DVD Review: George Best: All By Himself
★★★★☆ It’s hard to be objective about George Best. Growing up in the 1970s, Best came to us less as a footballer and more...
★★★☆☆ Set 45,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens were making incursions into the lands of the Neanderthals, Andrew Cumming’s horror thriller The Origin depicts a small tribe coming up against a malefic entity in unknown and inhospitable environs.
Returning for its 26th edition and with 2021’s Covid restrictions largely a thing of the past, Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) this year crowned Hilmar Oddsson’s Icelandic dark comedy Driving Mum as the 2022 Grand Prix winner, with the Best Director award going to Ahmad Bahrami for thriller The Wastetown.
The head of this year’s Venice jury Julianne Moore awarded the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, to Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, her profile of artist Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler family. It’s a brilliant, committed piece of activist cinema.
★★★☆☆ Celebrated British director Joanna Hogg is back on the Venice Lido with The Eternal Daughter, a film shot in secret in lockdown and starring The Souvenir’s Tilda Swinton in dual roles as a mother and daughter heading to a hotel in the countryside for a much-needed birthday vacation.
★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
The Sarajevo Film Festival has a history of resilience, so it was hardly surprising to see it come back stronger than ever after two years of Covid restrictions. Founded in 1995, the festival is now the leading industry event in south-east Europe, showcasing the very best films from across the Balkan peninsula.
★★★★☆ It’s hard to be objective about George Best. Growing up in the 1970s, Best came to us less as a footballer and more...
Casino Royale is widely regarded as one of the most famous casino movies. In fact, you could even say it’s one of the most...
★★★☆☆ Swedish writer-director Ruben Östlund first achieved international acclaim with his withering wintry take on middle-class masculinity in Force Majeure, causing quite a stir...
★★☆☆☆ Prolific French director François Ozon returns to UK screens with his slightly camp psychological thriller L’Amant Double (The Double Lover), a kind of...
★★★☆☆ Head On and Soul Kitchen director Fatih Akin returns to UK cinemas this week with In the Fade, a solid courtroom/revenge drama elevated by a...
★★★☆☆ With a director as prolific as South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo, it’s not particularly surprising that he has two films showing at Cannes this...
★★★☆☆ Satire comes in two modes: Juvenalian – harsh, critical and in service of a serious point – and Horatian – light, humorous and...
★★★★★ The Red Turtle is an animated dream, a transcendent work of beautiful, heart-rending art from Studio Ghibli and Dutch animator Michael Dudok de...
★★★☆☆ Outside of Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pirates of the Caribbean is one of Disney’s most successful franchises, amassing millions at...
★★★★☆ Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope is a funny, heartfelt story about the Syrian refugee crisis that’s not dissimilar to the Finnish...