Director: Cory Finley Stars: Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, Geraldine Viswanathan COVID-19 has been bad for cinemas, undeniably, but also bad for films. While all the summer's planned blockbusters managed to get a pass - delayed until, yknow, whenever - it is most commonly the lower and mid-budget movies that have been allowed to slip through … Continue reading Review: Bad Education
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: Marielle Heller Stars: Matthew Rhys, Tom Hanks, Susan Kelechi Watson We didn't really have Mr Rogers in the UK, but we had - and we have - Tom Hanks. From the every-man goofiness of his early comedies, through the earnest '90s to the kind, middle-aged statesman of many a Steven Spielberg picture, Hanks has … Continue reading Review: A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
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: 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: 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: Lorene Scafaria Stars: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B Hustlers has been called 'the female Goodfellas' which assumes that the two films and their audiences ought to be delineated by gender, which therefore does a disservice to both. Just as women can take pleasure and nourishment from Goodfellas (a film which I, a man, have … Continue reading Review: Hustlers
Director: Peter Farrelly Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini Ever get the feeling Peter Farrelly saw Adam McKay shift gears from bawdy comedy to prestige drama and thought, "hey, I can do that"? This certainly seems like a credible scenario given the arrival of Green Book. The former creative talent behind There's Something About … Continue reading Review: Green Book
Director: Felix van Groeningen Stars: Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney This weekend at the cinema has been a strange one as 2019 stutters out of the gate. Yesterday, with a weary exhale, I tried to explain why its best to stay away from M Night Shyamalan's over-confident folly Glass. As a tonic, I veered in … Continue reading Review: Beautiful Boy
Director: Bart Layton Stars: Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Blake Jenner To what extent are movies culpable in real life crimes? It's a question that rears its head with regularity, particularly when the perpetrator(s) are young. Popular culture has a self-evident influence over our lives, shaping (but not defining) our preferences and politics, and perhaps also … Continue reading Review: American Animals
Director: Steven Spielberg Stars: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson In January of 2017 just a few short hours after his inauguration, President Donald Trump began a war with the press. It's a situation that has perpetuated, and now dominates the perception of his time in office. That war, over the veracity of the stories … Continue reading Review: The Post
Director: James Franco Stars: James Franco, Alison Brie, Dave Franco "I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not. Oh hi Mark." For some the above stream of nonsense will appear as exactly that and have no relevance. For others (disclosure: myself wholeheartedly included) these words … Continue reading Review: The Disaster Artist
Director: Mel Gibson Stars: Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Vince Vaughn Hacksaw Ridge is an especially fine example of how the wrong kind of trailer can work against a film. This piece of work does a number of things a decent trailer shouldn't. First and foremost, it gives you every major plot point of the first … Continue reading Review: Hacksaw Ridge
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
Appearing like an act of contrition following calamitous Adam Sandler vehicle The Cobbler last year, Tom McCarthy's latest directorial offering is as austere a movie as we're likely to get this awards season outside of The Danish Girl. Working with production company Anonymous Content (who, by no coincidence were behind HBO's The Wire in which McCarthy starred), Spotlight accounts … Continue reading Review: Spotlight
