Film
The Worst Person in the World review - confusion becomes herSaturday, 26 March 2022
Some British TV viewers who were in junior school in the mid-1960s will recall the imported Australian kids’ show The Magic Boomerang. When the adolescent hero, a sheep farm kid, threw the eponymous piece of wood, he stopped time and was able to... Read more... |
The Tinderbox review – a call for peaceFriday, 25 March 2022
The beginning of the Israeli-Palestine conflict is officially dated to 7 June 1967, the occasion of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the Six-Day War, but its origins stretch back further.The Palestine War,... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Coach to ViennaFriday, 25 March 2022
As a title, Coach to Vienna suggests an opulent Boule de Suif-like drama directed by Max Ophüls and starring the likes of Danielle Darrieux and Michel Simon. But Karel Kachyňa’s film is no Viennese waltz. It’s a bleak end-of-World War II drama in... Read more... |
X review - sex and the bloody American dreamMonday, 21 March 2022
Ti West’s slyly self-referential horror film about a Texan porn shoot subverts expectations. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/Debbie Does Dallas genre mash-up promised by the premise, pumping out head-spinning sex and gore, is in fact a muted exercise... Read more... |
Three Floors review - nothing like good neighboursSunday, 20 March 2022
A speeding drunk driver arrows down a silent street into a Roman block of flats. The impact’s reverberations ripple through the next 10 years, in Nanni Moretti’s soulful, Italian all-star adaptation of Eshkol Nevo’s novel, Three Floors Up.The... Read more... |
River review – gorgeous visuals and a timely message: so what’s not to like?Saturday, 19 March 2022
I would suggest watching River on the largest possible screen, so you can bask in the breathtaking beauty of the visuals. Directed by the Australian Jennifer Peedom, who won awards for Mountain and Sherpa, the documentary celebrates the magnificence... Read more... |
Paris,13th District review - millennial merry-go-roundFriday, 18 March 2022
Having established his world-class reputation with gritty crime thrillers, notably A Prophet, Jacques Audiard is clearly on a mission to branch out: after his terrific, revisionist western The Sisters Brothers, comes this ambling, sexy,... Read more... |
Deep Water review - not even laughably badFriday, 18 March 2022
Patricia Highsmith must be spinning in her grave. This ridiculously incompetent adaptation of her 1957 crime novel lacks all suspense or credibility. It’s hard to believe that Adrian Lyne, responsible for huge box-office hits like the provocative... Read more... |
The Phantom of the Open review - charmingly incompetent golfer channels EalingThursday, 17 March 2022
“No one can say you didn’t try,” shipyard worker Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) is told, shortly before bluffing his way aged 46 into the 1976 British Open, having never played golf before. The British love of the underdog is our popular cinema’s... Read more... |
Hive review - how a group of Kosovan widows rebuilt their livesWednesday, 16 March 2022
As the air echoes with wars and rumours of wars, Hive has the potential to strike a chord resonating way beyond its Kosovan setting. The factually-based story is set in the aftermath of the Balkan conflicts of the late 1990s, after Serbian forces... Read more... |
The Metamorphosis of Birds review - picture perfectTuesday, 15 March 2022
How do you make a film about death, love and loss that avoids being sentimental, maudlin or pretentious? Take your cue from Portuguese artist Catarina Vasconcelos.Her debut feature, The Metamorphosis of Birds unfolds as a series of exquisite... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Devil's TrapTuesday, 15 March 2022
Released in 1962, František Vláčil’s The Devil’s Trap (Ďáblova past) is the first in a loose trilogy of historical epics, the second instalment of which (Marketa Lazarová) is often cited as among the greatest of all Czech films.Shorter and sparer... Read more... |
