Film reviews and more
★★☆☆☆ Compared to many authors, Virginia Woolf has fared relatively well on screen. Eileen Atkins’ one-woman stage show, A Room of One’s Own, that was later filmed for TV, was terrific. Then back in 2002, Nicole Kidman gave an Oscar-winning performance in The Hours (the […]
Alison Klayman made her name as a film-maker with 2012’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a close study of the revered Chinese artist which followed him across the course of several years, leading up to his eventual arrest in Beijing in 2011. Now, in 2019, she’s […]
★★★★★ In Alison Klayman’s new political documentary The Brink, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is accompanied around the world, from live speaking appearances to hotel meeting rooms, documenting his exploits in the year following his departure from the Trump administration. As a documentarian, […]
★★★★★ Jaws didn’t just reel in millions at the global box office, it heralded the summer blockbuster era and turned Steven Spielberg into a superstar. Back on the big screen for a limited UK run, the director’s classy fish-themed thriller still wows. The making of […]
★★★☆☆ IVF remains a rarely discussed topic in cinema, even though millions of people go through it each year, which makes Harry Wootliff’s debut feature, Only You, all the more refreshing. It all begins, as many romantic dramas do, with a meet-cute. One New Year’s […]
★★★★☆ Golden Bear-winning cultural assimilation drama Synonyms is expertly handled by its director Nadav Lapid. That of relocating, whether it be by city, country or even school, is an unsettling experience most can relate to, though it’s heightened – and duplicated – for that of […]
★★☆☆☆ Five years after portraying J.M.W. Turner in Mike Leigh’s award-winning biographical drama Mr Turner, Timothy Spall takes on the role of another English painter, this time for director Adrian Noble, well-known in theatre circles. The painter in question is Lancashire-born L.S. Lowry, famed for […]
★★★☆☆ Peter Parker (Tom Holland), best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and sardonic classmate MJ (Zendaya) are all coming to terms with life after the reversal of Thanos’ decimation – here termed “the blip” – in Avengers: Endgame. A school trip is the perfect excuse for our friendly […]
Have you ever stopped to wonder whether the fictional characters from your favourite TV shows and films (take Tony Soprano, for instance) could afford to pay off their homes in their lifetime? And for those who couldn’t, what type of pay rise would they need? […]
★★★☆☆ The strained relationship between a father and his son is tenderly observed in End of Sentence, the debut feature film from Elfar Adalsteins. Predominantly set against the backdrop of Ireland, this drama – starring John Hawkes and Logan Lerman – treads a familiar path, […]