Venice 2016: The Blind Christ review
★★★☆☆ “Let me tell you a story,” says Michael (Michael Silva), a spiritually inspired young man in the wastes of the Chilean desert. The...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★☆☆ “Let me tell you a story,” says Michael (Michael Silva), a spiritually inspired young man in the wastes of the Chilean desert. The...
★★★☆☆ “I could’ve been a contender,” declares Marlon Brando’s brooding pugilist from On the Waterfront, and every actor these days seems to have a...
★★☆☆☆ In a way the title of Charlie Siskel’s documentary American Anarchist is something of a misnomer. Anarchy as a political movement doesn’t get...
★★★★☆ Korean director Kim Jee-woon is a prolific and accomplished generic gadfly with a western – The Good, The Bad and The Weird –...
★★★☆☆ There are seven stages to grief, we’re told, from denial to acceptance. Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon’s The War Show is structured with...
★★☆☆☆ You know when you buy a new camera, go into the garden to try it out and just snap things to see how...
★★★★☆ Premiering at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival has been greatly anticipated. Firstly, the breakout success of last year’s border epic...
★★☆☆☆ “I want to marry a lighthouse keeper. / And live by the side of the sea.” sang Erika Eigan, but according to The...