LFF 2013: ‘L’intrepido’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Italian director Gianni Amelio returns to the fray with the hugely disappointing L’intrepido (A Lonely Hero, 2013), a hopelessly drab character study and...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★☆☆☆☆ Italian director Gianni Amelio returns to the fray with the hugely disappointing L’intrepido (A Lonely Hero, 2013), a hopelessly drab character study and...
★★★☆☆ British comic actor Richard Ayoade grabbed the attention of the UK industry back in 2010 with feature debut Submarine, a sharp, cineliterate adaptation...
★★★☆☆ “He who robs the graves of Egypt…dies.” It’s sage advice oft proffered to enthusiastic archaeologists and rarely taken heed of. Unsurprisingly, it proves...
★★☆☆☆ Lifeforce (1985), director Tobe Hooper’s foray into space-based terror, is very much a product of its time. Starring Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Mathilda...
★★★★☆ In the interview included on Third Window’s release of See You Tomorrow, Everyone (2013) director Yoshihiro Nakamura acknowledges how his film makes certain...
★★★☆☆ Equestrian artist Alfred Munnings’ love affair and disastrous marriage to aspiring painter Florence Carter-Wood is the subject of Christopher Menaul’s involving costume drama...
★★★★☆ After premièring to acclaim at Cannes, Steven Soderbergh’s directorial swansong Behind the Candelabra (2013) arrives on a format that is, by and large,...
★★☆☆☆ After a string of underwhelming films, much-maligned American director M. Night Shyamalan – who was remarkably being touted as ‘the next Spielberg’ only...