Film
Dangerous Lies, Netflix review - slick sillinessSaturday, 09 May 2020
When not dipping into its bottomless debts to write Scorsese blank cheques, Netflix tends to favour old-school TV movie potboilers such as this slick, silly thriller, in which young couple Katie (Camila Mendes) and Adam (Jessie T Usher) have their... Read more... |
The Whistlers review – a smart, self-aware noir concerning a crooked copThursday, 07 May 2020
Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has made a career crafting perceptive and cerebral examinations of his native country. From his 2006 debut 12:08 to Bucharest to The Treasure, they were cerebral films that powerfully... Read more... |
Camino Skies review - NZ documentary brings no surprisesWednesday, 06 May 2020
A documentary about six middle-aged Antipodeans, four women and two men, walking the 500 mile pilgrims’ path through France and Spain to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela sounds uplifting, inspiring, even fun. Just the ticket, perhaps, when... Read more... |
Blu-Ray: CurlingTuesday, 05 May 2020
Curling could be an enigmatic contemporary noir, but for the fact that it was made in the depths of winter in rural Quebec. Shades of brilliant white and murky grey predominate, as witnessed in an early sequence where Jean-François and his 12-year... Read more... |
Can You Keep A Secret? review - a bumpy rideFriday, 01 May 2020
Featherweight is one thing, brainless is another. Can You Keep A Secret?, the romcom adapted by screenwriter Peter Hutchings from the 2003 novel by Sophie Kinsella, uneasily straddles the two until a conclusion that goes off the rails... Read more... |
A Russian Youth, MUBI review - First World War setting, contemporary orchestraThursday, 30 April 2020
Alexander Tolotukhin’s debut film places the viewer into a microcosm of the first world war and frames the experience with a peculiar musical device. Spliced between grainy images of trenches, artillery strikes and field hospitals are shots of a... Read more... |
The Assistant review - riveting #MeToo dramaThursday, 30 April 2020
Harvey Weinstein is never mentioned in The Assistant, but the former movie mogul and convicted rapist looms large over this savagely relevant drama, which offers a vivid picture of what life might have been like for every one of the employees... Read more... |
Ema review - vibrant tale of anarchic mum seeking redemptionWednesday, 29 April 2020
The great Chilean director Pablo Larraín specialises in dark psychological reflections on the past, notably his trilogy of Chilean dictatorship dramas – Tony Manero, Post Mortem and No – and his English-language debut about... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Anatomy of a MurderTuesday, 28 April 2020
Justice and the truth run on parallel lines in Anatomy of a Murder. If they converge at all, which is debatable, it's not because the moral order demands it, but because the workings of the law allow for that possibility. The outcome of Otto... Read more... |
DVD: Babylon Berlin Series 1-3Sunday, 26 April 2020
There are bad times just around the corner for the characters of Babylon Berlin, though 1929 is grim enough. Focusing on the moment to take away the easy option of hindsight for the viewer and making its vast line-up, played by actors of supreme... Read more... |
Extraction, Netflix review - mercenary mayhemFriday, 24 April 2020
This is what Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame co-creator Joe Russo and his Thor, Chris Hemsworth, did next. It’s a gritty solo project after the Avengers band broke up, attempting to recreate the lean ethos of a Steve McQueen action pic in... Read more... |
Sea Fever review - more ooze than aahsFriday, 24 April 2020
When Sea Fever premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, no one could have guessed its story about an Irish fishing trawler attacked by a giant jellyfish would in one respect prove prophetic. Toward the end of writer-... Read more... |
