Film Reviews
Verdict review - social realism and court procedural combine in powerful Manila dramaSaturday, 13 March 2021
There’s something of an anomaly in Filipino director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez’s debut feature between its fast-moving dramatic opening, defined by an agile hand-held camera, and the much slower, more static scenes that follow. Read more... |
Wander Darkly review - bold psychodrama falls shortSaturday, 13 March 2021
Like the sun-happy LA of this film’s setting, there’s a hard-to-pinpoint sham quality to Wander Darkly. It feels like too much phoney dialogue crept in to the final script of this “serious” film by writer-director Tara Miele. Read more... |
The Columnist review - taking out the trollsFriday, 12 March 2021
There aren't many unforgettable moments in The Columnist, but one occurs when the eponymous Dutch journalist Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) clambers from the skylight of her house and, unseen by her middle-aged neighbour (Rein Hofman), who's doing DIY on his roof, tips him to his death on his patio. Read more... |
Mouthpiece review - double entendre in TorontoWednesday, 10 March 2021
Cassandra and her sister – or perhaps they’re friends or lovers – seem extraordinarily in tune. Like choreographed dancers, they move precisely in unison, down to tripping over their scarves at the same moment or flopping drunkenly into bed together while a cell phone buzzes beside them unanswered, on and on into the night. Read more... |
Berlinale 2021: Petite Maman review – magical musings on the parent-child relationshipSaturday, 06 March 2021
Hot on the heels of her 2019 triumph Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma’s fifth feature continues a perfect track record; this is yet another gorgeous and perceptive film, told from a determinedly female perspective but with a wisdom that is all-embracing. Read more... |
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche review - memorialising her motherSaturday, 06 March 2021
There was always something a little diffident about teenage Marion Elliott-Said, who created her on-stage persona Poly Styrene after putting together her band X-Ray Spex from a small ad in the back pages of the NME in 1977. Read more... |
Coming 2 America review - Eddie Murphy returns as African Prince AkeemFriday, 05 March 2021
Eddie Murphy – one of the biggest stars of the 1980s – has taken his time in making a sequel to the enormously successful Coming to America, which was released in 1988. Read more... |
Into the Darkness review - disappointingly soapy Danish WWII dramaFriday, 05 March 2021
Can a film be both too long and too short? If so, Into the Darkness definitely fits the bill. Anders Refn’s long-nurtured family epic follows Karl Skov (Jesper Christensen, more famous as a Bond villain), a self-made Danish industrialist who struggles with his conscience when his country surrenders to Germany in 1940. Read more... |
Berlinale 2021: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn review – cheeky, timely and very provocativeThursday, 04 March 2021
The Romanian director Radu Jude invariably serves spicy satire that challenges his compatriots to face historical crimes and present failings. The latest is an erudite and daft, raunchy and knockabout, endlessly provocative film that, for sake of brevity, we’ll call Loony Porn. Read more... |
Moxie review - likeable if confused high school comedyWednesday, 03 March 2021
A teen comedy with a thematic difference, Moxie has enough memorable moments to firmly establish comedian Amy Poehler as a director worth reckoning with in what is her second film, following Wine Country in 2019. Read more... |
Judas and the Black Messiah review - powerful biopicFriday, 26 February 2021
One of the sadnesses of covid is that films like Judas and the Black Messiah have been held over for release in the hope that cinemas will reopen. Immersive, intense features like this deserve to be seen in a darkened theatre with no distractions. But as the pandemic drags on in the UK, distributors are forced to debut big films on the small screen and it’s a real shame in this instance. Read more... |
To Olivia review - Keeley Hawes rises above brainless biopicFriday, 19 February 2021
Sure, Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but is that any excuse for a film quite so saccharine? He of all challenging and complex men, with a temperament to match, seems an odd subject for the sort of weightless, paint-by-numbers biopic that would be hard-pressed to muster much attention even as TV filler on a particularly dead night. Read more... |
Music review - a few music videos cobbled togetherFriday, 19 February 2021
What did Sia want to achieve with Music, her deeply confused first stumble into filmmaking? The reclusive Australian has enjoyed years of global fame for a successful music career. Was it never enough? Read more... |
PVT CHAT review - the cam girl who loved meSaturday, 13 February 2021
An initially off-putting erotic comedy thriller about the relationship between a webcam dominatrix, “Scarlet” (Julia Fox), and the Internet gambler, Jack (Peter Vack), who becomes obsessed with her, Ben Hozie’s sexually graphic PVT CHAT becomes increasingly resonant as it proceeds – and surprisin Read more... |
Simple Passion review – a case of female amour fouSaturday, 06 February 2021
Pushing 40, Simple Passion’s Hélène (Laetitia Dosch) lectures Paris college students on poetry and is single mother to pre-adolescent Paul (Lou Teymour-Thion). Read more... |
Rams review – softhearted bush-loving dramaSaturday, 06 February 2021
Kiwi and Aussie screen legends Sam Neill and Michael Caton have teamed up in this heartfelt and humorous remake of Grímur Hákonarson’s 2015 Icelandic original. The template of Hákonarson’s story has been transplanted but all the details and fillings have changed. Read more... |
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