Film Reviews
MommyWednesday, 18 March 2015
“Loving people doesn’t save them” could be the epitaph to the young Canadian director Xavier Dolan’s exuberant, emotionally draining fifth feature Mommy. Its vivid colours, concentrated in an unusual square screen ratio, seem to burst out with devilish energy as we follow the attempts of a loving but stretched mother to look after her 15-year-old son who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Read more... |
The GunmanWednesday, 18 March 2015
Naturally Sean Penn, earnest Hollywood liberal and hard-working humanitarian, didn't lightly undertake his role as professional hitman Jim Terrier in The Gunman. "The idea of making violence cute – I've never been interested as an actor in those things," Penn has commented. "But when I read this I thought there were a lot of real-world parallels to it." Read more... |
A Second ChanceMonday, 16 March 2015
Susanne Bier follows the disappointing Serena with a well-acted and worthy drama that confronts societal prejudice, the sticky issues around child protection, and our inability to see what's right under our noses. Despite the plot's predictable and manipulative machinations, A Second Chance is rendered compelling every step of the way by Bier's searching direction and a mesmerising lead performance from Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Read more... |
Suite FrançaiseFriday, 13 March 2015
Saul Dibb dispenses with the first half of Irene Nemirovsky’s great novel Suite Française in about a minute. Grainy newsreel footage disposes of the Fall of France in 1940, then it’s on to the occupation of Bussy, the country town where Lucille (Michelle Williams) falls for gentlemanly German officer Bruno (Matthias Schoenaerts, pictured below with Williams). Read more... |
X + YWednesday, 11 March 2015
Sally Hawkins, Rafe Spall and Eddie Marsan form a super group of supporting actors in this heart-warming British coming-of-age drama which follows an autistic boy on his journey to the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO). Read more... |
Elle l’AdoreMonday, 09 March 2015
The relationship between stars and their fans is symbiotic, but there are barriers for many reasons. Illusions can crumble when the star-struck come too close to their idol. Celebrities have to lead their lives, and intrusions by the obsessed hardly encourage day-to-day routine. Elle L’Adore posits a what-if which takes place when a star decides to breach the barrier. Read more... |
ChappieFriday, 06 March 2015
An innocent is corrupted in South African director Neill's Blomkamp's third feature (co-written with his wife Terri Tatchell), but the kid in question is far from what you'd expect. Set in the near future, it focuses on a reprogrammed police robot with the consciousness, sensitivity and suggestibility of a child - a lovably tatty piece of tech who has been literally labelled a reject, and who sports bunny ears, graffiti and gangster bling. Read more... |
White Bird in a BlizzardFriday, 06 March 2015
Adolescence, youth culture and rebellion – often luridly and violently expressed – are the stocks in trade of American director Gregg Araki, who has one of the most distinctive voices in US cinema. But while Araki’s work has tended to exist on the fringe, White Bird In a Blizzard feels like a tiptoe into the mainstream – and the journey seems to have seriously neutered that voice. Read more... |
DreamcatcherThursday, 05 March 2015
We get the big city views of Chicago, the bright lights and the skyscrapers, a few times in Kim Longinotto’s Dreamcatcher, but for the most part we’re planted firmly down at street level, in areas of town probably you wouldn’t want to go to, a fair amount of the time at night. Read more... |
Still AliceWednesday, 04 March 2015
Oscar winner Julianne Moore: the phrase has been a long time coming but it finally came true 10 days ago when the actress, long considered one of Hollywood's best and brightest, added an Academy Award to her groaning mantelpiece of trophies for her work in Still Alice. Is this actually the finest performance yet given by the flame-haired 54-year-old? Probably not (Far From Heaven, anyone?), and Still Alice – an entirely well-meaning venture that inspires... Read more... |
Appropriate BehaviourMonday, 02 March 2015
There’s an engaging, indie sense of emotional flux in writer-director Desiree Akhavan’s feature debut Appropriate Behaviour, and a very funny script indeed behind it. Read more... |
The Second Best Exotic Marigold HotelSaturday, 28 February 2015
The oldies are back at Jaipur's Marigold Hotel and they're looking like goodies, too, thanks to a British dame or two and an Ol Parker script that knows when to leave off the breeziness and let the occasional intimation of mortality hold sway. And in a celluloid landscape plagued by sequelitis, the fact that a collective of British pensioners and their newfound Indian chums have been brought back for more is itself rather bracing compared to the usual spate of avengers, transformers or what... Read more... |
White GodFriday, 27 February 2015
With a similar title to Samuel Fuller’s White Dog, White God, too, is an allegory on racism with a canine slant. Where the 1982 film centred on a dog trained to attack black people, Kornél Mundruczó’s film is set in a Hungary where mixed-breed dogs are rounded up and sent to pounds. An edict from a government which is neither mentioned specifically nor seen, permits only pure “Hungarian” breeds. Mutts have to be reported. Read more... |
It FollowsWednesday, 25 February 2015
David Robert Mitchell's second ode to innocence lost is a rather more twisted take on the subject than his first film, The Myth of the American Sleepover. That was a beautifully judged ensemble coming-of-ager which merely teased us with horror tropes. Alongside the titular teen tradition it featured an abandoned warehouse, a Ouija board, a trip down to the basement and a midnight swim. Read more... |
Oscars 2015: Birdman soars, Boyhood plummetsMonday, 23 February 2015
I hope someone by now has told Neil Patrick Harris how to pronounce David Oyelowo’s surname, but if anyone wants to see how not to host an Oscars, Harris’s stewardship of the 87th annual Academy Awards can provide that service in spades. Read more... |
The Duke of BurgundyFriday, 20 February 2015
At last, it’s here – the female-friendly BDSM movie that no grownups should restrain themselves from seeing. The one with the designer clothes and kinky accoutrements. The one with the “special” room for thrilling punishments. The one unafflicted by Christian Grey and his assorted neuroses. Read more... |
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