Film Reviews & More
★★☆☆☆ “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.
As the anticipation for the summer movie season grows, alongside it, the whispers are starting about the possible contenders for the 2024 awards season, notably the Oscars. Among the contenders, several films have emerged as strong contenders despite not being released yet.
★★★★☆ The first of a two-parter, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is bigger, bolder and grander than its predecessor, and with little serious competition from Marvel or DC’s live-action factories, looks set to be the best superhero film of the year.
★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
★★☆☆☆ Bereavement, mental health, the threadbare US social welfare system and homelessness are the heavy topics that British-born director Deborah Richards tackles in her debut feature. Unfortunately, their worthy but superficial and somewhat incoherent presentation means that Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.
★★★☆☆ Catherine Corsini arrives in Cannes with Homecoming, an adeptly told family drama which boasts some stand out performances. Fifteen years after a tragic incident, Kheìdidja (Aissatou Diallo Sagna), a single mother, returns to Corsica with her two daughters to look after the children of a wealthy family.
★★★☆☆ Sometimes, it’s tough being really skilled at one thing in particular. Having flown out the blocks with two supremely good, bonafide hit horror films (Hereditary, Midsommar), writer and director Ari Aster had to make a departure to avoid being pigeon-holed as a genre specialist.
★★★★☆ Nam June Paik is commonly referred to as the “father of video art”. In her debut feature, director Amanda Kim chronicles Paik’s work from his early development in Berlin up to his eventual return to Korea in the 1980s.
★★★★★ During a summer break to a remote village in the Italian Alps, Pietro forges a lifelong friendship with the only other boy among the settlement’s dwindling population. Husband-wife team Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains is a gorgeously-told fable of platonic love.
