See cinema differently
Director: Judd Apatow Stars: Karen Gillan, Keegan-Michael Key, Pedro Pascal Judd Apatow became known for a string of affable, overlong but justifiably loved comedies, but that's all over now. In one fell swoop we're invited to watch as his credibility is visibly eroded. Running a little over two hours and missing even a single grace …
Director: Richard Linklater Stars: Glen Powell, Jack Black, Milo Coy Folding in his combined interests in nostalgia, coming-of-age tales and the passage of time, Richard Linklater's latest deployment of rotoscope technology arrives on Netflix as a winsome blue-skied What If. His previous film outings that have utilised rotoscoping - Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly - used …
Continue reading "Review: Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood"
Director: David Blue Garcia Stars: Elsie Fisher, Nell Hudson, Sarah Yarkin I'm a frequent Texas Chainsaw Massacre apologist, especially when it comes to some of the much-maligned remakes and sequels. I'm ring-fencing Tobe Hooper's original here. It's a visceral classic that might just be the ultimate horror film. It's so inimitable, in fact, that those who've tried …
Director: Paolo Sorrentino Stars: Filippo Scotti, Toni Servillo, Luisa Ranieri The Hand of God can plainly be cited as Paolo Sorrentino's "autobiographical one", but when you're an auteur on the world cinema stage with the kind of craft that marks each effort with your distinct signature, aren't they all "autobiographical ones"? Perhaps the answer is …
Director: Jane Campion Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Benedict Cumberbatch Though she's hardly been inactive, the return of Jane Campion to feature filmmaking is serious news, and her new western has already caused much hubbub after debuting on the festival circuit. Now nestled among the detritus on Netflix, can it make a mark amid so …
Director: Robert Greene An anonymous double-garage with its wide door closed. Slowly it opens, sliding up to reveal... boxes. Boxes atop boxes. As high as the ceiling, as deep as the garage goes, so it seems. These are case files. Sexual abuse case files. The Catholic church's unending connection to pedophiliac horror stories isn't funny …
Director: Rebecca Hall Stars: Ruth Negga, Tessa Thompson, André Holland There's a scene in Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir in which young prospective filmmaker Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is grilled on her desire to make a film about Sunderland dockworkers. She is questioned on why she has chosen a subject so alien to her own experience. One might …
Director: Patrick Brice Stars: Sydney Park, Théodore Pellerin, Jesse LaTourette The slasher movie is back. There's a new Scream movie causing hubbub on the internet. Halloween Kills is doing monster box office in the face of a day-and-date streaming release. Even Chucky is back on telly in the rightful hands of Don Mancini. If our last decade saw …
Continue reading "Review: There’s Someone Inside Your House"
Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Jun Kunimura People wonder why other people watch slasher movies when - crude violence aside - so many of them are interchangeable. I watch my share and it's true; what you get in one isn't often much different to what you'll find in another. But therein …
Director: Leigh Janiak Stars: Kiana Madeira, Elizabeth Scopel, Darrell Britt-Gibson The latest in the unending is-it-a-movie-is-it-TV discourse, Netflix's time travelling teen horror trilogy/mini-series hops further back than before as it reaches its final frontier - or should that be frontier finale? Largely reusing its extant cast, Fear Street Part Three: 1666 takes us back to …
Director: Leigh Janiak Stars: Sadie Sink, Ryan Simpkins, McCabe Slye It's been but a short week since the first part of Leigh Janiak's Netflix trifecta Fear Street appeared on the service, and already much of its lore has faded from memory. Fortunately, this second entry opens with an (optional) recap. Even more promisingly, Fear Street Part Two: 1978 …
Director: Leigh Janiak Stars: Maya Hawke, Kiana Madeira, Julia Rehwald There's nothing unforgivable about getting your music cues wrong. Inaccurate by a year... two... It's a passable blip. But it does speak to a level of slipshod attention-to-detail. The second piece of heavy-handed source music to land in Fear Street Part One: 1994 is "Only …
Director: Alexandre Aja Stars: Mélanie Laurent, Mathieu Amalric, Malik Zidi Cinemas may have reopened across the country (yay!), but there are still plenty of viewing options for those wary of rushing back to 'normal', And, around here at least, something new from Alexandre Aja is usually enough to pique curiosity. If you're cycling endlessly through …
Directors: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Rhea Seehorn, Natalia Dyer My only prior exposure to the work of directing duo Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini is 2003's American Splendor - one of the finest American indies of that year. It was witty, formally playful and anchored in performance. Evidently much has …
Director: Joe Penna Stars: Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim I recently watched Al Reinert's extraordinary 1989 documentary For All Mankind, which makes exceptional use of actual video diaries from NASA's astronauts as they make a pioneering journey out of our gravity on a mission to the moon. Landmark moments are captured with the …
The Lost Highway Hotel 