John Bleasdale

★★★☆☆ American director Todd Haynes (Safe, Carol) returns to UK cinemas with May December, a Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore two-hander that asks the question: what if Brian De Palma remade Persona but as a comedy?

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★★★★☆ When asked why he called his novel How to Be Good, novelist Nick Hornby replied because having “how” in the title boosts sales significantly. We’re all looking for guidebooks, even when we read novels or see films. The world is a scary and confusing place, and we need someone to show us the way.

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★★★☆☆ The perennial theme of the hitman is so of the zeitgeist at the moment that just in this year’s Venice edition there are three films with the figure of the assassin as protagonist. Harmony Korine’s Aggro Dr1ft, Richard Linklater’s Hitman and now David Fincher’s The Killer join a culture neck-deep in John Wicks and Equalizers, Black Widows and Liam…

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★★★☆☆ We are now deep into the elder statesman stage of Martin Scorsese’s career. Every film comes with a certain weight of expectation, even as it tries to reach the escape velocity from his previous work. The Killers of the Flower Moon, like his Netflix-backed The Irishman, is a lengthy retelling of American history, exhumed…

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★★★☆☆ Chilean director Pablo Larraín has made the treatment of the great, the famous and the powerful his topic of preference, eschewing the lower end of the social scale that first made him famous with films such as Tony Manero and Post Mortem. Nothing has quite gone as far as El Conde, however.

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★★★☆☆ One of the most unmistakable filmmakers currently working, Wes Anderson is the go-to stylist for A.I.-generated parodies. His distinctive colour palettes, flat, lateral camera moves, diorama scene design and starry deadpan performances of witticism clipped from The New Yorker mean that most can pre-visualise his films before they even buy a ticket.

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★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen…

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★★★★☆ There is tragedy and there is comedy, but the hinterland has never really received a proper definition. Melodrama suggests histrionics and musical accompaniment milking the emotional teat. Drama is too broad. And anyone who suggests “dramedy” should be punished. It would be “dramedic”.

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