★★★★☆ Tim Wardle engagingly recounts the fascinating story of a set of triplets who were separated at birth and reunited through coincidence when they were 19. The telling however slowly takes a darker turn as facts around the original separation are probed and frightening truths about science and human intent Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Where Wreck-It Ralph focused on the highs and lows of arcades games, specifically relating to the characters who inhabit them, their lives and individual crises, its sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet lurches forward, opening the world up exponentially as the arcade in which our heroes reside is plugged into the Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ When Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg created the zom-rom-com in 2004 with their beloved Shaun of the Dead, even they couldn’t have envisioned just how many genre mash-ups could have been spun from the walking dead. Since then we’ve had further high-octane comedies (Zombieland), a heart-rending father and daughter Continue Reading
★★★★★ Based on Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play of the same name, David Petrie’s A Raisin in the Sun is at once a searing, affirming and defiant portrayal of race, poverty and frustrated aspiration in America. Headlined with a barnstorming performance from Sidney Poitier, his beleaguered family man is a far cry from the quiet Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Often compared in his distinctly Japanese minimalism to legendary compatriot Ozu, Hirokazu Kore-eda is a filmmaker whose graceful yet unfussy style contrasts with the knotty themes he has made it his trademark to tackle. Kore-eda’s films are dedicated to the dilemmas and tragedies of family life, from the loss Continue Reading
★★★★★ Set in modern-day Salem, the events of Assassination Nation bear more than a passing resemblance to the town’s infamous hysterical witch-hunting history, even if heroine Lily’s (Odessa Young) claim that this is a true story has a whiff of “fake news” about it. In doing what all good satirists do, Continue Reading
Comic book fans around the world have been truly spoilt in the last few years, with so many Marvel and DC heroes hitting the big screen. We’ve been saturated in superhero origin stories, building up to until-now unheard-of cinematic universes on a massive scale. For many superheroes, their origin stories Continue Reading
When you hear a story about the most fashionable frontmen in films, everyone’s favourite Double-Oh agent might spring to mind. From Sean Connery sporting his own tailor’s handiwork to the Italian made-to-measure Brioni suits on Daniel Craig, James Bond is certainly one of the best-dressed characters on the big screen. Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Alexei Sayle once cautioned that you should never enter a workshop that doesn’t have a vice in it. French writer-director Laurent Cantet’s new film The Workshop soon reveals that though it’s not that kind of workshop, he is still able to turn the screws. It’s summer in the small Continue Reading
★★★★★ Primarily centred around New York auction houses, art fairs and the colourful characters that frequent them, Nathaniel Kahn’s The Price of Everything certainly doesn’t hold back in its skewering of a contemporary art world defined far more by financial gain and status seeking than a genuine love of beauty. Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Becoming Animal is an unusual, thought-provoking film essay which upends many tropes of wildlife photography to create a rich landscape of ideas and images. The work of philosopher David Abram gets a good read-through as filmmakers Peter Mettler and Emma Davie explore the notion of a ‘more-than-human’ world. Photographing Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the latest instalment in a projected pentalogy from J.K. Rowling, which finds Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander doing battle with Johnny Depp’s eponymous Grindelwald, whilst a selection of the, also eponymous, fantastic beasts dart fleetingly through the streets of Paris. In truth, the Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ The saga of Lisbeth Salander has spanned a collective eight films and novels, meaning any new entry has the uphill battle posed by familiarity. Director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) faced another hurdle with his take on The Girl: having to inherit and repurpose the franchise clothing weaved by David Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Luca Guadagnino returns to screens this week with his long-awaited take on giallo classic Suspiria – minus much of the giallo. While there are several overt nods to Dario Argento’s vibrantly hued horror, the Call Me By Your Name director has been bold in his revisions, offering up a far Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Hitler’s Hollywood begins not with the goose stepping and sieg heiling of Triumph of the Will, but instead with some jaunty whistling from the 1937 film Der Mann der Sherlock Holmes war. In these opening moments, Rüdiger Suchsland’s doc signals Nazi-era German cinema as an idealistic, seductive and deeply complex arm of the regime’s Continue Reading
