Film Reviews
The Audition review - love and hate at music schoolSaturday, 02 April 2022
If Roman Polanski had directed Whiplash, something like this study of music’s psychological cost might have resulted. Ina Weisse’s film is more incremental and naturalistic, as violin teacher Anna (Nina Hoss) gives special attention to teenage protégé Alexander (Ilja Monti), to the jealous resentment of son Jonas (Serafin Mishiev), while nervously returning to the stage herself. Read more... |
Morbius review – not so superFriday, 01 April 2022
Following the much-maligned Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), the third film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe stars Jared Leto as Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr Michael Morbius. Suffering from a rare blood condition that threatens to take his life, Morbius self-enrols in an experimental cure, combining his DNA with that of a vampire bat and so destining himself for a future as a living vampire. Read more... |
Oscars 2022 - the smack heard around the worldMonday, 28 March 2022
What the [expletive deleted]? Read more... |
Ambulance review – Michael Bay in excelsisSunday, 27 March 2022
Speed in an ambulance? Gone In 60 Seconds meets Heat? Read more... |
The Worst Person in the World review - confusion becomes herSaturday, 26 March 2022
Some British TV viewers who were in junior school in the mid-1960s will recall the imported Australian kids’ show The Magic Boomerang. When the adolescent hero, a sheep farm kid, threw the eponymous piece of wood, he stopped time and was able to thwart crimes and right other wrongs as long as it was airborne; once he caught it, life continued as before in his corner of the Outback. Read more... |
The Tinderbox review – a call for peaceFriday, 25 March 2022
The beginning of the Israeli-Palestine conflict is officially dated to 7 June 1967, the occasion of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the Six-Day War, but its origins stretch back further. Read more... |
X review - sex and the bloody American dreamMonday, 21 March 2022
Ti West’s slyly self-referential horror film about a Texan porn shoot subverts expectations. Read more... |
Three Floors review - nothing like good neighboursSunday, 20 March 2022
A speeding drunk driver arrows down a silent street into a Roman block of flats. Read more... |
River review – gorgeous visuals and a timely message: so what’s not to like?Saturday, 19 March 2022
I would suggest watching River on the largest possible screen, so you can bask in the breathtaking beauty of the visuals. Read more... |
Paris,13th District review - millennial merry-go-roundFriday, 18 March 2022
Having established his world-class reputation with gritty crime thrillers, notably A Prophet, Jacques Audiard is clearly on a mission to branch out: after his terrific, revisionist western The Sisters Brothers, comes this ambling, sexy, millennial story about love, friendship, and the complicated areas in between. Read more... |
Deep Water review - not even laughably badFriday, 18 March 2022
Patricia Highsmith must be spinning in her grave. This ridiculously incompetent adaptation of her 1957 crime novel lacks all suspense or credibility. It’s hard to believe that Adrian Lyne, responsible for huge box-office hits like the provocative thriller Fatal Attraction and the dodgy but watchable 9 ½ Weeks and Indecent Proposal, could make something quite so feeble as Deep Water. Read more... |
The Phantom of the Open review - charmingly incompetent golfer channels EalingThursday, 17 March 2022
“No one can say you didn’t try,” shipyard worker Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) is told, shortly before bluffing his way aged 46 into the 1976 British Open, having never played golf before. Read more... |
Hive review - how a group of Kosovan widows rebuilt their livesWednesday, 16 March 2022
As the air echoes with wars and rumours of wars, Hive has the potential to strike a chord resonating way beyond its Kosovan setting. The factually-based story is set in the aftermath of the Balkan conflicts of the late 1990s, after Serbian forces had carved a trail of rape, murder and destruction through Kosovo’s Albanian communities. Read more... |
The Metamorphosis of Birds review - picture perfectTuesday, 15 March 2022
How do you make a film about death, love and loss that avoids being sentimental, maudlin or pretentious? Take your cue from Portuguese artist Catarina Vasconcelos. Read more... |
The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone review - can it pull you back in?Sunday, 13 March 2022
The relative runt of the Godfather litter was hacked out in a Las Vegas casino, as Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo worked up scenarios for an assignment taken on for the money. Read more... |
Great Freedom review - love behind bars in GermanySaturday, 12 March 2022
A story of forbidden love, Great Freedom takes place almost entirely in a prison. The film's background is encapsulated in the word “175er/ hundertfünfundsiebziger”, still to be found in German dictionaries and collective memories as a pejorative word for a gay man. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Magic Farm review - numpties from the Nineties
There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater”...
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into...
As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on...
theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out p...
If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in most of them. The...
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Wigmore Hall review - too big a splash...
It was a daring idea to mark Ravel’s 150th birthday year with a single concert packing in all his works for solo piano. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet knows...
Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and...
Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskills Forest...
E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull...
It’s hard to say who is going to enjoy E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Admirers of the modernist designer-architect will...
Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL
Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct...
The Marching Band review - what's the French for '...
In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a...
Lucy Farrell, Catherine MacLellan, The Green Note review - s...
Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose stunning debut album, We...