Film Reviews & More
★★☆☆☆ “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.
The cinematic universe is filled with successful productions based on equally successful books. The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Dune, Harry Potter, IT, Gone Girl, and The Shining are just a few examples of literary works that jumped from bookstore shelves to the big screens.
Christopher Nolan’s monumental biopic Oppenheimer led the pack with 13 nods, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things and Martin Scorsese received 11 and nine nominations respectively. Greta Gerwig’s 2023 blockbuster Barbie received eight nominations.
★★★★★ Greek weird wave director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) hits his stride with his strangest yet most deeply satisfying comedy fable yet, Poor Things. This exhilarating mix of Fanny Hill and Frankenstein is adapted by Tony McNamara from Alasdair Gray’s novel of the same name.
★★★★☆ Following Baz Luhrmann’s deliriously over-the-top 2022 film Elvis comes Sofia Coppola’s decidedly more understated Priscilla. In fact, it’s the polar opposite of Elvis both aesthetically and emotionally. If Luhrmann captures the whole lotta shakin’, Coppola is more concerned with the end of lonely street for The King’s beleaguered wife.
What does it mean to love cinema? For the better part of a decade this writer has written for this website, first as a DVD reviewer, later as editor, and now as chief critic. As with all things, hobbies and passions wax and wane, but cinema has always in some way been a constant.
★★★☆☆ American filmmaker Michael Mann returns to the big screen for Ferrari, a long-held passion project for the legendary director. As one would expect from the director of Heat and Miami Vice, this biopic is a well-mounted and handsomely shot study of men obsessed by their work, but never fully hits top gear.
★★★★★ Godzilla Minus One successfully blends horror-infused kaiju spectacle with an emotionally compelling storyline about grief, wartime trauma, and hope. The film’s world-class visuals, engaging characters, and socially relevant themes differentiate it from other entries in the franchise. It is a superlative monster movie.
“Trenque Lauquen” is an enigmatic film by Argentinian director Laura Citarella. It follows Rafa and Chicho’s search for the missing biologist, Laura, unraveling secrets along the way. Embedded within the narrative are flashbacks revealing Laura’s obsession with a school teacher’s affair and a connection with Chicho. The film concludes without resolution, deviating towards another unrelated mystery.
