The top ten Everybody Wants Some!!The Witch10 Cloverfield LaneThe RevenantAmerican HoneyEmbrace Of The SerpentQueen Of EarthSullyAuthor: The JT LeRoy StoryUnder The Shadow Film Of The YearEverybody Wants Some!! "Rather like how a wildlife documentary will show you the bizarre mating rituals of some flamboyant species or other, Linklater paints a studied picture of college life. … Continue reading The Best of 2016
Director: Gareth Edwards Stars: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen To begin with, and for a little while after that, one thought kept persisting, and that thought was: It just doesn't feel like Star Wars. Gareth Edwards' Rogue One arrives after a somewhat turbulent journey with expectations jockeyed by stories of re-shoots and sundry internet conspiracy theories. … Continue reading Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Director: Jim Jarmusch Stars: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Masatoshi Nagase Paterson, the latest film from Jim Jarmusch, takes place in the city of Paterson, New Jersey and its lead character is named Paterson. Paterson is a bus driver, played by Adam Driver. Describing the film plainly in this manner amuses me as it shows an … Continue reading Review: Paterson
Director: Clint Eastwood Stars: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney One of the major debilitating symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the inability to remember a traumatic event without feeling as though you are reliving it. Todd Komarnicki's screenplay for Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood, is clearly sensitive to this fact. The decision made by … Continue reading Review: Sully
Directors: Ron Clements, Don Hall Stars: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House It's been a rather good year for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Back in spring they broke formula with the much-loved Zootopitropolis(whatever), ditching the princess angle so often leaned upon in favour of something more progressive, delivering a great message of inclusivity right along with it. And … Continue reading Review: Moana
Director: Spike Lee Stars: Teyonah Parris, Nick Cannon, Samuel L Jackson It seems like too long since a Spike Lee 'joint' was the cause for particular interest or comment. His last breakthrough commercial hit was Inside Man a decade ago, and even then it was something of a dud. As the years have gone by, little … Continue reading Review: Chi-Raq
Director: Oren Shai Stars: Jocelin Donahue, Kelly Lynch, Izabella Miko "Where is Rod Serling? I feel like I just entered an episode of The Twilight Zone!" So speaks one of a variety of eccentric characters in Oren Shai's deliciously stylish The Frontier; an example of self-aware dialogue in a film that seems to exist wholly within a set … Continue reading Review: The Frontier
Director: Amma Asante Stars: David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Jack Davenport This year, as one might readily have anticipated, awards seasons is going to be about race. Whether the industry felt shamed by #Oscarsowhite (it should have) or whether this is a genuine reflection of our increasingly fractured times, the divides between us are now being brought to … Continue reading Review: A United Kingdom
Director: Mark Waters Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Christina Hendricks, Kathy Bates Different types of movies serve different functions. Action blockbusters serve as pure escapism with their multi-million dollar firework displays. Documentaries and dramas depicting great social change ask us to reflect on the world around us, to challenge preconceived notions. Art house cinema provokes us … Continue reading Review: Bad Santa 2
Directors: Petr Kazda, Tomás Weinreb Stars: Michalina Olszanska, Marika Soposká, Klára Melísková Looking strikingly like a young Scarlett Johansson auditioning for the part of Mathilda in Luc Besson's Leon, Michalina Olszanska stars in I, Olga Hepnarová, a new film which attempts to dissect the life of its focus; a woman who, in 1973, deliberately drove a truck into … Continue reading Review: I, Olga Hepnarová
Director: Dennis Villeneuve Stars: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whittaker Forget the beautifully handy universal translators of the Star Trek franchise, Dennis Villeneuve's latest - and best - film squeezes the brakes on the traditional sci-fi concept of first contact by digging deep into the dilemma of how to communicate with a totally alien species when … Continue reading Review: Arrival
Director: Tom Ford Stars: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon Have you ever found yourself at 8 in the evening on a Sunday, feeling like you want to watch a movie before calling it quits on the weekend, but finding yourself torn between the pulpy Texan noir of Cold In July and the weepy melodrama of, … Continue reading Review: Nocturnal Animals
Director: Sang-ho Yeon Stars: Yoo Gong, Soo-ann Kim, Dong-seok Ma Anyone who's had to rely on public transport during peak times knows; hell is other people. The ignorant, the dimwitted, the obnoxious, the unnecessarily ugly and their equally unappealing spouses, the drinkers, the drunks, the space-hogging cyclists and lets definitely not forget that special brand … Continue reading Review: Train To Busan
Director: Scott Derrickson Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams In recent years it has been the comparatively lesser-known corners of the Marvel universe which have provided the best that the studio has had to offer, with underdogs Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man kicking up the most entertainment while working with lower expectations thanks to their relative … Continue reading Review: Doctor Strange
Director: Gavin O'Connor Stars: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons The Accountant is a bad film. Which is a rather concise, damning statement. But wait. Because at the same time, it's one of the most watchable films of the year. That rare breed of peculiar which is exactly the right amount of crazy, stupid and misguided … Continue reading Review: The Accountant
