Film
Return to Seoul review - lost in translationMonday, 08 May 2023
Freddie (Park Ji-min) is a social hand grenade, flinging herself into situations to see where the splinters fall. Born in Korea but adopted and raised by French parents, a seemingly impulsive, brief detour to Seoul sees her seek out her birth-... Read more... |
The Dam review - a remarkably haunting allegorySunday, 07 May 2023
Maher (Maher el Khair, an actual brick-maker) works in a brickyard sloshing sticky mud into rectangular moulds with his bare hands. Next the mud bricks are tipped out to dry in the sun, before being fired in a large, wood fired kiln. The same... Read more... |
Harka review - when hope is a desertSunday, 07 May 2023
The incendiary topic of Egyptian-American director Lotfy Nathan’s debut feature Harka is poverty and corruption in Tunisia a decade after the failed promise of the Arab Spring.The word harka in the local Arabic dialect means either “to burn” or “to... Read more... |
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 review - raw and repetitive supergroup swansongSaturday, 06 May 2023
James Gunn is running the whole DC show now, but his Guardians films have stayed free from Cinematic Universe snares, even the group’s Avengers cameos beaming in from their own pop-art corner. This swansong is their indulgent, sometimes meandering... Read more... |
The Laureate review - a romp with Robert GravesSaturday, 06 May 2023
Nowadays Robert Graves is best known for his later and least interesting works on Greek myths and Roman emperors, but at his best, in the first decade of his writing life, as a war poet (Fairies and Fusiliers) and war memoirist (Good-Bye to All That... Read more... |
DVD: Jazz Fest - A New Orleans StorySaturday, 06 May 2023
New Orleans “is not a music business city, it’s a music culture city,” says David Shaw of The Revivalists, one of the interviewees in Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story.This documentary sets out to describe that multiracial culture and heritage... Read more... |
Love According to Dalva review - Belgian first time director tackles incestTuesday, 02 May 2023
What is it that drives Belgian filmmakers to make sad and disturbing films about children? Is it the influence of the Dardennes Brothers, who over a 20-year career have made superb features exploring how brutally society treats its most vulnerable (... Read more... |
DVD: Children’s Film Foundation Bumper Box Vol. 4Tuesday, 02 May 2023
I can still (just) remember Saturday morning cinema being a thing, only because my big brother was old enough to attend weekly sessions at the local ABC and I was too young to go. He would presumably have watched several of the films in this latest... Read more... |
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry review - affecting tale of a late-life road tripFriday, 28 April 2023
Here's another small gem of a film graced with a fine central performance by Jim Broadbent, after his lovely turn in The Duke. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is, like the earlier film, the story of an eccentric older man who embarks on a... Read more... |
Berg review - a glorious visual meditation on the mountains of SloveniaFriday, 28 April 2023
It’s been a long time since I went walking in the mountains – too long. And Joke Olthaar’s film Berg (mountain) has intensified my longing for that very special experience.Three walkers follow the stony paths of the Alpine ranges in Triglav National... Read more... |
Rodéo review - heroine from the banlieues powers a rebel-teens sagaFriday, 28 April 2023
Reading an interview with the French director of Rodéo, Lola Quivoron, you come to realise her compelling film about dirt-bike-rider culture relied on a sage piece of casting. Despairing of ever finding a lead for her film project, Quivoron chanced... Read more... |
Little Richard: I am Everything review - a riveting account of 'the brightest star in the universe'Thursday, 27 April 2023
Lisa Cortés’s fast-paced documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything opens with a TV interview made in 1971, 16 years after the rock 'n' roll pioneer became an overnight success with groundbreaking hits like "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly... Read more... |
