Film Review: Vox Lux
★★☆☆☆ 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 […]
Film Review: Avengers: Endgame
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 […]
Film Review: Ash Is Purest White
★★★★☆ 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 […]
Film Review: Bel Canto
★★★★☆ 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 […]
Scents of cinema: perfume in film
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 […]
Film Review: Dragged Across Concrete
★★★★☆ 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 […]
Cannes 2019: Palme d’Or lineup announced
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 […]
Film Review: Loro
★☆☆☆☆ 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 […]
Film Review: Red Joan
★★★☆☆ 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 […]
Film Review: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
★★★★☆ 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 […]
Film Review: Mid90s
★★☆☆☆ 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 […]
Film Review: Wild Rose
★★★☆☆ 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 […]