Film
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania review - Marvel head into infinity and beyondSunday, 19 February 2023
We’ve now reached film 31 and Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s increasingly baroque franchise. Four years after Avengers: Endgame’s false finale, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is still basking in his role in reversing Thanos’s... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Adventures of Baron MunchausenSunday, 19 February 2023
“He won’t get far on hot air and fantasy,” Jonathan Pryce’s cruel bureaucrat huffs, as Baron Munchausen (John Neville) bests besieged city walls in a balloon sewn from a half-ton of knickers. “I hope this movie expands people’s ideas of what is... Read more... |
Nostalgia review - returning to Naples after 40 yearsFriday, 17 February 2023
“He’s my best friend, a brother,” says Felice Lasco (Pierfrancesco Favino) of his childhood buddy, Oreste Spasiano (Tomasso Ragno). After 40 years away, Felice, a successful, married businessman, has returned to Naples from Cairo to see his aged... Read more... |
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On review - small fry with a big heartFriday, 17 February 2023
Marcel the Shell the Shoes On tells the story of a one-eyed little shell who lives with his grandmother Connie in a house that became an Airbnb after its former occupants divorced. The man inadvertently carried away Marcel’s extended family in a... Read more... |
The Son review - is each unhappy family unhappy in its own way?Wednesday, 15 February 2023
The Son is one of those movies where everyone is acting their socks off, exhibiting their range and sensitivity to the point where one can imagine there was a bucket on the set positioned to drop in the expected awards. It may well work for... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Queen of SpadesTuesday, 14 February 2023
If post-war baroque cinema had been a school or movement rather than a style, its male icon would have been Anton Walbrook. Before Max Ophüls cast the suavely menacing Austrian actor as the master of ceremonies in La Ronde (1950) and as King Ludwig... Read more... |
Magic Mike's Last Dance review - ludicrous and radical gyrationsSaturday, 11 February 2023
Magic Mike began as a cautionary tale rooted in Channing Tatum’s spell as a teenage stripper, then morphed into a franchise of reality and theatre shows. Now this second sequel brings original director Steven Soderbergh back, and leaps into pure... Read more... |
Women Talking review - abused Mennonite women find their voiceFriday, 10 February 2023
Women Talking is very powerful. It was adapted by writer-director Sarah Polley from the novel that Miriam Toews, raised a Mennonite in Canada, based on terrible events that took place in an isolated Mennonite community in Bolivia between 2005... Read more... |
Town of Strangers review - a whimsical foray into the meaning of homeWednesday, 08 February 2023
“They say there are only two stories,” explains director Treasa O’Brien. “A person goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town.” O’Brien was born in Dublin to a naval family that had to up sticks and move every two or three years. Her first... Read more... |
Saint Omer review - exile and erasureMonday, 06 February 2023
Saint Omer is a psychological and sociological mystery, unpicking the enigma of Laurence (Guslagie Malanda), a French Senegalese woman who drowned her 15-month-old daughter in the ocean.Director Alice Diop recognised her own Senegalese heritage and... Read more... |
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish review - thrilling adventure with Antonio BanderasSaturday, 04 February 2023
The Shrek universe expands a little more with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, another computer-animated family film from DreamWorks, with Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek Pinnault reprising their roles as Puss and his frenemy Kitty Softclaws.... Read more... |
The Whale review - Brendan Fraser stars in a fat suitFriday, 03 February 2023
Yes, Brendan Fraser gives a fine, Oscar-nominated performance as a morbidly obese man in director Darren Aronfsky’s mawkish, voyeuristic The Whale. Best known for Gods and Monsters, George of the Jungle and the Mummy trilogy, and more recent TV... Read more... |
