Director: Greta Gerwig Stars: Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson There's a scene in Noah Baumbach's Mistress America in which Greta Gerwig's character Brooke has to pitch her idea for New York restaurant called Mom's. The place would have big chunky furniture; where at the end of the night the chef and the service staff joined the … Continue reading Review: Little Women
Director: Barry Jenkins Stars: KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King In 2005 my grandmother succumbed to bowel cancer in our home and I could hear her dying cries. I was laid up at the time following corrective knee surgery. That same summer my sister's partner was murdered. And I got my heart broken, maybe the … Continue reading Review: If Beale Street Could Talk
Director: Francis Lawrence Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Matthias Schoenaerts, Joel Edgerton Director Francis Lawrence and the star of his three Hunger Games features, Jennifer Lawrence, reunite for something altogether different (yet naggingly familiar) with this smooth, slick and wholly soulless spy thriller based on a book by Jason Matthews. J-Law stars as Dominika Egorova, a renowned Bolshoi … Continue reading Review: Red Sparrow
Director: Dee Rees Stars: Carey Mulligan, Jonathan Banks, Mary J Blige Dee Rees follows Pariah and Bessie with this Netflix Original; an adaptation of a novel by Hillary Jones, a period piece, a treaty on racism and post-war displacement in America, and a serious prestige picture ready for the upcoming awards season. The question of eligibility hangs … Continue reading Review: Mudbound
Director: Luca Guadagnino Stars: Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg Food and sex have long been intermingled in art, with all manner of delicacies plummed for their erotic potentiality; the echoes of bodily shapes keying us in to the artist's intent. With that come the complexities of sexuality; of things deemed acceptable or not, illicit … Continue reading Review: Call Me By Your Name
Director: Sofia Coppola Stars: Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst The arrival of a new Sofia Coppola film is always cause for excitement. With the triptych of The Virgin Suicides, Lost In Translation and (the poorly received but enduring) Marie Antoinette she confirmed herself a major talent in American filmmaking, tapping into a thoughtful feminine ennui with her … Continue reading Review: The Beguiled
Director: Paul Verhoeven Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny This isn't going to be a very good review of Elle. I'm sat here behind the dashboard of this blog with the cursor blinking at me expectantly, still trying to shape my feelings about Paul Verhoeven's latest, but it's like trying to lay foundations for a … Continue reading Review: Elle
Director: Colm McCarthy Stars: Gemma Arterton, Sennia Nanua, Glenn Close As one would imagine also applies to Mike Carey's novel (admission; I've not read it), the best way to approach The Girl With All The Gifts is with as little foreknowledge as possible, making the job of reviewing the thing that much trickier. The reason for … Continue reading Review: The Girl With All The Gifts
The cinema is a verdant location for finding missing women. The mysteries of so many gone girls have revealed themselves on the silver screen, and Gregg Araki's latest, White Bird In A Blizzard, adapted from the book by Laura Kasischke, adds another iteration. Like the spaced-out font of its opening credits, White Bird feels slightly incomprehensible on initial … Continue reading Review: White Bird In A Blizzard
Year: 1963 Director: Luchino Visconti Stars: Burt Lancaster (Prince Don Fabrizio Salina), Claudia Cardinale (Angelica Sedara / Bertiana), Alain Delon (Tancredi Falconeri), Paolo Stoppa (Don Calogero Sedara), Rina Morelli (Princess Maria Stella Salina), Lucilla Morlacchi (Concetta) Genre: Literary Adaptation / Drama The Leopard: A dilettante's dissection. Some admissions upfront. 1) I've not finished Giuseppe Tomasi di … Continue reading Why I Love… #74: The Leopard
God's Pocket is one of the last films starring Philip Seymour Hoffman to reach us (A Man Most Wanted will follow in a month or so, and the less said about his digitised presence in the remaining The Hunger Games instalments the better), so its easy and also unfortunate to see why this feature has received, at … Continue reading Review: God’s Pocket
Year: 2007 Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Josh Brolin (Llewellyn Moss), Tommy Lee Jones (Sheriff Ed Tom Bell), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean Moss), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Garret Dillahunt (Wendell) Genre: Crime Thriller / Literary Adaptation It's only been six years since the release of No Country For Old Men, … Continue reading Why I Love… #57: No Country For Old Men
Year: 1999 Director: Sofia Coppola Stars: Kirsten Dunst (Lux Lisbon), Kathleen Turner (Mrs Lisbon), James Woods (Ronald Lisbon), Josh Hartnett (Trip Fontaine), Scott Glenn (Father Moody), Hanna Hall (Cecilia Lisbon) Genre: Comedy / Drama / Literary Adaptation Memories. Nostalgia. Growing pains. The Virgin Suicides holds a special place for me for a number of reasons, but … Continue reading Why I Love… #56: The Virgin Suicides
Expectations and assumptions. They can make or break a film. World War Z, based on the popular novel by Max Brooks, has been rolled out as a zombie movie. Now, there are several expectations and assumptions one makes when approaching a zombie movie; scares, gore and - thanks to George A. Romero - some biting … Continue reading Review: World War Z
Year: 1996 Director: David Cronenberg Stars: James Spader (James Ballard), Elias Koteas (Vaughan), Deborah Kara Unger (Catherine Ballard), Holly Hunter (Helen Remington), Rosanna Arquette (Gabrielle) Genre: Drama / Literary Adaptation I've wanted to do a piece about David Cronenberg's Crash for a while now. Since I started this series, actually. Oddly the main, ahem, driving force … Continue reading Why I Love… #45: Crash
