Film
Everything Went Fine review - classy French family dramaTuesday, 14 June 2022
French filmmakers do family dramas so well, and none better than François Ozon when he is on form, as he is on Everything Went Fine.André (veteran charmer André Dussolier) is a wealthy industrialist and art dealer who, after suffering a debilitating... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Last MetroTuesday, 14 June 2022
The Last Metro (Le dernier métro), from 1980, is without doubt one of François Truffaut’s best films: a story beautifully told, strong on character, sometimes funny and always profoundly moving. Most of the credit has gone to Truffaut and co-stars... Read more... |
Earwig review - Little Miss Saliva TeethSunday, 12 June 2022
Like her first two features, Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Earwig is an oneiric coming-of-age drama that uses body horror imagery as a metaphor for the daunting unknowns – sexual and emotional – to be encountered in adulthood.Eschewing narrative logic,... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Luminous ProcuressSunday, 12 June 2022
Salvador Dali loved when he saw it, describing Steven Arnold’s debut feature as “an extraordinary, fantastic film”, subsequently inviting Arnold to help decorate his museum in Figueres.Maybe you just had to be there; viewing the film on a sunny... Read more... |
Swan Song review - the fabulous Udo Kier as a small-town hairdresser on his last legsSaturday, 11 June 2022
The piercing-eyed German actor Udo Kier is best known for his supporting roles in many high-profile films, including those of Lars von Trier, Gus Van Sant and Fassbinder. In Swan Song, he carries off his first starring role magnificently as wry ex-... Read more... |
All My Friends Hate Me review - beware of the biliousFriday, 10 June 2022
A birthday weekend in Devon goes rather badly wrong in All My Friends Hate Me, the new film co-written by its leading man, Tom Stourton, that looks guaranteed to make shut-ins of us all.The antithesis of the warm-and-fuzzy gatherings proffered... Read more... |
Jurassic World Dominion review - extinction eventFriday, 10 June 2022
Franchise burnout continues apace, in this asteroid strike of a finale. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness showed the previously agile and humane Marvel machine weighed down by plot mechanics and fan service, and this Jurassic Park/World... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The PropositionWednesday, 08 June 2022
Commenting on Australia’s horrendous colonial history at the start of an audio commentary packaged with this BFI Blu-ray release of John Hillcoat’s impeccably directed, newly restored The Proposition (2005), Alexandra Heller-Nicholas declares, “It’s... Read more... |
Bergman Island review - Mia Hansen-Løve's joyful English-language debutFriday, 03 June 2022
French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s graceful, intriguingly open-ended seventh feature, and her English-language debut, is set on Fårö, the island that Ingmar Berman loved.“This is your landscape, Bergman. It corresponds to your innermost imaginings of... Read more... |
Men review - mythic misogynyThursday, 02 June 2022
This maggoty English pastoral blurs into folk- and body-horror, as Alex Garland dissects a relationship’s mournful aftermath, and sends toxic masculinity into toxic shock.Harper (Jessie Buckley) rents a grand Cotswold cottage in the grounds of... Read more... |
The Camera Is Ours - Britain's Women Documentary Makers review - four decades of directors rediscoveredThursday, 02 June 2022
The Camera Is Ours features films made from 1935-1967 by women like Marion and Ruby Grierson, Evelyn Spice and Margaret Thomson, whose names should be engraved in the history of British film-making.Ever heard of them? Probably not as, surprise,... Read more... |
Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts review - she is a human beingSaturday, 28 May 2022
Roger Michell’s films described a range of Englishness, from Notting Hill’s foppish comedy to acerbically humane Hanif Kureishi scripts (Venus, The Mother, The Buddha of Suburbia), Cornish Gothic (My Cousin Rachel) and his last feature, The Duke,... Read more... |
