Film reviews and more
★★☆☆☆ Vox Lux is the second directorial feature from actor and filmmaker Brady Corbet. An imagined biography of a fictional pop star, the film is ambitious in its structure but only occasionally flickers into life. The very beginning of Vox Lux shows so much promise that it will have you poised for something […]
While this review avoids major plot points be wary of minor spoilers. ★★★★☆ Following the defeat that led to the death of half of the universe, Earth’s mightiest heroes are scattered, bewildered and broken, clutching at straws for a solution to Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) terrible decimation. While Disney’s troubling takeover of the entertainment industry […]
★★★★☆ In Chinese auteur’s Jia Zhangke’s latest film, which premiered to acclaim in Cannes last year, unrequited love and inner resolve are pitted against the rapidly-changing world of modern China. Ash Is Purest White is an epic spanning decades and vast geography that ultimately gives way to the intimate and personal. Beginning in the early 2000s, […]
★★★★☆ Paul Weitz and Anthony Weintraub’s screen adaptation of Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto deftly weaves romance into a taut hostage drama. Roxane Coss (Julianne Moore), an international opera star (vocals courtesy of Renée Fleming) has been asked to sing at a diplomats’ dinner in an unnamed South American country. The evening is […]
Movies, by their very nature, are audio-visual experiences. We watch the characters move around and we see the plot play out on-screen as we hear the music, the voices, the sound effects, and more. The idea of a film being able to trigger any of our other senses is fundamentally absurd, and yet […]
★★★★☆ Over the course of his previous two features, S. Craig Zahler has carved a name for himself as a skilled director of deep character-based studies with added gore value. Though not as overtly provocative or aggravating as Quentin Tarantino, Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete similarly submerges the audience in genre filmmaking, whilst resting […]
The Cannes lineup for its 72nd edition was announced today. Following a falling out with Netflix and the increasingly heavyweight competition of Venice, the 2019 programme feels like it had something to prove – and it looks to have delivered. About half of the official competition appears to be made up of old […]
★☆☆☆☆ Paolo Sorrentino announced himself on the international stage with the sterling Il Divo, a study of Italy’s perennial mover and fixer Giulio Andreotti and in the process an evisceration of the Italian political class, with a style that oscillated between Quentin Tarantino and Federico Fellini. Since then Sorrentino’s career has been fireworks […]
★★★☆☆ Based on a true story, Trevor Nunn’s Red Joan is an absorbing wartime drama about a spy ring. It opens in 2000 with Joan (Judi Dench), a pensioner happily tending her roses. Shocked by her unexpected arrest for alleged treason, she is forced to recall her Cambridge University years. In the late […]
★★★★☆ For a film to announce itself with such a knowingly outlandish title, you’d be forgiven for thinking that The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot was deliberately baiting that midnight movie-type audience. You only need to see the wistful gaze of the great Sam Elliott – sat propping up a […]
★★☆☆☆ Written and directed by Jonah Hill, Mid90s paints a deeply personal, sun-drenched vision of skate culture in Los Angeles, as seen through the eyes of its teenage protagonist. It’s the latest production from A24, the company who brought us Moonlight, Lady Bird and Eighth Grade, who have established themselves as the foremost voice in films about the pains […]
★★★☆☆ In the era-defining Trainspotting, Ewan McGregor’s Renton exclaims “It’s shit being Scottish.” As a fellow Scotsman, raised in England, this writer can confirm that it is indeed shit being Scottish. Still, this derogatory attitude towards one’s nationality pervades in a less explicit manner in Tom Harper’s third feature, Wild Rose. Written by […]
Our championing of the best in home entertainment continues with our March round-up. Criterion and Eureka dominate this month’s line up with four wildly-different titles all deserving of attention – Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice, Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger, Sammo Hung’s Meals on Wheels, and Billy Wilder’s Irma la Douce. Death in Venice – 18 […]
★★★☆☆ Saturation diving in the North Sea is a world of experience that most of us know nothing about. One of the divers in Alex Parkinson and Richard da Costa’s new film Last Breath, in UK cinemas this week, describes as going to space but underwater. The divers have to enter specially pressurised […]
★★★★☆ Unlike many book adaptations, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange stands equally apart and with Anthony Burgess’ original source material. Presenting Burgess’ unique world on-screen – importantly retaining his character’s Nadsat dialectic – Kubrick’s methodical attention to detail proved to be a harmonious match to the author’s prose. Committed to an unfiltered depiction […]
★★★☆☆ Originally called ‘Captain Marvel’ in early DC comics, due to a convoluted copyright issue Marvel’s distinguished competition were forced to change the superhero’s name to the equally silly moniker, Shazam. The origins of this colourful crime-fighter may be dull, but his cinematic debut is anything but – a warm and entertaining family […]