Film
See How They Run review - a whodunit pastiche set in Fifties LondonFriday, 09 September 2022
A starry cast headed by Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell doesn’t quite manage to bring this lavish, light-hearted period pastiche to life, though it looks good – nice cars, lovely costumes, a quasi-Wes Anderson vibe – and there are mild chuckles... Read more... |
Blu-ray/4K Ultra HD: The PianoTuesday, 06 September 2022
Jane Campion’s enigmatic, triple-Oscar-winning film looks as beautiful as it did when it was released almost 30 years ago. Holly Hunter (you can’t help thinking she’s been underused ever since, give or take her performance in Campion’s Top of the... Read more... |
Three Thousand Years of Longing review - be careful what you wish forSaturday, 03 September 2022
Before there was cinema, there was story-telling around the fire with those who could spin the best yarns, conjure the most vivid visions, winning the love of their audience. George Miller has been bringing innovative and entrancing stories to the... Read more... |
The Forgiven review - the shelterless skySaturday, 03 September 2022
John Michael McDonagh’s acerbic tragedy of manners and morals sees West meets East, in a literal car crash of sloppy behaviour and messy intentions.Alcoholic doctor David and blocked children’s author Jo (Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain) are... Read more... |
Meeting Gorbachev review - Werner Herzog offers a swansong tributeWednesday, 31 August 2022
You react differently to Meeting Gorbachev knowing that the film’s subject was on occasions brought to its interviews from hospital by ambulance; his interlocutor, Werner Herzog, doesn’t mention that fact, of course, anywhere in the three encounters... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Desire / All My Good Countrymen - Two films by Vojtěch JasnýTuesday, 30 August 2022
Hailed by Miloš Forman as “the spiritual father of the Czech New Wave”, Czech film director Vojtěch Jasný’s long career began in the early 1950s and spanned five decades. All My Good Countrymen (Všichni dobří rodáci), based on a screenplay... Read more... |
DVD: WayfinderSunday, 28 August 2022
Road movies in England work better by foot. Slowing down finds the scale to explore our small island, tramping Chaucer’s pilgrim paths, not Kerouac’s roaring highway.Visual artist Larry Achiampong’s debut feature accordingly sends its heroine from... Read more... |
Her Way review - turning tricks for her son's sakeSaturday, 27 August 2022
Marie (Laure Calamy), the efficient fortysomething sex worker protagonist of the French drama Her Way, doesn’t have life easy, but she calmly works the badly paid street corners of Strasbourg because she can choose her clients, some of them long-... Read more... |
Queen of Glory review - carving an identity between two worldsFriday, 26 August 2022
Queen of Glory is a passion project, nurtured for almost 10 years as a script by Nana Mensah, who ended up not only directing the film but taking the lead role as well in order to get it made.It’s the story of Sarah Obeng, an ambitious second-... Read more... |
Official Competition review - satire served coldFriday, 26 August 2022
There are four main protagonists in Official Competition and they all have one thing in common: an overriding ambition to spend more time with their egos.The first of this quartet is Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez). He is an 80-year-old... Read more... |
Anaïs in Love review - she wants what she wantsSunday, 21 August 2022
It’s 2022’s art-house image du jour – a self-absorbed 30-year-old running to get what she wants, irrespective of the long-term consequences to herself or anyone else.Watching the pell-mell scurry of Anaïs Demoustier’s title character in Anaïs in... Read more... |
The Feast review - slow-cooking folk-horrorSaturday, 20 August 2022
Lee Haven Jones’ Welsh-language folk-horror debut dissects a family’s treachery to the land in eventually apocalyptic fashion. It starts in silent, jagged style, the characters seeming as artificial as their minimalist house, abstract paintings and... Read more... |
