Film Review: Land of Mine
★★★★☆ Inspired by true events in 1945, director Martin Zandvliet’s powerful Academy Award-nominated film about Denmark’s treatment of German prisoners, Land of Mine, demonstrates...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★★☆ Inspired by true events in 1945, director Martin Zandvliet’s powerful Academy Award-nominated film about Denmark’s treatment of German prisoners, Land of Mine, demonstrates...
★★★★☆ Bryan Fogel’s Icarus is a tale of lies, deception and murder with stakes worthy of its Greek antecedent. Seeking to expose the curse...
★★★☆☆ Oscar nominee Mark Gill directs this unofficial Steven Patrick Morrissey biopic, featuring Jack Lowden (last seen as a Spitfire pilot in Christopher Nolan’s...
Celebrated American director Alexander Payne’s high concept sci-fi comedy Downsizing will open the 74th Venice International Film Festival (30 August-9 September) in a spot...
★★★☆☆ Howards End makes a gleaming return to cinemas across the UK and remains as crisp and clipped as the perfect diction of its...
★★★★☆ Silliness abounds in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which hails from DreamWorks Animation, the studio that reaped massive success from their most...
★★★☆☆ Lisa (Mandy Moore) has just been dumped by her boyfriend for being too boring. To prove him wrong, Lisa goes on holiday to...
★★★★★ While only Westfront 1918 is set during the First World War, it and Kameradschaft are about the madness, futility and trauma of that...