DVD Review: ‘The Man in the Machine’
★★★☆☆ Despite passing away in 2011 there still remains a vibrant fascination with the visionary, celebrated but divisive cultural figure that was Apple CEO...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★☆☆ Despite passing away in 2011 there still remains a vibrant fascination with the visionary, celebrated but divisive cultural figure that was Apple CEO...
★★★☆☆ With a nostalgic, wry smile Pete Townshend admits not wanting to have been in a band to such a ripe-old age and reminisces...
★★★★☆ Having attracted unanimous plaudits and awards success with his intensely engaging 2010 documentary Senna, about the life and death of race car paragon...
★☆☆☆☆ In his childhood town, in his beloved Wales, Dylan Thomas is spinning in his grave. In what may be one of the most...
★★★★☆ By the very nature of its existence, Jafar Panahi’s latest film Taxi Tehran (2015) is a bold act of defiance. It’s his third...
★★☆☆☆ “The dead are alive,” we’re informed at the start of Sam Mendes’ second Bond outing Spectre (2015), and there’s a definite sense that...
★★★☆☆ Director Sacha Jenkins’ Fresh Dressed (2015) harks back to the early 1990s, the nascent days of hip-hop and the change in fashion engendered...
★★★☆☆ The ‘gay voice’ is a superficial character trait that can have serious implications for the men who possess it. Do I Sound Gay?...