Film reviews and more
★★★☆☆ Richard Dreyfuss stars in Astronaut, Shelagh McLeod feature film debut, in which she also doubles up as screenwriter. It’s a low-key affair that made its World Premiere at last year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. In many ways, it has […]
★★★★☆ Golden Bear-winning cultural assimilation drama Synonyms is expertly handled by its director Nadav Lapid. That of relocating, whether it be by city, country or even school, is an unsettling experience most can relate to, though it’s heightened – and […]
★★☆☆☆ Five years after portraying J.M.W. Turner in Mike Leigh’s award-winning biographical drama Mr Turner, Timothy Spall takes on the role of another English painter, this time for director Adrian Noble, well-known in theatre circles. The painter in question is […]
★★★☆☆ The strained relationship between a father and his son is tenderly observed in End of Sentence, the debut feature film from Elfar Adalsteins. Predominantly set against the backdrop of Ireland, this drama – starring John Hawkes and Logan Lerman […]
★★★☆☆ Filmed in and around Scotland’s fourth largest city Dundee, Schemers – receiving its World Premiere at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival – makes up for in rough-and-ready charm what it lacks in technical finesse. It’s a film backed […]
★★★★☆ Jamie Bell is phenomenal in Skin, Israeli-born director Guy Nattiv’s harrowing drama. It’s a performance that requires a certain level of depth and power – something that Bell tears into with astonishing ferocity. The man Bell portrays is Bryon […]
★★★☆☆ The curtain rose on the 73rd Edinburgh International Film Festival last week with music director Ninian Doff’s feature debut Get Duked! (aka Boyz in the Wood). Set in the Scottish Highlands, this inspired mashup of comedy, thriller and social satire is […]
The full programme for this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival has been revealed, bolstering 18 world premieres and 72 UK premieres of films brought to the Scottish capital from countries all over. Now in its 73rd year, the world’s longest […]
★★★☆☆ Detective Pikachu marks the birth of the Pokémon film franchise in live-action form. The pocket monsters, first established in 1995 by Japanese designer Satoshi Tajiri, have experienced a resurgence of late with the release of Pokémon Go! in 2016, […]
★★★★☆ Against all odds, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s The Lego Movie reaped massive successes when it was released five years ago. While Mike Mitchell’s The Lego Movie 2 doesn’t quite come close to the unexpected surprises of its predecessor, it does […]
★★★★☆ Where Wreck-It Ralph focused on the highs and lows of arcades games, specifically relating to the characters who inhabit them, their lives and individual crises, its sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet lurches forward, opening the world up exponentially as the […]
★★☆☆☆ The phrase “man’s best friend” is put firmly to the test in Patrick, a new British comedy from Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie director Maddie Fletcher. Sarah (Beattie Edmondson) is the odd one out of her family. Her life is […]
★★★☆☆ Jim Haynes is the focus of Meeting Jim, an unexpectedly captivating documentary by Ece Ger that’s been nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Film award at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Quite rightly too, as Jim spent a […]
★★★★☆ The Marvel Cinematic Universe may have the market hold, but Incredibles 2 – which arrives some fourteen years after the original – is a superior superhero film to much of their output. It’s also a wonderfully ever-inventive film that, […]
★★★★☆ Matt Palmer’s debut feature Calibre is a tense, brutal thriller set in the rural Scottish Highlands. It boasts meaty performances from local talent Jack Lowden and Martin McCann as Vaughn and Marcus respectively, two childhood friends reunited for a […]