Film Review: ‘West is West’
★★☆☆☆ The release of the long awaited sequel to 1999’s hit comedy/drama East is East should in theory hit all the right buttons; it...
★★☆☆☆ “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 release of the long awaited sequel to 1999’s hit comedy/drama East is East should in theory hit all the right buttons; it...
★☆☆☆☆ It may seem cruel to be giving one of the most well known operas (and one that was well received during its run at Covent...
The route from movie hero to Governor of California appears to be a seamless one. If you’ve the character and moral integrity of Detective John Kimble...
Emma Stone is destined for greatness. In 2011 we will have the pleasure of catching Ms. Stone alongside Steve Carell in Glenn Ficarra’s Crazy, Stupid,...
With The Hunter (2010), director Rafi Pitts continues to spearhead the self-proclaimed ‘Iranian New Wave’ with another masterfully executed poetic-realist work that inhabits the...
★★★★☆ Last year, Optimum Releasing’s remastered versions of The Railway Children (1970), Breathless (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960) were released as part of their...
If you want to make a horror movie, start with a good idea from which to develop your script – something which is uncanny,...
★★☆☆☆ Richard E. Grant stars in Cuckoo (2010), a dull, one-note psychological thriller from Richard Bracewell, whose marginally superior debut The Gigolos (2006) was a...