Director: Mati Diop Stars: Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow, Nicole Sougou The Senegalese peninsular city of Dakar is one of West Africa's extremities, reaching out to the Atlantic. The city itself is eager to broaden its appeal to the developed world. In this earnest endeavour, disparities between rich and poor are ripe for observation, and … Continue reading Review: Atlantics
Director: Noah Baumbach Stars: Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Scarlett Johansson Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) were a happily married couple living in New York, until they weren't. Noah Baumbach's latest film - a mix of emotionally wrought drama and excruciating farce that plays out like a career summation - unpicks a marriage as … Continue reading Review: Marriage Story
Director: Elizabeth Banks Stars: Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Banks, Ella Balinska Brie. Edgar Bosley (Djimon Hounsou) - one of the handlers at the Townsend International Academy of Badassery (my name for it) - likes brie. We learn this some way into the movie. And its suitable, really. Actor/writer/producer/director Elizabeth Banks' rejuvenation of Charlie's Angels is the soft … Continue reading Review: Charlie’s Angels (2019)
Director: Stanley Kubrick Stars: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack If being a cinephile is a form of addiction (and it often feels like it is) then the films of Stanley Kubrick are its gateway drugs. Not Kubrick alone, granted, but there are a clutch of 'great' directors whose work is easily available, who open … Continue reading Review: Eyes Wide Shut (20th anniversary)
Director: Rian Johnson Stars: Ana de Armas, Daniel Craig, Toni Collette I had a disquieting experience going to see Knives Out which I think I want to talk about if you'll indulge me. Before the feature started, during the previews of coming attractions, the trailer for Taika Waititi's Nazi satire Jojo Rabbit played. A man - bald, … Continue reading Review: Knives Out
Director: Martin Scorsese Stars: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci The futility of gangsterism is the subject of Martin Scorsese's late career epic, arriving via streaming giant Netflix following a limited - cursory - flirtation with cinematic release. The majority of people will experience its 209 minutes on the small screen. It's how I … Continue reading Review: The Irishman
Director: Noah Hawley Stars: Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Dan Stevens What do you do when your head and your heart are in vastly different orbits, out of sync and liable to collide during some future rotation, causing chaos and sending debris flying everywhere? Such a state of erratic discombobulation is rife throughout Noah Hawley's feature … Continue reading Review: Lucy In The Sky
Director: Brian Kirk Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Stephan James, Sienna Miller 21 - The number of bridges connecting Manhattan to the outside world that are shut down by maverick cop Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) in order to contain the fugitives of his latest case; a drug robbery gone horribly wrong. 2 - The number of suspects in … Continue reading Review: 21 Bridges
Director: Kasi Lemmons Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom, Jr. Harriet Tubman is one of the great American heroes and a beacon of black history, having devoted much of her adult life to the freeing of slaves along the Underground Railroad in the mid 1800's. She was a lion. American cinema - particularly that … Continue reading Review: Harriet
Director: James Mangold Stars: Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Noah Jupe Having made it through his Wolverine obsession with Logan and, err, The Wolverine, James Mangold emerges out the other side, returning to the Ron Howard-aping middle ground of modern Hollywood's journeymen for what is actually - clearly - another passion project. Le Mans '66 (or Ford V Ferrari … Continue reading Review: Le Mans ’66
Director: Wash Westmoreland Stars: Alicia Vikander, Riley Keough, Naoki Kobayashi The spirit of the 80's erotic thriller is alive if not exactly thriving in Wash Westmoreland's second UK release of the year following January's cinematic release of Colette. Earthquake Bird arrives on the small screen, beaming straight out of Netflix and into your living room, which … Continue reading Review: Earthquake Bird
I posted a list like this, broken out into 5 parts, earlier this year, then took it down again. I was triggered by a couple of other publications that dared to make their lists so early. This is an updated version. Long, but snugly housed all in the one post. It just requires a lot … Continue reading The Best Films Of The Decade
Director: Tom Harper Stars: Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, Himesh Patel It's time to get giddy with vertigo as the moment we've all been waiting for finally arrives. That's right, BAFTA botherers Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne have been reunited for another thoroughly British dalliance. These are actors recognised for their abilities (not entirely unjustly) who … Continue reading Review: The Aeronauts
Director: Bertrand BonelloStars: Wislanda Louimat, Mackenson Bijou, Louise Labeque, "Listen, white world... as our dead roar..."One of the more complacent - yet valid - truisms of western cinema might just be that the zombie movie has been "done to death". And if overexposure hasn't killed it on the big screen, The Walking Dead has left practically … Continue reading Review: Zombi Child
Director: Mike Flanagan Stars: Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Ewan McGregor Redefining for yourself what constitutes family is a large part of Doctor Sleep. the belated follow-up to both Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Those two precursors are famously divergent. King hated Kubrick's film, which is widely regarded as one of the horror masterpieces. Kubrick altered the … Continue reading Review: Doctor Sleep
