Film Reviews
Return to Seoul review - lost in translationMonday, 08 May 2023
Freddie (Park Ji-min) is a social hand grenade, flinging herself into situations to see where the splinters fall. Born in Korea but adopted and raised by French parents, a seemingly impulsive, brief detour to Seoul sees her seek out her birth-parents. Read more... |
The Dam review - a remarkably haunting allegorySunday, 07 May 2023
Maher (Maher el Khair, an actual brick-maker) works in a brickyard sloshing sticky mud into rectangular moulds with his bare hands. Next the mud bricks are tipped out to dry in the sun, before being fired in a large, wood fired kiln. The same process has been used for centuries, yet this brickyard is within spitting distance of the Merowe Dam, a state-of-the-art hydroelectric dam built across the Nile in Sudan. Ancient and modern technologies collide. Read more... |
Harka review - when hope is a desertSunday, 07 May 2023
The incendiary topic of Egyptian-American director Lotfy Nathan’s debut feature Harka is poverty and corruption in Tunisia a decade after the failed promise of the Arab Spring. Read more... |
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 review - raw and repetitive supergroup swansongSaturday, 06 May 2023
James Gunn is running the whole DC show now, but his Guardians films have stayed free from Cinematic Universe snares, even the group’s Avengers cameos beaming in from their own pop-art corner. This swansong is their indulgent, sometimes meandering double-album and darkest chapter, making a visceral anti-vivisection and anti-eugenics case. Read more... |
The Laureate review - a romp with Robert GravesSaturday, 06 May 2023
Nowadays Robert Graves is best known for his later and least interesting works on Greek myths and Roman emperors, but at his best, in the first decade of his writing life, as a war poet (Fairies and Fusiliers) and war memoirist (Good-Bye to All That), he was a powerful mythmaker in his own right. Read more... |
Love According to Dalva review - Belgian first time director tackles incestTuesday, 02 May 2023
What is it that drives Belgian filmmakers to make sad and disturbing films about children? Is it the influence of the Dardennes Brothers, who over a 20-year career have made superb features exploring how brutally society treats its most vulnerable (Tori and Lokita, The Kid with a Bike, The Child among others)? Read more... |
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry review - affecting tale of a late-life road tripFriday, 28 April 2023
Here's another small gem of a film graced with a fine central performance by Jim Broadbent, after his lovely turn in The Duke. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is, like the earlier film, the story of an eccentric older man who embarks on a risky enterprise, though it’s less comic and twice as affecting. Read more... |
Berg review - a glorious visual meditation on the mountains of SloveniaFriday, 28 April 2023
It’s been a long time since I went walking in the mountains – too long. And Joke Olthaar’s film Berg (mountain) has intensified my longing for that very special experience. Read more... |
Rodéo review - heroine from the banlieues powers a rebel-teens sagaFriday, 28 April 2023
Reading an interview with the French director of Rodéo, Lola Quivoron, you come to realise her compelling film about dirt-bike-rider culture relied on a sage piece of casting. Despairing of ever finding a lead for her film project, Quivoron chanced upon Julie Ledru on Instagram and the first-time actor became a key creator of the narrative. Read more... |
Little Richard: I am Everything review - a riveting account of 'the brightest star in the universe'Thursday, 27 April 2023
Lisa Cortés’s fast-paced documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything opens with a TV interview made in 1971, 16 years after the rock 'n' roll pioneer became an overnight success with groundbreaking hits like "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly Miss Molly". Read more... |
Pacifiction review - portending hell in paradiseMonday, 24 April 2023
Paranoia seeps into paradise in Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, a scathing critique of French colonialism on the Polynesian island of Tahiti. Acting on rumours that his overlords are about to resume nuclear testing in the region and fearing his elimination, the urbane High Commissioner De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is forced to turn detective to learn their veracity. It’s not his fault that Inspector Clouseau might do a better job. Read more... |
Sick of Myself review - queasy black comedy about self-obsessed youthSunday, 23 April 2023
Sick of Myself is being marketed as one of those oh so clever satirical comedies about privileged but fucked-up people. Think Worst Person in the World, Triangle of Sadness and The White Lotus and you’ll get the genre. Read more... |
Pamfir review - a retired Ukrainian smuggler is forced to do one last jobSunday, 23 April 2023
It's fair to say that Pamfir, Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk's first feature, has been slightly overtaken by events. Read more... |
A Thousand and One review - fighting the system in 1990s New YorkSaturday, 22 April 2023
AV Rockwell well deserved the Grand Jury award at Sundance in January for her debut feature film, A Thousand and One. Read more... |
How To Blow Up a Pipeline review - can eco-terrorism be justified?Friday, 21 April 2023
“This was an act of self defence,” is the last message we hear as How To Blow Up a Pipeline approaches the end of its 104-minute span. Read more... |
Renfield review - Dracula meets Steptoe and SonMonday, 17 April 2023
Dracula’s fly-eating henchman Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) seeks solace in a self-help group from his co-dependent, fanged boss (Nicolas Cage), in a comic horror action flick which posits the pair as a vampiric Steptoe and Son – though that relationship was more genuinely nightmarish. Read more... |
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I.S.S. review - sci-fi with a sting in the tail
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Album: St Vincent - All Born Screaming
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Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review...
With a troubled gaze and a lived-in face, the portrait of artist Alberto Giacometti on a withdrawn...
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That They May Face The Rising Sun review - lyrical adaptatio...
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Album: Pet Shop Boys - Nonetheless
This album came with an absolutely enormous promo campaign. As well as actual advertising there were “Audience With…” events, and specials on BBC...
Ridout, Włoszczowska, Crawford, Lai, Posner, Wigmore Hall re...
Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/...
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a mu...
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s ...
Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of...