DVD Review: ‘About Time’
★★★☆☆ Touted as the final film in British filmmaker Richard Curtis’ sparse directorial career, About Time (2013) is his third and perhaps most considered...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★☆☆ Touted as the final film in British filmmaker Richard Curtis’ sparse directorial career, About Time (2013) is his third and perhaps most considered...
To celebrate a year of cultural exchange between the UK and Russia, London’s ever enlightening arts hub, the Academia Rossica, will be presenting a...
★★☆☆☆ On paper, That Awkward Moment (2014) was an appealing proposition; a rom-com told from the male perspective with talented up-and-coming actors in the...
★★★☆☆ Scott Cooper made his directorial debut with Crazy Heart (2009), a film that won Jeff Bridges an Oscar for Best Actor. For his...
★★☆☆☆ Peter ‘Battleship‘ Berg returns to UK cinema screens this week with Lone Survivor (2013), a film which – depending on your own personal...
★★☆☆☆ Unless you’re a fan of the original source material on which a film adaptation is based, you’ll likely derive more pleasure from the...
★★★★☆ After making a distinguished filmmaking debut with the widely acclaimed The Arbor (2010) – a documentary hybrid portraying the late, Bradford-born playwright Andrea...
★★★☆☆ Roaring onto DVD and Blu-Ray this week comes Ron Howard’s Formula One racing drama Rush (2013), starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as James Hunt...