Film Reviews
Summer of Soul review - glorious documentary combines music and black American historyWednesday, 14 July 2021
It’s entirely appropriate that in 2021, when debates about racism fill our minds and music festivals are still curtailed that Summer of Soul, filmed in 1969 but forgotten for decades, should win Sundance and hit our screens. Read more... |
Tove review - tasteful portrait of the Moomins creatorSaturday, 10 July 2021
Even for this reviewer, who was brought up on Tove Jansson’s quirky children’s books (and is the owner of some 50 different Moomin coffee cups), it’s a stretch to recommend dropping everything to go and see Tove in the cinema. There’s nothing wrong with the film as far as it goes, but unfortunately it doesn’t go quite far enough. Read more... |
Mosley: It's Complicated review - flattering portrait of a clever and ruthless power-brokerFriday, 09 July 2021
Director and co-writer Michael Shevloff’s film about Max Mosley, who died in May this year, is a curious beast, perhaps reflecting the difficulties of pinning down such a complex character. Read more... |
French Exit review - Michelle Pfeiffer faces mortalitySunday, 04 July 2021
Michelle Pfeiffer all but purrs her way through French Exit, as befits a splendid actress who cut a memorable Catwoman onscreen nearly thirty years ago. Read more... |
The Tomorrow War, Amazon Prime - futuristic blockbuster outstays its welcomeSaturday, 03 July 2021
Originally designed as a Yuletide widescreen blockbuster, The Tomorrow War belatedly emerges on Amazon’s streaming service, which at least means you can hit the pause button during its immense 140-minute running time whenever you need a leak or a refill. Read more... |
Hairspray, London Coliseum review - brighter and more welcome than everThursday, 01 July 2021
A revival of a multi-award winning musical, with a big star or two, may look like a safe choice to re-open London’s largest theatre, the Coliseum, but there was a tingle of jeopardy in the air, exemplified when the show catches you by surprise, the curtain rising when (surely) people remain in the bar? Read more... |
Blu-ray: Flowers of ShanghaiTuesday, 22 June 2021
Rounding out a decade of personal success – beginning with his Cannes Jury Prize-winning The Puppetmaster (1993), followed by a best director award for Good Men, Good Women (1995) – the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien travelled to the Japanese harbour city of Hirado as part of his research for Flowers of Shanghai (1998). Read more... |
In the Heights review - to life, Lin-Manuel Miranda-styleFriday, 18 June 2021
The general uptick of late in film versions of stage musical hits continues apace with In the Heights, which, to my mind anyway, is far more emotionally satisfying and visually robust onscreen than it was on Broadway, where it won the 2008 Tony for Best Musical. Read more... |
The Reason I Jump review - compelling and controversialFriday, 18 June 2021
Back in 2017, a non-speaking autistic teen, Naoki Higashida wrote and published The Reason I Jump. He hoped it would offer some insight into the minds of people with autism. The book was subsequently translated by Keiko Yoshida and her husband, Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell. Read more... |
The Father review - gripping dementia dramaFriday, 11 June 2021
Florian Zeller: the name might not be familiar in the world of cinema. But watch this space. Read more... |
Nobody review - Bob Odenkirk reinvents himself as all-action dynamoFriday, 11 June 2021
Fans of Bob Odenkirk’s work in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul will be delighted to see him taking centre stage in Ilya Naishuller’s thriller, but perhaps bamboozled at the spectacle of Odenkirk taking the plunge into the blood-splattered territory previously the preserve of John Wick and Liam Neeson’s Bryan Taken Mills. Read more... |
Shiva Baby review - sex, lies and rugelachFriday, 11 June 2021
Comedian Rachel Sennott stars as Danielle, a conflicted, bisexual twenty-something college student who's taking money she doesn't really need from a sugar daddy who isn't who she thinks he is. Emma Seligman’s debut feature, which began as a short in her film studies degree at New York University, is full of energy in its exploration of the dynamics of sex, power and career, with lox and bagels on the side. Read more... |
Bank Job review - an inspirational look at financeWednesday, 09 June 2021
A fun film about finance – really? From the very first frame I was hooked on this can-do documentary; it’s that good. A young family – parents, Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell, two kids and two dogs – gather at the front door of their Victorian terraced house in Walthamstow and grin sheepishly to camera. Read more... |
Dark Days, Luminous Nights, Manchester Collective, The White Hotel, Salford review - a sense of HadesTuesday, 08 June 2021
Did you wonder what all those creative musicians and artists did when they couldn’t perform in public last winter? Some of them started making films. Read more... |
A Quiet Place Part II review - noise abatement sequelFriday, 04 June 2021
Fourteen months after the Manhattan premiere of John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II – and three years after his taut, spare original spawned the most suspenseful sci-fi horror franchise of recent times – the movie is setting post-pandemic box office records. Read more... |
Blu-ray: Jungle FeverSunday, 30 May 2021
Thirty years since its original release, Jungle Fever appears on Blu-ray for the first time, courtesy of the British Film Institute. Some aspects of the movie have aged well – it’s electrifying to revisit Samuel L Jackson’s breakthrough performance as a crack addict plumbing new depths to feed his habit. But other aspects haven’t fared so well, primarily the script’s sexual politics and the casting of Wesley Snipes as the (anti) romantic male lead. Read more... |
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