DVD Round-up: Aug 2019 edition
August’s releases run the gamut from horror, urban thrillers, social justice and tender drama. While themes of modernity, paranoia and urban life prominently feature in […]
Venice 2019: An Officer and a Spy review
★★★☆☆ The Dreyfus Affair is chronicled as a turn of the century espionage thriller worthy of Le Carré in Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a […]
Film Review: Ad Astra
★★☆☆☆ It’s the near future: a time of “conflict and hope”, according to the first title cards of James Gray’s latest offering, the space drama Ad […]
Film Review: Marriage Story
★★★★★ The Squid and the Whale director Noah Baumbach returns with his latest Netflix collaboration, Marriage Story, which sublimely manages to find humour and humanity in the […]
Venice 2019: Jokers, Kings and everyone in-between
As the 76th edition of Venice commenced this week, the oldest film festival in the world has entered some choppy waters. First of all, there […]
The perennial popularity of horror
For years the film industry has been releasing films for audiences that shock and scare. While horror films might be best released during the Halloween […]
Film Review: The Souvenir
★★★★★ Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical feature The Souvenir introduces Honor Swinton Byrne in a tour de force performance. It’s a stunning evocation of a young woman’s rite […]
Film Review: Bait
★★★★★ Contemporary British cinema has continued to surprise and amaze in recent years with the vast array of stunning directorial debuts. From the likes of […]
Film Review: Memory: The Origins of Alien
★★★☆☆ Marking its 40-year anniversary, Alexandre O. Phillipe’s new documentary explores the cultural and mythic origins of the film once derided by Pauline Kael as […]
Film Review: Hail Satan?
★★★★☆ Act with compassion; protect personal freedom; respect bodily autonomy; maintain beliefs consistent with science: accept human fallibility; privilege wisdom over the written word: these […]
Film Review: Pain and Glory
★★★★★ When director Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) tells his estranged actor and friend Alberto (Asier Etxeandier), “It’s taken me thirty-two years to reconcile myself” with […]
Locarno 2019: Instinct review
★★★☆☆ Fans of Game of Thrones will be used to seeing Carice van Houten as a sexually powerful witch whose actions frequently cross moral lines, […]
Locarno 2019: The Girl with a Bracelet review
★★★☆☆ A young girl is accused of a terrible crime and her family must come to terms with how much they really know about her […]
Tarantino’s finest moments
With Once Upon a Time in Hollywood enjoying rave reviews and the dubious status of – allegedly – being Quentin Tarantino’s penultimate movie, there is […]
Film Review: Notorious
★★★★★ Notorious is a masterclass of suspense, romance and technical craft. Featuring two of the most classic screen presences in Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, […]
Film Review: Holiday
★★★☆☆ Summer and holidays on-screen conjure up iconic images of characters bathed in a splendour of heat; Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast, Alain Delon in […]
Film Review: Une Femme Douce
★★★★★ Touring as part of the Cinema Rediscovered festival, Robert Bresson’s 1969 classic finds its way back on to UK screens. Structured in flashback, Une Femme […]
Film Review: Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw
★★★☆☆ Supporting characters from previous Fast & Furious instalments, former DSS Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and rogue spy Shaw (Jason Statham) are given the keys to their […]