Month: May 2021
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Film Review: Sound of Metal
★★★★☆ Darius Marder’s first directing credit since 2008’s documentary, Loot, Sound of Metal is an astonishing accomplishment for both its long-nascent director and its British star, Riz Ahmed, for whom his turn as heavy metal drummer Ruben represents a career-best performance. Seemingly as at home with American-led blockbusters as he is with British indie cinema,…
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Film Review: Nomadland
★★★★★ Adapted from Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, the Oscar and Bafta-winning Nomadland is writer and director Chloé Zhao’s third feature-length film and is a beautiful and compassionate portrait of people living on the outskirts of American society. In 2011, after the economy collapsed, it leaves the rural town…
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Film Review: Minari
★★★★☆ Having charmed audiences at Sundance over a year ago, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari finally makes its way to UK screens. Drawing on his own South Korean heritage, and experience of growing up in rural Arkansas, the director’s poignant, very personal fifth feature was selected as the Opening Night feature of the 2021 Glasgow Film…
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Film Review: Apples
★★★★☆ “It’s the end of the line,” says a bus driver as he wakes a man who has fallen asleep on his route. Where was his stop? Does he not remember his name? Opening with an end, a journey unfinished, is the departure point for Christos Nikou’s cyclical meditation on memory, grief and new beginnings…
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How the pandemic has shaped our streaming habits
The coronavirus pandemic and the government-mandated shutdowns were disruptive events. Yet they often accelerated trends that had been ongoing. For example, people were already cutting the cable cord and watching more online content. The stay-at-home orders simply increased how much time they were watching content online and made subscriptions to various services a value-added proposition.…
