CineVue
For the latest reviews of arthouse, documentary and indie film in cinemas and on the festival circuit.
★★★☆☆ Industry commentators were somewhat taken aback by Kathy Bates’ Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Clint Eastwood’s latest “fact-based” drama, Richard Jewell. Not only was this seen as the sacrilegious nod that knocked Hustlers’ Jennifer Lopez out of the Oscar race, but it was also for a Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Acclaimed satirist Armando Iannucci follows up the pitch-black delights of 2017’s The Death of Stalin with The Personal History of David Copperfield, a relatively conventional Charles Dickens adaptation embellished with occasional flashes of the Scotsman’s abrasive humour. This is – by this writer’s count at least – the eighth Continue Reading
The nominations for this year’s 92nd Academy Awards were announced this morning. As was the case with the Baftas a week prior, Todd Phillips’ Joker led the way with a huge eleven nominations, followed by Sam Mendes’ 1917, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood all on ten. Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love has long been held aloft by Adam Sandler advocates as proof of the 53-year-old’s acting chops. While years of shoddy comedies have undone some of that good work, A24 and Netflix thriller Uncut Gems is another sorely-needed reminder of his obvious talents. The latest film from Continue Reading
The nominations for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards were announced this morning. Todd Phillips’ Joker led the way with a huge eleven nominations, followed by Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood on ten. Sam Mendes’ First World War epic 1917 – released Continue Reading
Despite receiving a total of 34 nominations across film and television, Netflix limped away from this year’s Golden Globes ceremony with just two awards – Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story’s Laura Dern and Olivia Colman for her star performance in The Crown. Sam Mendes’ First World War epic 1917 picked up Continue Reading
Tail-ended by superb new offerings from the likes of Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) and Greta Gerwig (Little Women), 2019 has been a vintage year for not only American filmmaking but world cinema. Our top picks of 2019 reflect some of the quality and variety of this Continue Reading
With Netflix’s The Irishman and Marriage Story dominating early awards season debate – and both featuring in our collective top ten – the streaming platforms have truly arrived as major contenders to the traditional studios. And it wasn’t just in the field of English-language filmmaking that Netflix made major gains. Continue Reading
Seeing out its 23rd edition as the snow gently fell outside of Tallinn’s Russian Theatre, the Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) yesterday crowned Anshul Chauhan’s Japanese father and daughter tale Kontora (pictured above) as the Grand Prix winner, with the Best Director award going to Filippino filmmaker Jun Robles Jana Continue Reading
★★★★☆ “Based on an actual lie” is the text that sets audiences up rather nicely for the lilting tone of Sundance hit The Farewell, the deeply personal and semi-autobiographical second feature from American writer and director Lulu Wang. Hoping to capitalise on the representational ground gained by last year’s Crazy Rich Continue Reading
★★★★★ From the thin blue line that divides the brothers of We Own the Night to the disrupted family units of Little Odessa and The Lost City of Z, it’s the external forces that pull us apart rather than the ties that bind us that’s of most interest to American filmmaker James Continue Reading
Several surprise wins livened up an otherwise low-key 91st Academy Awards, with Green Book trumping Roma to Best Picture and Olivia Colman besting Glenn Close for her role as Queen Anne in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite. Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody won the most awards on the night with four, including Best Actor for Rami Malek, while Roma and Black Panther both took Continue Reading
The 91st Academy Awards are just hours away and yet, with the announcement that the Oscars for Cinematography, Editing, Live Action Short and Make-Up will no longer be banished to commercial breaks, the final ceremony itself still feels very much a work in progress. This is not the first controversy Continue Reading
Hosted by Joanna Lumley, last night’s Baftas ceremony saw Yorgos Lanthimos’ acclaimed The Favourite pick up seven of the twelve awards it was nominated for including Outstanding British Film, Best Actress for Olivia Colman and Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz. Best Film and Best Director went to Alfonso Cuarón and Roma, while Continue Reading
With the UK’s most prestigious film awards taking place later today (10 February), it’s time to enter into a round of foolproof – or is that foolhardy? – predictions on who will win at the 72nd Baftas. To add an extra level of frisson, the Baftas are historically seen as Continue Reading