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Film Review: Possessor
★★★★☆ His first film since his debut Antiviral back in 2012, writer and director Brandon Cronenberg brings us a delirious, disorienting psycho-science fiction. An uneasy and messy union of genre and arthouse, Possessor disturbs, thrills and eludes us in equal measure. Opening on a brief, razor-sharp montage of needles, wounds and bodily penetration, we’re jolted…
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Small Axe: Red, White and Blue review
★★★★★ Steve McQueen’s extraordinary five-part series, Small Axe, set in the heart of London’s West Indian community from the 1960s to the 1980s, continues on BBC One with Red, White and Blue, co-scripted with Courttia Newland and starring John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens). Based on a true story it follows the fortunes of…
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Film Review: Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula
★★★☆☆ Train to Busan was something of a miniature miracle: a distinctly Korean zombie film at a time when audiences had been chomped-out for years. Director Yeon Sang-ho’s Peninsula is a solid follow up to his original, with just about enough shambling momentum to distract from a fairly uninspired plot. Part of what made Train…
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Martin Scorsese’s top five films
Martin Scorsese is one of the biggest names in Hollywood. The American film director has been working in the industry since he turned 20 in 1962. In that time, he’s married five wives (and divorced four), received 17 major awards after being nominated for 76, and worked both in front of and behind the camera.…
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Small Axe: Lovers Rock review
★★★★☆ Lovers Rock is loud, proud and joyous. It’s an invigorating, pound-the-walls-and-floorboards ode to its titular style of reggae. At just sixty-eight minutes, the second instalment of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe five-parter may seem more episodic in length, but as the series’ name suggests, great things can come in small packages. Moving forward in time…
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Film Review: Patrick
★★★★☆ There’s no rulebook or any one way for a person to react to the death of a family member. And with his first big screen endeavour, Patrick, Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants has crafted as unusual an exploration of grief and loss as you are ever likely to see. Set in a simple, rather shabby nudist…
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Film Review: Collective
★★★★★ Romanian director Alexander Nanau turns his talents to the events after the fire that broke out at the Colectiv club in Bucharest in 2015. 64 people were ultimately killed in a tragedy that uncovered profound corruption throughout the Romanian state. Collective is a brilliant documentary in its own right, but in this time of…
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The true cost of movie-making
Among many frequent questions, most film-related FAQs revolve around “how to make a movie” and “how expensive is it to make one?”. And yet, there’s no definite answer to either conundrum. It’s like asking the average cost for making a meal, which depends on many factors, like who’s making the meal, where the meal is…
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Film Review: Hillbilly Elegy
★★☆☆☆ Amy Adams and Glenn Close lead the cast of this Ron Howard-directed biopic, based on J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir of the same name. Like most of Howard’s films, Hillbilly Elegy is perfectly watchable, unchallenging and largely forgettable awards fodder. Unfortunately, it’s not much else, with very little insight into its characters, visual flair or…
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Small Axe: Mangrove review
★★★★★ Taking a sledgehammer to institutionalised racism with the clarity of purpose and skill of a master craftsman, Steve McQueen is once again at the very top of his game, and indeed his profession, with Mangrove. Constituting just one instalment of the five-part Small Axe series, this film is a towering achievement. Chosen as the BFI London Film…
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