Film Reviews
Arctic review - The Martian on iceWednesday, 08 May 2019
This is the first feature film by Brazil-born director Joe Penna (previously best known for his hit YouTube channel MysteryGuitarMan), but you’d never have guessed. Clocking in at a crisp and chilly 98 minutes, Arctic is an immaculately controlled exploration of the theme of man versus the elements, assisted immeasurably by having Mads Mikkelsen as its protagonist, Overgård. Read more... |
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile review - pedestrian Ted Bundy biopicSaturday, 04 May 2019
Why make a feature film about Ted Bundy, the notorious 1970s serial killer when you’ve already made Conversations with a Killer, a four-part factual series for Netflix about him? Read more... |
Vox Lux review – music biz drama with big ideasSaturday, 04 May 2019
Common to the recent spate of films about aspiring singers, the theme of fame’s corrupting influence is hardly new. Read more... |
Woman at War review – timely comedy-drama about an eco-warrior with a differenceSaturday, 04 May 2019
What is it about Nordic women and the environment? Read more... |
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, Design Museum review - immersive detailFriday, 03 May 2019
Who would have known that the word “Kubrickian” only entered the Oxford English Dictionary last year? You’d have thought that one of the great film directors of the 20th century would have earned his own epithet long ago. Read more... |
Tolkien review - biopic charms but never wowsThursday, 02 May 2019
Finnish director Dome Karukoski’s Tolkien follows the same formula of many literary biopics, with a tick-box plot of loves, friendships and hardships that forged the writing career of one the 20th Century’s greatest fantasy writers. Read more... |
Long Shot review - semi-hilarious odd couple romcomThursday, 02 May 2019
This is a romcom of two radically different halves, vaulting so dizzyingly from insultingly unbearable to daringly hilarious that walking in half-way through becomes a viable option. Read more... |
Donbass review - war stories from the Ukrainian frontSaturday, 27 April 2019
The latest from the prolific Sergei Loznitsa, Donbass is a bad-dream journey into the conflict that’s been waging in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, barely noticed beyond its immediate region. Read more... |
Styx review - high seas, high stakes refugee nightmareFriday, 26 April 2019
The Mediterranean’s massacres of the refugee innocent come uncomfortably close to a lone female sailor in this stark parable of European helplessness and indifference. Read more... |
Avengers: Endgame review - Marvel save the biggest and best for lastThursday, 25 April 2019
The Earth’s mightiest defenders are back in a triumphant climax, 11 years in the making. Despite a three hour runtime and an overstuffed preceding chapter, the Russo Brothers pull off the near-impossible by creating a wholly satisfying final chapter, and possibly the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Read more... |
Eighth Grade review - a dazzlingly real portrait of a teenage girlThursday, 25 April 2019
“Hey guys, it’s Kayla, back with another video. So, the topic of today’s video is being yourself.” Kayla Day (the wonderful Elsie Fisher, nominated for a Golden Globe and also heard as the voice of Agnes in Despicable Me) is in her last week of eighth grade in upstate New York, compounding the horror of being 13 years old by making self-help YouTube videos in her bedroom. “As always, make sure to share and subscribe to my channel. Read more... |
Red Joan review - Judi Dench can't lift lumbering espionage dramaSaturday, 20 April 2019
The decades-long stage relationship between Judi Dench and Trevor Nunn translates to surprisingly little with Red Joan. This is veteran theatre director Nunn's first film since Twelfth Night in 1996. Read more... |
Loro review – hedonism must have an endFriday, 19 April 2019
"Them" - the "loro" of the title (with a further play on “l’oro”, gold) - denotes the mostly sleazy opportunists willing to use and be used by "him" ("lui"), "Presidente" Silvio Berlusconi in his septuagenarian bid for an extended sexual and political life. Read more... |
Dragged Across Concrete review - Mel Gibson's hard-boiled highThursday, 18 April 2019
Mel Gibson’s vile drunken rants a decade ago, his 63 years and the price of both inform his role as cop Brett Ridgeman. Writer-director S. Craig Zahler won’t comment. Read more... |
Greta review – Isabelle Huppert goes full psycho in eccentric stalker thrillerWednesday, 17 April 2019
Isabelle Huppert is famed for the chilly intensity of many of her performances, and a willingness to mine all manner of darkness and perversity – her recent, award-laden turn in Elle being a good example. So it’s surprising how rarely she’s played unequivocal villains. Read more... |
Hellboy review - vivid monster mashFriday, 12 April 2019
No one was waiting for another Hellboy film, but here this rude, crude reboot is anyway, stomping all over Guillermo del Toro’s 2004 original with freewheeling energy. Read more... |
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