat bored in the dressing room in the next – drinking warm Carling and picking at the […]
★★★★★ The trial of O.J. Simpson for the brutal murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman – the most televised in history – is one of the defining moments of the 1990s. There have been plenty of O.J. documentaries since, […]
★★★☆☆ Nostalgia is a powerful agent in cinema, no more so than in Waris Hussein’s 1971 warm depiction of puppy love and school-daze larks, Melody. Forced by his mother to join the Boys’ Brigade to “meet people from different backgrounds,” […]
The full competition lineup for this year’s 70th Cannes Film Festival (17-28 May) was announced in Paris earlier this morning. Kicking off the proceedings will be Ismael’s Ghosts, the new film from respected French director Arnaud Desplechin.Meanwhile, highlights of this […]
★★★★☆ Re-released in cinemas to mark Jack Nicholson’s 80th birthday, Milos Forman’s legendary 1975 tragicomedy One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, adapted from Ken Kesey’s best-selling 1962 novel of the same name, has aged well. Its honest and forthright depiction […]
★★★★★ Diane Selwyn from Deep River, Canada finds herself in Deep Trouble, USA. Arriving at Los Angeles International Airport as Betty Elms, she is sunny in disposition, charming, a touch naïve and hopeful for days ahead. Betty/Diane is the hungry-for-success […]