Director: Sebastián Lelio Stars: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola Hot off of an Oscar win for Best Foreign Language Film (A Fantastic Woman released in the UK earlier this year), Sebastián Lelio cools off considerably with this 2017 holdover; a fatally overwrought tale of forbidden love in the orthodox Jewish community of North London. Community … Continue reading Review: Disobedience
Director: Clay Kaytis Stars: Kurt Russell, Darby Camp, Judah Lewis Christmas movies. To some they're the best part of the season. Shamelessly sentimental, cosy and familiar. Thanks to that ever-quickening calendar year they're among the movies we end up seeing the most, whether you have children or not. And regardless of quality. There's a get-out-of-jail-free … Continue reading Review: The Christmas Chronicles
Director: Daniel Goldhaber Stars: Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh, Melora Walters Of all professions, the oldest is among the most stigmatised by cinema. Sex workers do not carry much credo on the silver screen, especially in horror where they are almost always unsympathetic victims to whatever raving lunatic is wielding a knife this month. Don't get … Continue reading Review: Cam
Director: Luca Guadagnino Stars: Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth It's an old truism that we communicate far more through our body language than we ever do verbally. How we carry ourselves. Our posture. The amount of eye contact we maintain. All of these things are indicators. Tells of the feelings we have and the … Continue reading Review: Suspiria (2018)
With The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs arriving on Netflix, it felt like time for a daunting career appraisal of the brothers Coen. Theirs is a cineliterate canon; a body of work in constant awe of past masters, yet imbued with their own inimitable style. Their reverence is transformed into the personal. Thanks to faithful work with … Continue reading Ranked: The Coen Brothers
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Zoe Kazan, Tom Waits, Liam Neeson The Coen Brothers have made Westerns before, and more than just the two 'obvious ones'; the Texan noir of No Country For Old Men and their adventurous remake of True Grit. In truth the West has scored through much of their cinema which is resplendent … Continue reading Review: The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
This week Ennio Morricone was reported to have taken potshots at Quentin Tarantino in an interview with claims that he called the director a 'cretin' whose movies are 'trash'; something Morricone has since vehemently denied. Whether he did or not, it seemed like a viable time to take a look back at my favourite moment … Continue reading Minutiae: The Smile in Death Proof
Director: Steve McQueen Stars: Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez There's more than one locked room to crack in Steve McQueen's blistering new heist movie Widows. Viola Davis' Veronica Rawlings is as tough a nut as we've yet encountered from this director, whose work has a thematic through-run of protagonists restricted by bonds, literal or psychological. … Continue reading Review: Widows
Director: Paul Dano Stars: Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould, Jake Gyllenhaal In the third act of Paul Dano's exceptional directorial debut Wildlife, the headlights of the Brinson family car illuminate a worn down fascia of an old building. It looks as though it might've once said 'Davidson' on it. Perhaps Harley? Clarity is gone. Lost in the … Continue reading Review: Wildlife
Director: Gus Van Sant Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Jonah Hill Gus Van Sant's Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot marks the third time that Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara have worked together, following Spike Jonze's Her and Garth Davis' Mary Magdalene. Both actors are among the most vibrant, watchable and interesting presences in Hollywood today, and … Continue reading Review: Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot
Director: Mike Leigh Stars: Rory Kinnear, Neil Bell, Philip Jackson Four years on from his superb portrait of the life of Mr Turner, Mike Leigh returns with another artful depiction of British life in the early 19th century, presenting us an epic study of civil disobedience and underhand parliamentary clout. On August 16th 1819, a democratic … Continue reading Review: Peterloo
