Film reviews and more
★★★★☆ When a prisoner transport crashes during a night-time storm, John ‘Joker’ Jackson (Tony Curtis) and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) make their escape, chained together by the wrist. The director’s third feature, The Defiant Ones combines Stanley Kramer’s trademark liberal politics with a picaresque adventure […]
★★★☆☆ Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy was, briefly, the hottest property in Hollywood. The star-studded cast of his 2001 Rat Pack remake delivered a film that was flawlessly confident, engaging and, above all, fun. It was as pure a two hours of joy as cinema could deliver, but […]
★★★☆☆ Located on the toe end of Italy’s boot, Gioa Tauro is a testament to Italy’s failure to develop the south. Far from the tourist traps of Rome and Venice and even the fizzier, more dangerous charms of Naples, the town has become synonymous with […]
★★☆☆☆ In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, life may well have found a way, but the same can’t be said for decent screenwriting or even basic logic in this execrable sequel. It’s a pretty mean feat to beat even Jurassic Park III as the worst JP […]
This week sees the return of one of the highlights of the UK’s festival calendar in the form of Sheffield Doc/Fest, which runs from 7-12 June for its 2018 edition. As ever, the programme of over 200 documentary shorts and features boasts an array of […]
★★★★☆ Documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox unravels her own history of sexual abuse in The Tale, a sharp and harrowing account of stories and lies hidden away at the expense of innocence. The truth of the story as far as Jennifer Fox (Laura Dern) knows, The […]
★★★★☆ A young skateboarder discovers her tribe and falls into the intricacies of young adult friendship in Skate Kitchen, the first narrative film from filmmaker Crystal Moselle, known for her documentary work The Wolfpack. Moselle’s film captures a unique insight into an unexplored subculture, focusing […]
★★★☆☆ Fresh faces Maia Mitchell and Cami Morrone star in the debut feature film from Texan director Augustine Frizzell, the chaotic, stoner-girl trip Never Goin’ Back – playing this weekend at Sundance London. High-school dropouts Jessie (Morrone) and Angela (Mitchell) are inseparable. Nothing matters more […]
★★★★★ Australian actress Toni Collette is outstanding in the deeply unsettling and frankly terrifying Hereditary, the latest feature on A24’s roster (released through Entertainment Film here in the UK on 15 June) and the latest classic of the horror genre. Hereditary opens with the funeral […]
The French director François Ozon is no beginner when it comes to tackling eroticism on film. His output during the 2010s has included two explorations of female sexuality – 2013’s Young and Beautiful and 2014’s The New Girlfriend. Now he returns with a third, the erotic […]
★★★★☆ Four older women, bonded by the passage of time and extremely expensive interior design, meet for a monthly book club. Their world is turned upside down when Fifty Shades of Grey is chosen for the group. This sounds like an elevator pitch from hell […]
★★★★★ Tired of washing dishes for a living in his small Texan town, Joe (Jon Voight) ups stick to New York City to make his fortune as a high-class stud. On arriving, he soon meets a sickly hustler by the name of Ratso (Dustin Hoffman) […]