Film
On the Road review - engrossing music documentary with a sly B-sideFriday, 06 October 2017
Michael Winterbottom has always been a mercurial director, moving swiftly between genres, fiction and documentary, keeping us on our toes. But with On the Road it’s time to mark the tiniest of trends.24 Hour Party People is one of the best films... Read more... |
The Glass Castle review - Woody steals the film by a wide marginFriday, 06 October 2017
People who live in glass castles might be wary of throwing stones. That clearly was not the case with American magazine journalist Jeannette Walls, who made of her often harrowing childhood a best-selling memoir that has found its inevitable way to... Read more... |
LFF 2017: Breathe review - overdosing on good intentionsThursday, 05 October 2017
The curtain-raiser for the 61st London Film Festival was Breathe, not only Andy Serkis’s debut as a director, but also a film based on the family experiences of its producer, Jonathan Cavendish. It was the story of how his father Robin, a tea... Read more... |
Blade Runner 2049 review - powerful but needs more soulThursday, 05 October 2017
Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner from 1982 stands as an all-time sci-fi classic, so anybody trying to make a sequel (even 35 years later) needs galaxy-sized vision, an army of high-powered collaborators and balls of steel. Is director Denis... Read more... |
h.Club 100 Awards 2017: The WinnersWednesday, 04 October 2017
At a festive ceremony on Tuesday night at The Hospital Club in central London, the winners were announced for this year's h.Club 100 Awards. The distinguished broacaster John Simpson (pictured below) gave an impassioned keynote address about the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Berlin SyndromeTuesday, 03 October 2017
There’s an intriguing combination of style and atmosphere in Berlin Syndrome, one that proves that, although director Cate Shortland has embraced genre with conviction, she certainly hasn’t left the arthouse roots that she established with her first... Read more... |
The Reagan Show review - engaging but frustratingMonday, 02 October 2017
The Reagan administration produced as much video content as the previous five administrations combined. That’s the claim early on in The Reagan Show, an engaging but ultimately frustrating documentary compiled entirely from archive footage by co-... Read more... |
Young Reviewer of the Year Award: the four finalists are...Friday, 29 September 2017
In July we launched a competition in association with The Hospital Club to unearth talented young critics. We were clear about what we were looking for: “We want to read reviews that make us think – provocative, entertaining writing that gets under... Read more... |
Goodbye Christopher Robin review - no escape for a boy and his bearFriday, 29 September 2017
“Isn’t it funny/How a bear likes honey?/Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!/I wonder why he does.” Those immortal words, said by the bear of very little brain in chapter one of Winnie-the-Pooh, don’t sound quite the same after watching a shell-shocked AA Milne (... Read more... |
Home Again review - Reese Witherspoon romcom is divorced from realityFriday, 29 September 2017
A charming assemblage of performers are left pretty much high and dry by Home Again, an LA-based romcom so determinedly glossy that each frame seems more squeaky-clean and unreal than the next. Intended as a star vehicle for Reese Witherspoon, this... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Life Is SweetFriday, 29 September 2017
Sweet isn’t the right word; in Mike Leigh’s 1990 film, life is unfair, frustrating and confusing by turns. Though, despite the darkness, Life Is Sweet exudes positivity and remains one of Leigh’s funniest, most quotable features.Many of the best... Read more... |
Zoology review - the tale of a tailTuesday, 26 September 2017
Russia has its own rich traditions of satire and the grotesque, but at first glance we may wonder whether in his new film Zoology Ivan I Tverdovsky, a director who, still to turn 30, certainly belongs to the new generation of that country’s... Read more... |
