Year: 1930 Director: Josef von Sternberg Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou For whatever reason, in spite of the tremendous acclaim for the pictures produced, I never quite got the fuss over the 1930s pairing of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. The Blue Angel was fine, it seemed to me, while the likes of Shanghai … Continue reading Why I Love… #111: Morocco
Director: Lorcan Finnegan Stars: Imogen Poots, Jessie Eisenberg, Eanna Hardwicke Vivarium might appear shrewdly, even cruelly timed; arriving on streaming platforms in the midst of a pandemic that has restricted whole nations to their homes. For here we have an elusive and intriguing domestic nightmare about a young couple trapped at home... seemingly forever. However, … Continue reading Review: Vivarium
Director: Hirokazu Kore-Eda Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke Perhaps its fitting that Hirokazu Kore-Eda's first film outside of Japan should concern artifice and the cinema itself. Following his Palme d'Or win in 2018 with Shoplifters, Kore-Eda relocates to France, and presents us a fractured family that is intrinsically connected to the movie business. Spinning … Continue reading Review: The Truth
Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia Stars: Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan For the last two weeks here in the UK, maybe longer, we've been inundated with images of our supermarkets being ransacked as panic-buyers empty shelves in preparation for the End Times. The country is edging closer to lockdown as cases of COVID-19 continue to … Continue reading Review: The Platform
Quick personal side note; I lost my job this week amid recession fears. While that sucks, I have been pushing forward with finding a replacement (not the best time!). Still, it's good to take a little time out, so today I set aside as... Giallo Day. Thanks to my own inability to resist a good … Continue reading Stay-At-Home Film Festival: Giallo
Directors: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles Stars: Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, Udo Kier Both Kleber Mendonça Filho's prior films - 2012's Neighbouring Sounds and 2016's Aquarius - depicted Brazilian communities under pressure from external sources. They were subtly balanced portraits of micro-climates in touching distance from humdrum reality. Neither of these works may properly prepare you for his … Continue reading Review: Bacurau
The world's ending. Or, well, it can seem like it. Depending on where you are, measures to stymie the spread of COVID-19 are in effect to varying degrees, but we're all feeling the stress of it, the uncertainty. Right now streaming services are helping the self-isolated to pass the time, services brimming with bingeable content … Continue reading Is The Leftovers the show for the moment?
Director: Peter Segal Stars: Dave Bautista, Parisa Fitz-Henley, Kristen Schaal For about five minutes last year it looked like we were going to have The Summer of Dave Bautista. Following the box office conquering Avengers: Endgame, two trailers landed for broadly appealing comedies starring everyone's favourite Guardian of the Galaxy. Stuber promised buddy action thrills, while My Spy … Continue reading Review: My Spy
Director: Craig Zobel Stars: Betty Gilpin, Ethan Suplee, Emma Roberts George Orwell's most famous works of fiction followed grim dystopian ideas through to their horrible, logical conclusions. In the process of putting these nightmares to paper, one wonders if Orwell didn't give a few people some ideas along the way. It's a notion that is … Continue reading Review: The Hunt (2020)
Director: Jeff Wadlow Stars: Lucy Hale, Michael Peña, Maggie Q Blumhouse churn out modestly budgeted horror pictures at a rate of knots and they all make money. As a result they can afford their variable hit ratio. Granted, more often than not they come up with the goods (perhaps only A24 know their audience better), … Continue reading Review: Fantasy Island
Director: Jessica Hausner Stars: Emily Beecham, Ben Wishaw, Kit Connor In both Don Siegel and Philip Kaufman's famous iterations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the titular floral menace crashes to Earth from outer space. It is an interloper from elsewhere and so, in a real sense, an agent of chaos out of our control. … Continue reading Review: Little Joe
Director: Leigh Whannell Stars: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid Abuse and abusers come in many forms but the root objective, insidiously, seems most often to be control. Control of another person. It's one of the more despicable traits to have defined humanity for centuries. Leigh Whannell's bold reinterpretation of The Invisible Man shines a … Continue reading Review: The Invisible Man
Director: Takashi Miike Stars: Becky, Masataka Kubota, Sakurako Konishi During most trips to the cinema you won't find yourself watching gut-shot Yakuza henchmen having dust from blown-open cocaine baggies snorted off of their rising hard-ons on the backseat of a speeding car, but then, most trips to the cinema in the UK aren't to see … Continue reading Review: First Love
Director: Todd Haynes Stars: Mark Ruffalo, Bill Camp, Anne Hathaway Remember the vast warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the titular treasure is surreptitiously hidden at the end of the movie? Imagine being the person who has to go in there and find it again. Without guidance. Or, not only that, collate all … Continue reading Review: Dark Waters
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe Stars: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jessie Buckley, Keira Knightley Philippa Lowthorpe's rosy-cheeked dramatisation of the Women's Lib protest at the 1970 Miss World competition in London is defined by division. It abuts viewpoints and gathers its strands from different nations and perspectives. From the outset it seems unlikely that it will coalesce. Before the … Continue reading Review: Misbehaviour
