★★★★☆ In the years since Juno offered a light-hearted but even-handed take on the subject of unwanted teen pregnancy, the discourse around reproductive rights in America has, if anything, grown more polarised. Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a subtle, quietly devastating look at how a young woman’s body Continue Reading
★★★★★ When Pablo Larraín took the helm of Jackie, it was the first time the Chilean director had attempted two things: a story set outside of Latin America and one with a female protagonist. With Ema, Larraín is back in his home country, weaving a tightly-controlled narrative of family and Continue Reading
★★★★★ Andrew Kötting is a filmmaker and Professor of Time Based Media. A visual artist who uses film and photography to explore the gaps between dreams and reality, autobiography and self-mythology. It’s hard to put the multi-disciplinary Kötting’s work into a box, and yet he has made an entire film Continue Reading
★★★★☆ System Crasher is the outstanding feature film debut of German director Nora Fingscheidt. A tremendous slice of life filled with light and energy, which doesn’t shy away from the tough realities of what social care is like for children with severe developmental issues. Benni (Helena Zengel) is a foul-mouthed, rebellious Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ On paper the story of Marie Curie, a pioneering woman of science, seems like prime awards bait: with a big central role for Rosamund Pike, playing an eccentric proto-feminist. Sadly, Radioactive is as lifeless and inert as a rock, badly let down by a dismal script, and carrying all Continue Reading
★★★★☆ The lives of painters tend to be told with broad strokes. Famous artists are portrayed as tortured and romantic or else their work hangs over the story, weighing it down with a set of cultural expectations which are hard to shake off. With Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Michael Winterbottom brings together a who’s who of British comic talent for his fast fashion satire Greed. Conceived as a biting commentary on inequality, sweatshop labour and…well, greed, the film lacks fluency and laughs, rarely managing to lands its many upward punches. High street fashion magnate Sir Richard McCreadie Continue Reading
★★★★★ Arriving in UK cinemas cloaked in the Oscars buzz of a Best Picture and Best Director nomination, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is riding high in the expectations of cinema-goers. Conditions are almost ripe for a backlash, the sort of overhype that leaves some a little disappointed, but this just ain’t Continue Reading
To say that Bong Joon-ho’s latest film, Parasite, is attracting attention ahead of its UK release in February would be something of an understatement. Having already topped many end-of-year lists in territories blessed with an earlier release schedule – not long after becoming the first-ever Korean film to win the Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Back in 2015, Robert Eggers delighted critics with the flesh-pecking horror of The Witch, a directorial feature debut which blended the theatrics of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with shades of M. Night Shyamalan and the more grizzly adaptations of Stephen King. Five years on and Eggers is back to Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Now into his sixth decade as a director, Ken Loach has followed up the Palme D’Or-winning I, Daniel Blake with another hard-hitting work of social realism. Teaming up once more with regular screenwriter Paul Laverty, Sorry We Missed You offers a scathing assessment of zero-hour contracts and the damaging Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Prolific documentary maker Nick Broomfield returns with another musical project, this time choosing a more personal topic: the relationship between Leonard Cohen and Broomfield’s close friend Marianne Ihlen. “I was born,” Leonard Cohen once remarked, “with the gift of a golden voice.” Viewers of Broomfield’s new documentary Marianne & Continue Reading
Alison Klayman made her name as a film-maker with 2012’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a close study of the revered Chinese artist which followed him across the course of several years, leading up to his eventual arrest in Beijing in 2011. Now, in 2019, she’s made a return to overtly Continue Reading
★★★★★ In Alison Klayman’s new political documentary The Brink, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is accompanied around the world, from live speaking appearances to hotel meeting rooms, documenting his exploits in the year following his departure from the Trump administration. As a documentarian, Alison Klayman knows the value Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ The uniquely American phenomenon of Hooters-style sports bars provides the subject matter for Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls. More Cassavettes than Coyote Ugly, the film rarely concerns itself too deeply with the politics of such establishments, preferring instead to take a softer, human look at the lives of its Continue Reading
