DVD Review: ‘Force Majeure’
★★★☆☆ What could have easily been a glib provocation turns out to be rigorous examination of masculinity in crisis in the hands of Swedish...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★☆☆ What could have easily been a glib provocation turns out to be rigorous examination of masculinity in crisis in the hands of Swedish...
★★★★☆ Tales of impossible love and the trappings of fame and fortune have long been staples of Hollywood cinema. However, to accuse Gina Prince-Bythewood’s...
★★★★☆ Joining the latest throng of female filmmakers baring their souls – and bettering their mainstream equivalents – through homegrown autobiographical independent films is...
★★★★☆ Damon Gameau’s feature documentary about the detrimental effects of refined sugar and excess fructose on our health is both educative and entertaining. The...
★★★☆☆ Doug Aitken’s Station to Station (2014) immediately states its intent. This is to be “a journey through modern creativity”, shot over 24 days,...
★★★★☆ John Maclean’s Slow West (2015) is prairie poetry. It might be set in the Wild West, where it’s always high noon and desperados...
★★★☆☆ Watching Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way (2014) is a somewhat bittersweet experience. It’s terrific to see the great almost man return from...
★★★★☆ In a whole other league to the regular slew of sex comedies usually churned out by the Hollywood machine – that are often...