Director: Pedro Almodóvar Stars: Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte, Daniel Grao Julieta contains one of the simplest, most surprising and most satisfying pieces of editorial trickery you'll find in a film all year as, with the ruffle of a towel, a character is transformed. Told over decades and mostly through flashback, the actress playing the younger … Continue reading Review: Julieta
Director: James DeMonaco Stars: Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, Frank Grillo Just a couple of short weeks ago - in what has been one of the longest and most excruciating electoral races in memory - human baked-bean in a wig Donald Trump made a remark suggesting that Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton might be wise to fear an … Continue reading Review: The Purge: Election Year
Director: Todd Solondz Stars: Julie Delpy, Greta Gerwig, Danny DeVito Wiener-Dog is the latest film from Todd Solondz. It finds the writer/director on fine form, pedaling more of his homespun all-American nihilism in which depraved hilarity and gut-punch sadness collide. That might not sound like the best night out but, depending on your sense of humour … Continue reading Review: Wiener-Dog
Director: David F. Sandberg Stars: Teresa Palmer, Maria Bello, Alexander DiPersia As 2016's particularly dismal summer season draws to a close, we're offered up one of the few token mainstream horror titles of the year thus far. Lights Out is the feature directorial debut of David F. Sandberg, who has already been handed the Annabelle sequel to work … Continue reading Review: Lights Out
Director: Brady Corbet Stars: Tom Sweet, Liam Cunningham, Stacy Martin With The Childhood Of A Leader, actor Brady Corbet transitions to working behind the camera in attention-grabbing style, handing us this first missive like someone throwing down a gauntlet, if only to challenge himself. Though his influences declare themselves loudly, his intentions are clear; he wants … Continue reading Review: The Childhood Of A Leader
"Now its dark," Frank Booth sinisterly intones more than once in Blue Velvet as his evil deeds transfix both Jeffrey Beaumount and the audience watching. It's a line of dialogue that - The Straight Story and possibly Dune aside - could act as generic tagline to most of David Lynch's feature work. But for Lynch this takes on … Continue reading Some Kind Of Dream Place: Mulholland Drive In The Cinema
Each summer there's usually a sleeper hit; a mid-to-big budgeted contender for cinematic supremacy that breaks free of the pack and becomes the event of the season. Hollywood invests millions of dollars in increasingly hedged bets to secure their audience's fickle attention. But this year, as the silly summer season draws close to its end, … Continue reading Why Has Nostalgia Become Such Big Business?
Year: 1991 Director: David Cronenberg Stars: Peter Weller (Bill Lee), Judy Davis (Joan Frost / Joan Lee), Ian Holm (Tom Frost), Julian Sands (Yves Cloquet), Roy Scheider (Dr. Benway), Nicholas Campell (Hank), Michael Zelniker (Martin), Monique Mercure (Fadela) Genre: Drama / Literary Adaptation You couldn't make a direct text-to-screen adaptation of Naked Lunch. It would be, … Continue reading Why I Love… #85: Naked Lunch
Director: David Ayer Stars: Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Viola Davis For the second time this year we are presented with a tent-pole superhero blockbuster movie being sold on its credibility for being in some way subversive to the usual glut of identikit spandex adventures. This time it's DC cashing in on the idea that there … Continue reading Review: Suicide Squad
Director: Paul Greengrass Stars: Matt Damon, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones Movies take a long time to make, even within the ever churning gears of the Hollywood machine, and so there's no way that Universal or the producers of the latest Jason Bourne film (woodenly titled Jason Bourne) could possibly have anticipated the recent and tragic events … Continue reading Review: Jason Bourne
Directors: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane Stars: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill Beloved as Pixar's 2003 smash Finding Nemo undoubtedly is, it's unclear to what degree this belated sequel could be deemed in any way essential. The time between the two, for one thing, suggests the illustrious studio might be running short of ideas. Perhaps aware … Continue reading Review: Finding Dory
