LFF 2013: ‘As I Lay Dying’ review
★★☆☆☆ The fact that James Franco is the subject of frequent mockery is sadly indicative of the cynicism of our times. A modern day...
★★☆☆☆ “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 fact that James Franco is the subject of frequent mockery is sadly indicative of the cynicism of our times. A modern day...
★★☆☆☆ John McKay’s Not Another Happy Ending (2013) is a breezy and harmless if ultimately forgettable romantic comedy set in and around the city...
★★★★☆ Opening with a selection of warm outtakes of photojournalist Tim Hetherington explaining why he pursues such a dangerous career, director Sebastian Junger pays...
★★☆☆☆ For all those perpetual adolescents out there whose bloodlust wasn’t sated by the woefully poor and over-hyped hack job that was Machete (2010)...
★★★☆☆ The spirit of Godard’s 1967 classic Le Weekend lives on in Roger Michell’s playful Le Week-End (2013), a Before-style tale of an ageing...
★★☆☆☆ Ripped from newspaper headlines that are still fresh in the memory, Bill Condon’s The Fifth Estate (2013) is a studio-financed, heavily dramatised account...
“What is this? Is that what I think it is?” Slavoj Žižek husks while approaching a monochrome gadget in the corner of the room....
★★☆☆☆ Every wondered what would happen should a tornado whip up a frenzy of sharks from the ocean and deposit them onto an unsuspecting...