★★★☆☆ To many people, Essex is home to the famous – or infamous – players of the reality TV show The Only Way Is Essex. After ten years on the air, it has created a lasting impression of the English county as a place of glitz and scandalous drama. Taking Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ To many artists, from Morrissey to Victor Fleming, Joan of Arc has proved a rich canvas to reflect upon female suffrage. The aim, whether a song or film, is to interpolate the viewer into her story against the oppressive forces of the French and English monarchy during medieval times. Continue Reading
★★★★☆ The quintessential American director is a hot topic for debate amongst most cinephiles. Whether it’s Welles, Reichardt or Scorsese, directors of this ilk possess a masterful skill in assessing pertinent themes throughout American’s past, present and future. Still, one director that cannot be ignored in a conversation of this Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Films about filmmaking are nothing new. From Truffaut’s visionary Day for Night to The Disaster Artist, film adores observing the magic of moviemaking. However, a lesser-explored area of filmmaking is the depiction of disability and specifically neurofibromatosis on screen. Aaron Schimberg’s second feature, Chained for Life, hones in on Continue Reading
★★★★★ Contemporary British cinema has continued to surprise and amaze in recent years with the vast array of stunning directorial debuts. From the likes of Lady Macbeth to The Levelling, such first features have introduced adept directors and actors alike to the world. Emerging from the shadows into the limelight, Continue Reading
★★★★★ Notorious is a masterclass of suspense, romance and technical craft. Featuring two of the most classic screen presences in Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, their on-screen chemistry plays into Hitch’s thematic obsession with desire. Kickstarting the BFI’s two-month-long retrospective on the Bristolian actor, and the film’s recent 4K restoration, Notorious Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Summer and holidays on-screen conjure up iconic images of characters bathed in a splendour of heat; Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast, Alain Delon in La Piscine and Charlotte Rampling in Swimming Pool. Adding her unique spin on this unique period of supposed relaxation, Isabella Eklöf’s directorial debut Holiday is Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ After achieving critical and commercial success with 2016’s The Jungle Book, Jon Favreau once again returns to the director’s chair to digitally adapt The Lion King. Leaning heavily on the original’s musicality, more so than Mowgli and co, the film seeks to transport you into nostalgia and real-life renderings of Continue Reading
★★★★★ The cinema of Agnès Varda endures beyond time. Whether this is her first feature La Pointe Courte or the digitally playful The Gleaners & I, Varda’s cinema has always existed in its own unique space. After sadly passing away in March this year a month after her latest feature Continue Reading
★★★★☆ On Sunday evening the world witnessed one of the greatest games of cricket ever played. Central to this match was England’s harmoniously diverse squad made up of an Irish captain, a New Zealand born all-rounder and opening batsman born in South Africa. Yet, even as recent as 2015 at Continue Reading
★★★★★ Few films have stood the test of time as well as Nicolas Roeg’s seminal horror Don’t Look Now. Revolving around the omnipresent theme of grief (and adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s short story), the film composes a ghostly melancholic reflection on this profound human emotion. Rereleased by StudioCanal into cinemas Continue Reading
★★★★★ From the first frame to its last, Apollo 11 observes the historic moon landings from a uniquely cinematic perspective. Paying homage to the analogue era by using exclusive footage from the time, transferred digitally from the original 65mm, Todd Douglas Miller’s third feature leaves you in a heady daze Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ After breaking out onto the international film scene with A Fantastic Woman, Sebastian Lelio returns to cinemas with his second English language feature Gloria Bell. A remake of his native Chilean film Gloria, in which starred the ‘Meryl Streep of Latin American Cinema’, Paulina García, Lelio in this outing Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Regardless if you care or not about fashion, it is impossible to ignore. From the somewhat delirious yearly coverage of the Met Gala to the eye-watering amounts of money involved in trade deals between fashion designers and big brands, the world we live in is consumed by it. The Continue Reading
★★★★☆ After exploding onto the international film scene with the Oscar-nominated Embrace of the Serpent, Ciro Guerra returns to cinemas with another story of Colombian tradition. His latest film, Birds of Passage, merges the western gangster genre with a spiritual epic tale on indigenous traditions, set against the drug trade Continue Reading
