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Venice 2019: The Domain review
★★★★☆ Tiago Guedes’ latest offering The Domain dissects a wealthy Portuguese family in the second half of the 20th century as a libertarian young patriarch struggles with duty, family, politics and his own personal destructive freedom.
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Toronto 2019: Maria’s Paradise review
★★★☆☆ Zaida Bergroth’s fifth feature is based on the real-life exploits of Maria Åkerblom’s Finnish cult. Although its analysis of the nature of devotion and the intense narcissism that drives cult-like leaders is mostly pretty lightweight, Maria’s Paradise is a well-mounted, effective thriller-drama. Opening as the group, led by the charismatic and elegant Maria (Pihla Viitala), are…
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Toronto 2019: The Lost Okoroshi review
★★★★☆ Following his 2016 debut Green White Green, Nigerian director Abba Makama returns to the festival circuit with this exploration of heritage, culture and folk memory, seasoned with endearing, offbeat humour and a touch of body horror. The Lost Okoroshi follows the travails of carefree security guard Raymond (Seun Ajayi) as he awakes one morning to find himself transformed…
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Toronto 2019: #ShareHerJourney, folk memory and belief
As the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) gears up for its 44th year, festival programmers continue to #shareherjourney with 35% of films at the festival made by women. Spirits, folklore and memory are the order of the day in the Contemporary World Cinema and Midnight Madness programmes. Meanwhile, the indigenous experience is given greater…
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Venice 2019: The King review
★★★☆☆ “All hail the king,” proclaim the posters dotted around the Venice Lido. The story of Henry V gets a revisionist, Netflix-backed interpretation from Animal Kingdom director David Michôd as a floppy-haired Timothée Chalamet goes boldly into the breach once more in Venice out-of-competition offering The King.
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James Bond’s favourite casino games
The Bond films are possibly the most iconic in British filmmaking history. Filled with fast cars, women and money, James Bond is the ultimate British spy, who every young boy dreamed of becoming. Known as 007, James Bond has been played by many different actors throughout the years including; Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby,…
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Venice 2019: The Laundromat review
★★★☆☆ Do you remember when Steven Soderbergh retired from filmmaking? That was approximately five films and two television series ago. There’s a looseness to his new Netflix-bound Panama Papers takedown The Laundromat that, for both better or worse, smacks of an OAP not giving a tinker’s cuss.
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Venice 2019: Ema review
★★★☆☆ Ema (Mariana Di Girólamo) is a young dancer with a Daenerys Targaryen bleach job and a love of Reggaeton. She’s also a bit of a pyromaniac. The first shot we see in Pablo Larraín’s new film Ema is of a stoplight burning, set on fire by Ema with her flamethrower.
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DVD Round-up: Aug 2019 edition
August’s releases run the gamut from horror, urban thrillers, social justice and tender drama. While themes of modernity, paranoia and urban life prominently feature in this month’s lineup, headed by the likes of Kiss Me Deadly, The Incident, and Do The Right Thing, so too does nature and its relationship to human society – such as in Australian classic The…
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Venice 2019: An Officer and a Spy review
★★★☆☆ The Dreyfus Affair is chronicled as a turn of the century espionage thriller worthy of le Carré in Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy. There was a good chance that his film could have been withdrawn after the jury head Lucrecia Martel shared her dissatisfaction at the film being included in the competition.
VENICE 2026