Glasgow 2015: Dispatch #1
One of the most interesting things about picking out a viewing schedule at a film festival is the emergence of unexpected trends. Something that...
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.
★★★★☆ In Alex Garland’s Civil War, a group of journalists embark on a road trip to interview the US President amidst a second American Civil War, while exploring media’s dehumanizing relationship with violence.
★★★★☆ Having won the Jury Prize in 2013 for Like Father, Like Son and the Palme d’Or in 2018 with Shoplifters, Cannes favourite and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with Monster, a masterful work of intricate storytelling, complemented by a lovely score by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.
★★★★★ Theodor Adorno famously wrote that poetry was not possible after Auschwitz, but is cinema? Billy Wilder certainly thought so, getting footage from the camps as evidence as much as anything else. Steven Spielberg, Claude Lanzmann, Alain Resnais and Roberto Benigni have all with differing degrees of success tried their hands.
One of the most interesting things about picking out a viewing schedule at a film festival is the emergence of unexpected trends. Something that...
★★★☆☆ Liv Corfixen’s My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (2014) starts from the unfortunate position of being wide open to comparison with another...
★★★★☆ Carol Morley’s follow-up to the lauded Dreams of a Life (2011) shares a thematic through line with its predecessor. That documentary investigated the...
★★★★☆ It’s entirely fitting that Kornél Mundruczó begins his latest film with a dedication to the late Miklos Jancsó. Not only would the famed...
★★★☆☆ As the sequel to a film that hinted at a follow-up in the first outing’s final scenes, John Madden’s The Second Best Exotic...
★★★★☆ Harry Macqueen’s impressive directorial debut, Hinterland (2014), which he also scripts and stars in together with folk singer Lori Campbell follows two childhood...