Warsaw 2016: Icaros: A Vision review
★★★★☆ On the heels of Embrace of the Serpent comes another tale of spiritual purification in the Amazon, but one told in a very...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★★★☆ On the heels of Embrace of the Serpent comes another tale of spiritual purification in the Amazon, but one told in a very...
★★★★☆ Echoing the work of Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan as well as recent Oscar nominee Mustang, Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s complex drama Clair Obscur tactfully...
★★★★★ Chile, 1948. The poet, communist and senator Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) has become a thorn in the side of the government and President...
★★★☆☆ Watching Christopher Guest’s Mascots is a lot like meeting up with old friends you’ve not seen in years. It’s comfortable, the gang’s all...
★☆☆☆☆ How do you make the fire and brimstone of The Divine Comedy, the cobbled streets of one of Italy’s most beautiful cities and...
★★☆☆☆ You can sometimes tell when a film has finally lost the plot. In Andrea Arnold’s excruciating road movie American Honey, it’s the moment...
★★☆☆☆ Sofia Exarchou’s debut feature Park tackles the hopelessness of austerity-ravaged Greece through the lives of a ragtag bunch of children and teenagers that...
★★★★☆ At the time Chasing Asylum was filmed 2,175 men, women and children, seeking refuge in Australia, were being detained indefinitely in centres on...