I sit here dumbfounded, perplexed, baffled and almost impressed. Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights trilogy comes to a close in a manner I could not possibly have anticipated. In a way it's genius. In a more pressing way it's also probably the worst cinematic experience I've ever had. I can't decide if I want to praise Gomes or put … Continue reading Review: Arabian Nights Vol. 3 – The Enchanted One
Light as air it may appear to be, but Deniz Gamze Ergüven's Mustang deals almost exclusively with desperate people, and carries with it a rising sense of outrage at the smothering grip of patriarchal tradition. This quiet rabble-rouser was selected as Turkey's nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Academy Awards. And while the … Continue reading Review: Mustang
X-Men: Apocalypse arrives buoyed by the critical and commercial success of both Matthew Vaughn's spirited First Class and Bryan Singer's own Days Of Future Past; both entertaining and comparatively impressive franchise installments that have breathed new life into a series which seemed mired, for a time, by bad Wolverine spin-offs and haunted by the troubled ghost of Brett Ratner. Ratner's unloved The … Continue reading Review: X-Men: Apocalypse
Terrence Malick's latest film - his third in five years - continues the trend of his recent material, relying less on plot than on the notion of collage. Through the weightless, angelic camerawork of Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant), Malick invites his audience to participate in defining the shape and parameters of his increasingly fluid work. … Continue reading Review: Knight Of Cups
It's my birthday. In a move that felt more like penance than a treat, I elected to spend a portion of the day alone, returning to Miguel Gomes' beguiling and confounding trilogy which had something of an inauspicious start last week. My local independent cinema is showing an installment every Tuesday. Having made it a … Continue reading Review: Arabian Nights Vol. 2 – The Desolate One
Nicholas Stoller's Bad Neighbours slunk in and out of cinemas in the UK in 2014 without generating much fuss either way. The comedy vehicle saw new parents Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) battling against a fraternity house that rocked up next door and it stuck firmly and comfortably within the realms of college / stoner … Continue reading Review: Bad Neighbours 2
I usually try to get these seen and written as close to release as possible. It's more useful for everyone, right? Yet, when it came to Jon Favreau's remix of The Jungle Book, I found that my usual get-up-and-go had got-up-and-gone. I think the reasons for this are two-fold, if you'll indulge me briefly. 1) I … Continue reading Review: The Jungle Book (2016)
I'm fairly new to the cinema of Miguel Gomes; my awareness and interest in him piqued by his 2012 film Tabu, a collision of styles with a two-fold narrative that I found charming in a Wes Anderson fashion - well, the fanciful extended flashback fairy tale of its second half - but overall somewhat listless. A film I … Continue reading Review: Arabian Nights Vol. 1 – The Restless One
About as lovable and endearing as a men's rights activist, the American college frat boy movie has long been one of comedy cinema's impossible wins. Constructed wholly from cliché, you'll be hard pressed to find a single shining example of the genre that isn't tainted by its own odd desperation and overwhelming irrelevance. Yet, with … Continue reading Review: Everybody Wants Some!!
Ever walked into a bar and realised, a little too late, that it's really not your scene? Jeremy Saulnier's third feature Green Room takes that idea to something of an extreme, in the process setting itself down as one of the more remarkable thrillers of 2016 so far. And one of the more remarkable horrors. The film … Continue reading Review: Green Room
Imagine someone told you that there was a new album by Coldplay, Adele or Ed Sheeran and that it was really 'edgy'. Would you believe them? Would it turn out to be that way? Or would it be the coffee shop consumerist version of 'edgy'? Something that sounds different to their prior somnambulist form, but is … Continue reading Review: Demolition
Having been picking up speed for the better part of a decade, Captain America: Civil War sees the Marvel Cinematic Universe break from a steady, accelerating jog into an outright sprint. This is the point at which the series assumes you've either been keeping up or you're going home. And it's certainly not going to wait … Continue reading Review: Captain America: Civil War
