Film
Every Body review - heartfelt American documentaryFriday, 15 December 2023
This fascinating American documentary tackles the societal and medical treatment of the 1.7% of people born with intersex traits that leave them with sex characteristics (chromosome patterns, genitals, gonads) that aren’t obviously male or female.... Read more... |
Anselm review - post-war German reckonings in 3DSunday, 10 December 2023
Water glassily reflects in a bridal train, the sun moves between trees, giving way to metal book-leaves, and inside a warehouse so vast he cycles through it, stored cliffs of Anselm Kiefer’s work loom over him. Wim Wenders’ 3D cameras bring you... Read more... |
Please Don't Destroy: Treasure of Foggy Mountain review - Dude, where's our map?Saturday, 09 December 2023
Despite an ominous title, there’s always fair weather in the debut comic adventure film featuring Please Don’t Destroy, a NYC sketch comedy trio that’s hit it big with viral videos and on the long-running NBC series Saturday Night Live. (So long... Read more... |
Wonka review - a confusingly mixed bag of bonbonsSaturday, 09 December 2023
As the 117 minutes of Wonka tick by, the question it poses gains momentum: who is this film actually for? Children of all ages?It’s an “origins” story, standard now for all manner of film character, showing the sunnier side of Roald Dahl’s eccentric... Read more... |
Smyrna review - Greece at twilightSaturday, 09 December 2023
The Smyrna Catastrophe of 1922, in which tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish soldiers, is a topical subject for our dark times. Unfortunately the intervening century hasn’t put an end to ethnic cleansing or to... Read more... |
The Peasants review - earthbound animationSaturday, 09 December 2023
After a few years of cinema, the wow factor of seeing actual things moving about on a screen wore off a bit and showmen saw that jump cuts and stop-motion – the dawn of animation – could lift audiences some more. The liberation from gravity, in fact... Read more... |
Monica review - sombre American dramaFriday, 08 December 2023
There’s a rich seam of folk stories about changelings, infants snatched from home and replaced with a substitute child, to the horror and bewilderment of their parents. The myth taps into parental anxieties that rear up when their offspring doesn’t... Read more... |
Blu-ray: BlackhatWednesday, 06 December 2023
The Boxing Day release of Michael Mann’s first feature in eight years, Ferrari, finally follows up Blackhat, a Chris Hemsworth-starring cyber-thriller dismissed on its 2015 release in a manner he hadn’t experienced since The Keep (1983). This two-... Read more... |
Powell and Pressburger: In Prospero's RoomSaturday, 02 December 2023
There’s a thread of bright magic running through British cinema, from Powell and Pressburger through Nic Roeg, Derek Jarman and Lynne Ramsay, and it’s wrapped around Jarman’s last home like fisherman’s rope.His friend and collaborator Tilda Swinton... Read more... |
Eileen review - a dank fairytale film noirSaturday, 02 December 2023
As the title character in Eileen, set in a miserable Massachusetts backwater in the days before Christmas 1964, Thomasin McKenzie plays a depressed hybrid of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty who’s awakened by a patently fake Princess Charming-cum-... Read more... |
Fallen Leaves review - deliciously dry Finnish romcomSaturday, 02 December 2023
Fallen Leaves is Aki Kaurismäki’s 20th film, the one the Finnish director made after he said he’d retired from cinema in 2017 and frankly, if you didn’t like his earlier films, you shouldn’t bother with this one. But if you’re a fan (and I am... Read more... |
Queendom review - an LGBTQ+ performance artist takes to the streets of Moscow in protestFriday, 01 December 2023
It takes a brave or a foolhardy person to walk the streets wearing almost nothing but barbed wire and platform shoes, especially when the occasion is an anti-war demo in Moscow and the penalty for joining the march is up to 15 years in jail.It’s... Read more... |
