Glasgow 2015: ‘New Girlfriend’ review
★★★☆☆ Another year, another film from prolific French director and festival regular François Ozon. After the (intentional) inscrutability of the lead in Jeune et...
★★☆☆☆ “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.
★★★☆☆ Another year, another film from prolific French director and festival regular François Ozon. After the (intentional) inscrutability of the lead in Jeune et...
★★★★☆ If you thought ice hockey was just Canadians and punch-ups, then Gabe Polsky’s documentary Red Army (2014) may come as a cool eye-opener....
★★★☆☆ If Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant (2013) was a fairytale set in ‘It’s grim up north’ territory, this year’s Glasgow Film Festival offers...
★★★☆☆ Cowardice, treachery and bloody murder coalesce in director Diao Yinan’s Golden Bear-winning Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014), a tonally erratic noir that blends the aesthetics...
★★★★☆ Malaise of various kinds has manifested itself in the work of American director Noah Baumbach. In 2012, the much adored Frances Ha saw...
Glasgow Film Festival co-directors Allan Hunter and Allison Gardner took to a makeshift stage at the citizenM hotel to announce the full programme for...
★★★☆☆ By transporting the narrative from a common day modern setting to a universe where anything is possible and new foundations for proper societal...
★★★★☆ A quirky modern folktale from the Zellner brothers, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014) is not only a testament to the transcendental powers of...