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Film Review: The Trial of the Chicago 7
★★★★☆ On 28 August 1968, during one of the bloodiest summers of the Vietnam War, several thousand protestors made their way to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The protestors violently clashed with authorities in what was later described by the official enquiry as a “police riot“. The so-called “Chicago 7” (initially eight) were arrested…
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Film Review: Eternal Beauty
★★★★★ When we hear the word ‘schizophrenia’, we may think of crazed killers or of squalid institutions in which wriggling madmen are tortured into compliance by maniacal doctors. Craig Roberts’ Eternal Beauty, a lively, textured and personal story of the origins and experience of paranoid schizophrenia, is a wonderful corrective to such misconceptions. Jilted at the altar,…
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Film Review: Monsoon
★★★★☆ Monsoon is the elegant, delicately-paced second feature from director Hong Khaou, starring Henry Golding as Kit, a British Vietnamese man returning to Ho Chi Minh for the first time in more than 30 years to scatter his parents’ ashes. Tracing ambivalent pasts and ambiguous futures, Monsoon grows into a brooding portrait of immigrant displacement…
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Interview: Hong Khaou, dir. Monsoon
This sophomore effort from Hong Khaou stars Henry Golding as Kit, a British Vietnamese man returning to his birth-land for the first time to scatter his parents’ ashes. Monsoon sketches the geographical and emotional contours of such a journey, steering between the cacophonous traffic of Ho Chi Minh and the restless, internal tides of memory…
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Film Review: Barking Dogs Never Bite, Memories of Murder
★★★★★ Following his dual Oscar wins for Parasite – unprecedented for a foreign language feature – way back in February, South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho is perhaps this year’s most important director, not least because his films – rooted as they are in class politics and manic heightened realities – are so very 2020. So…
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What makes a great sports movie?
From Rocky to Moneyball, sports movies are one of Hollywood’s most cherished genres and can often be a hit with both awards bodies and mass audiences alike. By its very nature, sport is often dramatic and unpredictable, populated by charismatic characters and fantastic arcs. The enduring popularity of the sports movie genre is perhaps best…
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Film Review: Goodfellas
★★★★★ Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, is the rock ‘n’ roll counterpoint to the grand operatic tragedy of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather saga. There are no auburn-tinted scenes of old men dying in fruit orchards or golden Sicilian sojourns here. Goodfellas is lit by the colours neon makes on oil-stained street puddles;…
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Film Review: Rocks
★★★★★ With her fourth feature, director Sarah Gavron offers up one of the year’s best British films. Developed and written organically in collaboration with its young cast, Rocks is a faultlessly authentic study of contemporary young life in the inner city. After Shola ‘Rocks’ (Bukky Bakray) mother disappears leaving only a note of apology and…
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Film Review: White Riot
★★★★☆ Building on her previous documentary short of the same name, Rubika Shah’s White Riot is an engaging and important study of Rock Against Racism, a movement formed in 1976 in response to the rising racism of the British political and social landscapes. In febrile times such as these, it’s difficult to imagine White Riot…
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Film Review: Real
★★★☆☆ British actor Aki Omoshaybi directs his first feature Real, a tale of beleaguered young love. Crafting an intimate, impressionistic story Omoshaybi is also impressive in the lead as lovelorn Kyle, while Pippa Bennett Warner is affecting as the object of his affections, single mother and recovering alcoholic Jamie. Kyle first meets Jamie at the…
VENICE 2026