Film Review: Chappaquiddick
★★★☆☆ By 1969, Ted Kennedy (played here by Jason Clarke) was the only a surviving brother of the famed political dynasty. But on 18th...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★★☆☆ By 1969, Ted Kennedy (played here by Jason Clarke) was the only a surviving brother of the famed political dynasty. But on 18th...
★★★★☆ Louis C.K. returns to the director’s chair for the first time since 2001’s Pootie Tang. Though not quite up there with his best...
★★★☆☆ His first film since 2011’s We Might as Well Fail, Govinda Van Maele’s Gutland is an atmospheric, gripping mystery set in the Luxembourg...
★★★★★ In 1981, while in Paris, Issei Sagawa murdered and cannibalised Dutch student Reneé Hartevelt. Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s documentary about Sagawa, Caniba,...
★★☆☆☆ People in glass houses shouldn’t be in Terrence Malick films, but invariably they are and the temptation to throw bricks is becoming almost...
★★★★★ David Lynch hasn’t embarked on a major film project since the release of Inland Empire back in 2006. Eleven years is a long...
★★★★☆ Molly Bloom once ran the world’s most exclusive underground poker games, attracting A-list celebrities, hedge fund magnates and, eventually, the Russian mob. After...
★★☆☆☆ Mary Shelley was among the most important writers of the Romantic period, a time of intense political and social upheaval. But you wouldn’t...