Film Reviews
Solo: A Star Wars Story review - timid and torpidSaturday, 26 May 2018
This is franchise film-making at its worst. A Han Solo: Year Zero origin yarn makes some sense, after Harrison Ford’s piratical hero finished on the wrong end of a lightsaber in The Force Awakens. Read more... |
Edie review - Sheila Hancock gets summit feverWednesday, 23 May 2018
There have been plenty of films about mountains, and they are mainly about men. The plot tends not to vary: man clambers up peak because, as Mallory famously reasoned, it is there. Whether factual or scripted, often they are disaster movies too: Everest, Touching the Void, the astonishing German film about the race to conquer the vertical wall of the Eiger, North Face. Read more... |
On Chesil Beach review - perfect playing in a poignant Ian McEwan adaptationSunday, 20 May 2018
Ian McEwan has said that he decided to adapt his 2007 novel On Chesil Beach for the screen himself at least partly because he did not want anyone else to do so (with earlier works, including Atonement, he was glad not to have taken on the adaptation). The sensitivity of the... Read more... |
The Rosenkavalier film, OAE, Paterson, QEH review - silent-era muddle expertly accompaniedFriday, 18 May 2018
Let's face it, Robert "Cabinet of Dr Caligari" Wiene's 1926 film loosely based on Strauss and Hofmannsthal's 1911 "comedy for music" is a mostly inartistic ramble. Historically, though, it proves fascinating. Read more... |
Filmworker review - a life dedicated to Stanley KubrickFriday, 18 May 2018
What would have happened to Leon Vitali if as a schoolboy he had gone to see that other 1968 hit sci-fi movie, Barbarella rather than Kubrick’s 2001? It’s impossible to imagine that a life devoted to the oeuvre of Roger Vadim would have merited a documentary. Read more... |
Cuckmere: A Portrait/Environment 2.0, Brighton Festival review - landscape, politics and art collideSaturday, 12 May 2018
Sitting between the South Downs and the sea, Brighton’s borders are defined by nature. The Downs’ 2010 designation as a National Park also legislatively limits urban encroachment. Read more... |
Anon review - adventures in cyber-noirFriday, 11 May 2018
Though set in a futuristic (although not by much) world in which information technology has almost taken over the human psyche, Anon still relies on a crumpled whisky-drinking gumshoe for its protagonist. Read more... |
Revenge - a blood-soaked joyThursday, 10 May 2018
Deep in an unnamed desert, a violent and psychedelic retribution is sought. The aptly named Revenge is a brutally rewarding experience, bringing classic horror and exploitation tropes kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Read more... |
Entebbe review – Seventies hijack drama remains groundedThursday, 10 May 2018
The freeing of a plane-load of hostages by Israeli forces at Entebbe airport in Uganda in 1976 produced an instant spate of movie versions. Read more... |
Lean on Pete review - a different kind of road tripFriday, 04 May 2018
British director Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete is a heartfelt and surprisingly stark affair. Read more... |
Tully review - Charlize Theron plumps for sentimentThursday, 03 May 2018
Inside Tully – or maybe inside Charlize Theron’s massively pregnant belly – is a darker, more daring film trying to get out. Read more... |
Nothing Like a Dame review - actresses undimmed by timeWednesday, 02 May 2018
If only there were more: that's a first response to Nothing Like a Dame, Roger Michell's affectionate yet clear-eyed portrait of four of Britain's finest actresses, all now in their 80s. As the camera circles around Maggie Smith,... Read more... |
Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank review - the artist puts himself in the frameMonday, 30 April 2018
Shot in 2004 when photographer Robert Frank was 80 (main picture), this award-winning film was aired on The South Bank Show the following year, but is only now on release. Read more... |
Beast review - mesmerising and murky in equal measureSaturday, 28 April 2018
Two fast-rising actors, Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn, lend genuine flair to a thriller that needs its mesmerising star turns to rise above the murk. Densely plotted, if sometimes suffocatingly so, TV director Michael Pearce's... Read more... |
The Wound review - gay love hurts in strong South African dramaFriday, 27 April 2018
The title of South African director John Trengove’s powerful first feature works in more ways than one. In its literal sense, it alludes to the ritual circumcision, or ukwaluka, that accompanies the traditional rite of passage for young Xhosa men, and the process of healing that follows.... Read more... |
The Deminer review - life on the edge in IraqTuesday, 24 April 2018
Major Fakhir is a deminer, responsible for disarming hundreds of mines around Mosul every week. His American counterparts know him by a different title: Crazy Fakhir, a man who rides the edge of his luck, constantly in imminent danger. Read more... |
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