Director: Mel Gibson Stars: Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Vince Vaughn Hacksaw Ridge is an especially fine example of how the wrong kind of trailer can work against a film. This piece of work does a number of things a decent trailer shouldn't. First and foremost, it gives you every major plot point of the first … Continue reading Review: Hacksaw Ridge
Director: Antonio Campos Stars: Rebecca Hall, Michael C Hall, J. Smith-Cameron Antonio Campos' film is the second to appear in the past year devoted to the story of Sarasota television news reporter Christine Chubbuck who committed suicide live on television in 1974. She shot herself in the head live "in living colour". The other film, … Continue reading Review: Christine
Director: Danny Boyle Stars: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller In 1996 Trainspotting was the right film at the right time. Scottish national pride, English national pride, British national pride were in an almost euphoric ascendancy. Britpop was brilliant (or so it seemed) and it's biggest successes were crossing borders. Sports fans were happy because … Continue reading Review: T2 Trainspotting
Director: Garth Davis Stars: Sunny Pawar, Dev Patel, Rooney Mara There's a particular corner of film buffery that steadfastly defers to the silent era as the medium's true halcyon days, even now, some ninety years after our actors started talking to one another. Garth Davis' Lion is not a silent film, not even nearly, but for nearly … Continue reading Review: Lion
Director: M. Night Shyamalan Stars: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley I have a few conflicting feelings about Split, M. Night Shyamalan's new film starring James McAvoy as a man with 23 different personalities who kidnaps three teenage girls. On the one hand it feels as though, following the commercial success of his last film, The Visit … Continue reading Review: Split
Director: Pablo Larraín Stars: Natalie Portman, Billy Crudup, John Hurt In the last 100 years there have been a handful of moments in American history that can be argued to have brought trauma to the collective consciousness. 9/11 is one. The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is another. And one can look broadly at … Continue reading Review: Jackie
Director: Kelly Reichardt Stars: Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Lily Gladstone Certain Women is Kelly Reichardt's sixth feature and by this humble writer's count at least three of her previous films are five-star masterpieces. Not one of them is a dud. She is one of America's great living filmmakers, yet she has yet to have anything resembling … Continue reading Review: Certain Women
Director: Kenneth Lonergan Stars: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Lucas Hedges Kenneth Lonergan's latest indie epic is here, and like his last - 2011's under-seen Margaret - it's a slowly defrosting tale of grief and responsibility, implicitly American in its specific geography but broadly universal in its honest truisms. Lonergan plies his trade in an overpopulated field, … Continue reading Review: Manchester By The Sea
Director: Damien Chazelle Stars: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend Damien Whiplash Chazelle loves jazz and you should too. That's the long and the short of it, and if pushing us through his aforementioned white-knuckle hyper-drama hadn't changed our minds then this time he's turning on the charm. Switching up (considerably), he now presents us... an old-fashioned … Continue reading Review: La La Land
Director: Martin Scorsese Stars: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Issei Ogata Be it the pilot episodes of HBO dramas Boardwalk Empire and Vinyl or his recent feature presentations, 2011's love letter to cinema Hugo or the rambunctious and for-the-most-part crowd pleasing hit The Wolf Of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's recent directorial output has maintained a level of pomp, vigor and … Continue reading Review: Silence (2016)
