See cinema differently
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 top ten The Matrix ResurrectionsTitaneZolaPurple SeaMalmkrogCensorPetite MamanMalignantNotturnoShiva Baby Film of the YearThe Matrix Resurrections Lana Wachowski's belated capper to the hugely influential trilogy made stylish again a form of cinematic spectacle deadened over the last decade of Marvel reign. This phenomenally beautiful sci-fi fantasy piece gleefully leaps down the rabbit-hole with abandon, pushing the …
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal Stars: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson We're all flawed people, and often it's those malformed, knotty or unkempt portions of ourselves that define our individuality, for better and for worse. Maggie Gyllenhaal has made a 20 year career out of portraying a variety of knotty, unkempt, fallible women, with career highlights …
Year: 2016 Director: Akihito Shiota Stars: Yuki Mamiya, Tasuku Nagaoka, Ryushin Tei Few characters make an entrance in modern cinema quite like Shiori (Yuki Mamiya) in Wet Woman in the Wind. As our nomadic male lead Kosuke (Tasuku Nagaoka) stands passively on a dock, the young, beautiful and sexually precocious Shiori gleefully rides a bicycle down …
Director: Adam McKay Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande Having made a few well-loved and very silly comedy movies, Adam McKay threw what seemed like a curveball in 2015 with his serious-ish financial crash exposé The Big Short. Six years and one disastrous biopic later, McKay shows no sign of reverting to type. Rather …
The Lost Highway Hotel 