See cinema differently
Year: 2007 Director: Céline Sciamma Stars: Adèle Haenel, Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachère The film 'canon' of the recent past is already being cemented. Award winners and blockbusters cementing themselves as the fenceposts along which cinema history will be strung. In the case of 2007, the shoe-in titles - as with most years - tell a …
Director: Romola Garai Stars: Carla Juri, Alec Secareanu, Imelda Staunton Such is the nature of indie film distribution - in combination with the ongoing pandemic - that Romola Garai's 2020 effort Amulet is only now reaching UK cinemas in a conspicuously modest run. Ah well. A little exposure is better than none. Tomaz (Alec Secareanu) is …
Director: Pedro Almodóvar Stars: Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón Having played a supporting role in Almodóvar's last film - the well-received Pain & Glory - Penélope Cruz takes centre stage for Parallel Mothers, giving her best performance since Volver some 15 years ago. Cruz plays photographer Janis, who falls pregnant following an affair with an archaeologist …
Director: Kenneth Branagh Stars: Ciarán Hinds, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan Branagh's directorial career has some chaotic energy but, if it is defined by anything, it's an abundantly populist intent. His 1994 take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein dipped madly toward the inklings of Grand-Guignol, but still cosied things up in the glossy aura of a Royal …
Director: Guillermo del Toro Stars: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette Roll up, roll up, ladies and germs. Spare a dime and gain entry, feast your eyes upon the eighth wonder of the world. Aye, a strange beast and that's for sure! What ye see in here, I say to thee, you'll give your sweetheart …
Director: Joel Coen Stars: Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Corey Hawkins One might argue that the cinema needs another adaptation of Macbeth as much as it needs a retelling of the Batman origin story, but Joel Coen's effort serves its director as much as it's audience, and might be taken as a palette cleanser as he flexes …
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillet Stars: Jenna Ortega, David Arquette, Melissa Barrera Like a snake eating its own tail, the only reason that the fifth Scream movie isn't called Scream 5 is so that it can make a self-referential joke about this decision. Yes, the oh-so-meta comedy slasher franchise is back from the dead once again, unfeasibly …
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul Stars: Tilda Swinton, Elkin Diaz, Juan Pablo Urrago In the second half of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's remarkable and beguiling Memoria, a man named Hernán Bedoya (Elkin Diaz) lies down in the Colombian grass to sleep at the behest of nomadic quester Jessica (Tilda Swinton). In a shot mildly reminiscent of Dea Kulumbegashvili's Beginning, we rest …
Director: Andrea Arnold Ever since her Oscar-winning debut short Wasp back in 2003, Andrea Arnold has been using the immediacy of hand-held to carve out her stories, charting a career of generally acclaimed social realism in the UK before the last decade saw her restlessly applying her methods to other forms. A dourly gripping literary adaptation …
Year: 1933 Director: Alfred E. Green Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Theresa Harris I don't know about you, but I go through phases with movies, especially when it comes to discovering the past. '70s regional American horrors. Silent movies. '50s westerns and melodramas. Japanese kaiju, Italian giallo or Iranian New Wave pictures. I'll dip in …
Year: 2015 Director: Hong Sang-soo Stars: Kim Min-hee, Jung Jae-young, Youn Yuh-jung Here's a thing. While I voraciously devour new movie experiences, I love to re-watch ones I've seen, too. To have those experiences again, or to be surprised by how memory shaped or changed them. To discover anew. There's comfort in the re-watch. Security. …
With Licorice Pizza now in UK cinemas I thought I would update this deceptively difficult and openly personal task; ranking the feature films of Paul Thomas Anderson (originally posted - in quite a different order - back in June 2018). Expect a multitude of adjectives in my rundown below. The ordering you may well disagree …
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Stars: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper Paul Thomas Anderson is - and always has been - a horny romantic. In autistic romcom Punch-Drunk Love he mirrored his great meet-cute with the perils of a phone sex hotline. For all it's labyrinthine conspiracies, Inherent Vice was a story of love, devotion and …
Director: Joanna Hogg Stars: Honor Swinton Byrne, Jaygann Ayeh, Ariane Labed Joanna Hogg's openly autobiographical The Souvenir detailed a young filmmaker's furtive encounters at art college in Britain in the 1980s, and her volatile relationship with a closet junkie; a relationship that culminated in tragedy. That film ended on the vast door of a soundstage opening …
The Lost Highway Hotel 