★★★★☆ The lives of painters tend to be told with broad strokes. Famous artists are portrayed as tortured and romantic or else their work hangs over the story, weighing it down with a set of cultural expectations which are hard […]
★★★★☆ Moonlit waves crash against coastal rocks, the darkness punctured only by an amber light coming from the windows of a mansion sat atop the cliff above. It’s a neo-Gothic scene wholly worthy of the classic studio chillers, while the […]
★★★☆☆ An adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story The Colour Out of Space, filmmaker Richard Stanley’s latest is a richly textured, if not entirely coherent, descent into madness, body horror and technological anxiety. After a meteorite crashes in the Gardner […]
★★★☆☆ Michael Winterbottom brings together a who’s who of British comic talent for his fast fashion satire Greed. Conceived as a biting commentary on inequality, sweatshop labour and…well, greed, the film lacks fluency and laughs, rarely managing to lands its […]
★★★★☆ An acutely observed and frequently heartbreaking documentary, Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family chronicles one family’s privately run ambulance, saving lives and attempting to break-even during wee hours in Mexico City. What do you do when the ambulance chasers are other […]
★★★★☆ In her sixth feature, Austrian director Jessica Hausner brings an intense, minimalistic creepiness to this science fiction tale of floral manipulation. Read as a loose adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Little Joe is a gripping and visually […]
Daphne du Maurier’s short story The Birds was published in 1952 in her collection The Apple Tree. Telling the story of a Cornish village besieged by marauding birds, it would be adapted several times for TV, film and radio, most […]
★★★☆☆ Autumn de Wilde’s debut feature – and the fourth big-screen version of Jane Austen’s novel Emma – is a handsome and witty if slightly uninspiring adaptation buoyed by a surfeit of game British acting talent and a quite delightful […]
★★★☆☆ Japanese horror maestro Takashi Miike is back with this dive into comic book-style, hyper-violent crime noodling. First Love is not among the director’s best work – not by a long shot. Nevertheless, there’s enough of Miike’s trademark bonkers sensibilities to […]
Parasite’s Korean director Bong Joon-ho upset the odds to win both Best Picture and Best Director at this year’s Academy Awards on a night of mixed feelings over the Academy’s perceived lack of diversity. Sam Mendes’ First World War epic […]
★★★★☆ Margot Robbie stars as Harley Quinn in Cathy Yan’s spin-off to 2016’s Suicide Squad. But where its predecessor was a mirthless, incoherent mess, Birds of Prey is a chaotic, violent multi-coloured joy; easily the best of DC’s extended universe […]
It may be early February but – thanks to a compressed awards season – the 92nd Academy Awards are almost upon us. Once again, concerns over diversity and representation have dominated the discourse, with only one non-white nominee across the […]
The 2020 Academy Awards ceremony is almost here and the tension is rising. The nominees are excited to learn their fate and some categories will certainly see fierce competition. And yet, there are a couple in which the Oscar winner […]
★★★★☆ The quintessential American director is a hot topic for debate amongst most cinephiles. Whether it’s Welles, Reichardt or Scorsese, directors of this ilk possess a masterful skill in assessing pertinent themes throughout American’s past, present and future. Still, one […]
★★★★☆ Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love has long been held aloft by Adam Sandler advocates as proof of the 53-year-old’s acting chops. While years of shoddy comedies have undone some of that good work, A24 and Netflix thriller Uncut Gems is another […]
★★★★★ Arriving in UK cinemas cloaked in the Oscars buzz of a Best Picture and Best Director nomination, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is riding high in the expectations of cinema-goers. Conditions are almost ripe for a backlash, the sort of overhype […]
To say that Bong Joon-ho’s latest film, Parasite, is attracting attention ahead of its UK release in February would be something of an understatement. Having already topped many end-of-year lists in territories blessed with an earlier release schedule – not […]
★★★☆☆ Mr. Jones isn’t just middlebrow – it’s the middle of the middlebrow: core-brow; nucleus-brow. Agnieszka Holland’s lengthy but invariably engaging new film concerns the real-life story of Welsh reporter Gareth Jones’ journey to Moscow and Ukraine in 1933 and […]
