Christopher Machell

★★★☆☆ The day after the events of Happy Death Day – in which Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) must relive her murder over and over until she her killer – finds supporting player Ryan (Phi Vu) in similarly dire time-looping straits. Playing fast and loose with multiple genres, writer-director Christopher Landon’s sequel is a slightly different beast to…

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★★★★☆ Alongside Get Out, Boots Riley’s astonishing Sorry to Bother You and the blistering TV comedy-drama Atlanta, Carlos López Estrada’s feature debut Blindspotting is the latest in a new moment in social American cinema. Rarely taking the simplistic approach, the Mexican-American director tackles intersectional identity, race and class in this fierce satire on urban Americana. Fresh out…

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★★★★★ The second film in Jean Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy, Orphée’s textural and thematic richness is matched only by its enduring technical innovation. A loose adaptation of the Greek myth of Orpheus, Cocteau’s masterpiece uses classical mythic structure and archetypes to explore post-war French rehabilitation and crisis. In this retelling of the myth, the musician Orpheus becomes…

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★★★★★ In post-war Paris, an elderly woman is murdered apparently without motive. As the locals puzzle over the identity of the culprit, bafflement soon turns to panic as their unfounded suspicions turn to the eccentric Jewish man, Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon), who lives in an apartment near the scene of the crime. An exemplary film…

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★★★★☆ Two years after the release of his classic, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, director Robert Aldritch revisits psychosis with Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, a chilling tale about the madness of grief and guilt told in the Southern Gothic mode.  In 1927 Louisiana, the married John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) is planning to leave his wife and pursue an…

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★★★☆☆ Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson’s Under the Tree makes its UK debut on DVD. A social satire with a shade of black humour wide enough to almost fill the frame, the Icelandic director’s 2017 film posits a cynical and often cruel vision of staid suburban existence and neighbourly rivalry spiraling out of hand, one missing pet at a…

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★★☆☆☆ Tying the worlds of Unbreakable and Split together, M. Night Shyamalan brings us a film that serves as direct sequel to both previous stories. Glass unites the invincible David Dunn (Bruce Willis), DID sufferer Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), and the brittle-boned mastermind Elijah, now going by the name of Mr. Glass (Samuel L Jackson). Placing the…

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★★★★★ Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is investigating the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who was found in her own apartment, apparently killed with a shotgun. Otto Preminger’s 1944 noir is a classic mystery, one where everyone and no one is a suspect and love and desire are corrupt, base urges that lead to nasty…

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★★★★☆ 1953’s Sawdust and Tinsel was a financial and critical failure, yet is now considered one of Ingmar Bergman’s early masterpieces. It’s significant for being Bergman’s first collaboration with Sven Nykvist (sharing cinematography duties with Hilding Bladh), but beyond this, there is much to admire and a great deal to love about this imperfect but riveting study…

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