Film
Blu-ray: The ConversationTuesday, 30 July 2024
“I don’t care what they’re talking about,” says the best bugger in the business, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman). “I just want a nice fat tape.”In the minor-key masterpiece Francis Ford Coppola made in the brief interlude between The Godfather (... Read more... |
I Saw the TV Glow - electrifying allegory of gender dysphoriaSaturday, 27 July 2024
There comes a point in I Saw the TV Glow when the repressed high-schooler Owen (Justice Smith) smashes his television’s screen by trying to dive into the box itself, to cross the great divide between his numbed reality and the feminine supernatural... Read more... |
Twisters review - satisfyingly cataclysmic storm-chaser sagaFriday, 26 July 2024
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” urged King Lear, accompanied by the Fool, on the blasted heath. But that’s not quite snappy enough for the storm-chasers of Twisters as they drive their souped-up four-by-fours across the tornado-blitzed... Read more... |
The Echo review - a beautiful but confusing look at life in a Mexican villageFriday, 26 July 2024
El Eco (The Echo) is a small village in Mexico’s central highlands, about two hours drive from Mexico City. But it might as well be thousands of miles away since it feels cut off from the outside world, especially for the women and children eking... Read more... |
About Dry Grasses review - warts and all portrait of an unhappy manThursday, 25 July 2024
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest is a test of stamina: a 3hr 15min study of a man paralysed by negative thinking. It also contains striking freeze-framed portraits of people and places that you want to pause and look at even longer than the editing... Read more... |
In a Violent Nature review - inverted slasher is fascinatingSunday, 21 July 2024
A group of young people rent a cabin in the woods. A masked killer lingers nearby. Surely you know how the rest unfolds. The slasher and its well-worn tropes have been parodied, satirised and subverted for as long as it has existed. In fact, we seem... Read more... |
Crossing review - a richly human journey of discoverySaturday, 20 July 2024
Crossing is a remarkable step forward for Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin. There are elements that build on his acclaimed 2019 Tbilisi drama And Then We Danced, but his new film is rich with a new complexity, as well as a redolent melancholy, a... Read more... |
Janet Planet review - teasing dissection of a mother-daughter relationshipSaturday, 20 July 2024
Fans of American playwright Annie Baker’s work know what they are likely to get in her film debut as a writer-director: slow-paced interactions between characters thrown together in a confined space – a workplace, a B&B, a clinic – where long... Read more... |
Chuck Chuck Baby review - love among the feathersFriday, 19 July 2024
As Janis Pugh’s semi-autobiographical Chuck Chuck Baby draws to a close, the camera fondly plays around the smiling faces of some of its voiceless female characters – careworn middle-aged workers in a Welsh chicken processing factory. They're... Read more... |
More Than One Story review - nine helpings of provocative political theatreMonday, 15 July 2024
A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,14 million Britons, are now living in poverty. This shocking statistic is one the enterprising people of the Cardboard... Read more... |
Longlegs review - like its titular killer, this summer's most hyped horror film leaves no traceSaturday, 13 July 2024
Apparently when actress Maika Monroe first saw Nicolas Cage in his full Longlegs get-up, her heart-rate skyrocketed to 170 bpm (her resting heart rate is 76). Or at least so a promotional video tells us. Whether true or not, it’s an example of the... Read more... |
Sleep review - things that go bump in the nightFriday, 12 July 2024
The question Korean director Jason Yu is asking in this eerie little spine-tingler (his debut feature) is “how well do you know your partner?” He may also be inquiring whether or not you believe in life after death, while planting nagging seeds of... Read more... |
