Film
The Humans review - staring headlong into the abyssMonday, 10 January 2022
A small film that packs a significant wallop, The Humans snuck into view at the very end of 2021 to cast a despairing shadow that extends well beyond the Thanksgiving day during which it takes place. Adapted from the much-traveled Tony-winning play... Read more... |
A Hero review - a morality tale with no firm conclusionsFriday, 07 January 2022
A Hero, set in the ancient city of Shiraz in southwest Iran, revolves around Rahim (Amir Jadidi), a weak man with gleaming white teeth and a permanent smile. He’s on leave from prison for the weekend, an odd concept in itself, as there are no... Read more... |
Best of 2021: FilmSunday, 02 January 2022
Like every other artform, cinema suffered greatly in a year of lockdowns. But despite an ever-changing outlook, theartsdesk still managed to review over 130 films in 2021!Long-awaited blockbusters and no-budget indies fought for screen space big and... Read more... |
Titane review - love under the bonnetFriday, 31 December 2021
The restrictiveness of conventional gender identities explains the extreme body horror of Titane, in which a pregnant rookie firefighter frequently invoked as Jesus bleeds car oil from her vagina and from the stigmatic splits in her swollen belly.... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Hungarian MastersTuesday, 28 December 2021
Three films, each restored to glorious 4K, make up Second Run’s Hungarian Masters set. Billed as “essential works by three of Hungarian cinema’s most renowned filmmakers”, each film earns that praise in its own way.Zoltán Fábri’s ... Read more... |
The Matrix Resurrections review - reboot or remix?Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Back in 1999, The Matrix offered something revolutionary. With a heady brew of William Gibson-influenced cyberpunk, Platonic philosophy and Prada, it proved that blockbusters could be both smart and action-packed. Remember those days? Two... Read more... |
The Hand of God review - Sorrentino's unsentimental educationThursday, 16 December 2021
“It was the hand of God,” says the Neapolitan family patriarch about a rather unexpected consequence of Maradona's coming to play for the city’s team. That gives us a date, 1984, and, while the adolescent protagonist Fabietto remains in Naples, a... Read more... |
Spider-Man: No Way Home review - The web-slinger returnsThursday, 16 December 2021
A brief warning to readers: while effort is made to avoid spoilers, I would advise anyone who has somehow missed the massive amount of online speculation about the film’s plot to not read on. See the film first, and please come back. Right… on... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Love of Jeanne NeyTuesday, 14 December 2021
GW Pabst’s The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927), adapted from the novel by the Russian revolutionary author Ilya Ehrenburg, is a fascinating example of a major movie, vividly rendered by a filmmaker at his peak, that was compromised by its producers’... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Bleak MomentsSunday, 12 December 2021
That Bleak Moments exists at all is largely due to Albert Finney; the BFI funded Mike Leigh’s 1971 debut to the tune of £100, as an "experimental film", and Finney’s production company supplied the rest of the £18,000 budget. Shot on location in... Read more... |
Blu-ray: NakedSaturday, 11 December 2021
Naked (1993), the fifth and finest feature film written and directed by Mike Leigh, remains a searing, eerily prescient look at Britain on the verge of a social and economic breakdown.Maybe even a verbal breakdown, too, for Leigh, unlike any... Read more... |
Hope review - brilliance and honesty from Norwegian director Maria SødahlThursday, 09 December 2021
The story of a woman with lung cancer that has metastasised to the brain is based on Norwegian director Maria Sødahl's own experience, which is a hopeful sign in itself. But you take nothing for granted in this honest, beautiful movie, which never... Read more... |
