Film Reviews
Fanny Lye Deliver’d review - blistering English civil war westernThursday, 25 June 2020
Ten years in the making, Thomas Clay’s third feature, starring Charles Dance and Maxine Peake, is a remarkable and potent example of genre-splicing British independent filmmaking. Read more... |
The Booksellers review – a deep dive into the eccentric world of booksellingTuesday, 23 June 2020
Picture an antiquarian book dealer. Typically, it’s all Harris Tweed, horn-rimmed specs, and a slight disdain for actual customers. At the beginning of D.W. Read more... |
Joan of Arc review – tough little numberSaturday, 20 June 2020
Jeanne d’Arc was 19, she believed, when she was tried for heresy by her English enemies in Rouen in 1431. Of the actors who have played her onscreen – Falconetti, Ingrid Bergman, Jean Seberg, Leelee Sobieski, Milla Jovovich among them – none has evinced more wolf-cub-like fierceness or childlike purity of purpose than does Lise Leplat Prudhomme. Read more... |
Wasp Network review – Cuban but no cigarFriday, 19 June 2020
Frenchman Olivier Assayas is a writer/director who can produce small-scale, cerebral dramas (Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sil Maria) and muscular genre pieces, such as five-hour true-crime epic Carlos. Wasp Network falls into the latter camp, though given its spectacular, real-life material, it’s a disappointingly unengaging... Read more... |
7500 review - a turbulent rideThursday, 18 June 2020
Thank goodness no-one’s going anywhere this year, because 7500 does for planes what Jaws did for bright yellow lilos. Set entirely within the cockpit of a passenger jet, this thriller trims all the fat, leaving a taut nightmare that pulls no punches. Read more... |
The Day After I'm Gone review - a subtle portrayal of a grieving father and his teenage daughterThursday, 18 June 2020
Yoram (Menashe Noy), a vet in a Tel Aviv safari park, knows how to treat a sick jaguar (startling to see such a magnificent beast in an oxygen mask) but he has no idea how to comfort his troubled 17-year-old daughter Roni (a powerful Zohar Meidan). Read more... |
Blu-ray/DVD: It Couldn't Happen HereSunday, 14 June 2020
The Pet Shop Boys' film It Couldn’t Happen Here, originally released in 1988, has been given a new outing on a BFI Blu-ray/DVD that contextualises it with special features. While it's an entertaining snapshot of a particular time in British and pop history, and while I don’t wish to be churlish, that's about as far as it goes. Read more... |
Artemis Fowl review - flash bang nothingSaturday, 13 June 2020
It’s taken over 18 years for Artemis Fowl to reach the big screen, with Miramax originally buying the rights in 2001. Finally, Disney have brought the world’s youngest criminal mastermind to life, but was it worth the wait? Read more... |
Echo in the Canyon review – California droopin'Saturday, 13 June 2020
Echo in the Canyon is a lamentably thin documentary about the vibrant folk-rock music scene that flourished in the bohemian Los Angeles neighbourhood of Laurel Canyon from 1965 to 1967. Read more... |
Da 5 Bloods review - Spike Lee takes on the black GIs' experience in VietnamFriday, 12 June 2020
Spike Lee’s ambitious tale of five American veterans returning to Vietnam to settle unfinished business, should have opened out of competition at Cannes last month. He was set to become the first African American film-maker to head the festival jury. Read more... |
The King of Staten Island review - Apatow's best work in a decadeWednesday, 10 June 2020
The master of crowd-pleasing comedy, Judd Apatow, returns with another on-brand tale of arrested development with The King of Staten Island. While it's near his signature anarchic charm, this comedy-drama shows that even a veteran director/writer/producer like Apatow has room for growth. Read more... |
Banana Split review - likable if essentially timid romcomTuesday, 09 June 2020
Is friendship mightier and more durable than sex? That's the proposition put forward by the engaging if ultimately cautious Banana Split, the Los Angeles-set romcom in which two teenagers become friends unbeknownst to the long-haired himbo boyfriend whom they have shared. Read more... |
Days of the Bagnold Summer review - wry suburban dramaSaturday, 06 June 2020
Simon Bird's feature film debut as a director is a gentle, warm-hearted look at a mother and son's strained relationship as they are forced to spend the summer holidays together when the teenager's dad... Read more... |
Guest of Honour review – the grip of guiltFriday, 05 June 2020
A master at bringing neurotics to bilious life on screen, David Thewlis shines as a peevish, corrupt health inspector in Guest of Honour. Read more... |
A Rainy Day in New York review - one of Woody's later, patchy onesThursday, 04 June 2020
Woody Allen’s filmography, like Michael Caine’s, is remorseless, accepting mediocre work to mine more gems than most. Even after his career and this film’s planned 2018 release became collateral damage to #MeToo and a revived child abuse allegation, he has kept directing. Read more... |
The Last Full Measure review - exceptional performances elevate middling Vietnam war dramaThursday, 04 June 2020
It’s impossible to deny the sincerity with which Todd Robinson has approached the true story of William H. Read more... |
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