Film Reviews
Sunset SongThursday, 03 December 2015
There’s been a hugely protracted production history behind Sunset Song. Terence Davies first mooted a screen adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s 1932 novel of northern Scottish farming folk way back in 2000, soon after the success of his Edith Wharton pic The House of Mirth. Read more... |
The LessonWednesday, 02 December 2015
Young Bulgarian writer-directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov have made a tight, bleak, suspenseful drama in The Lesson (Urok), driven by a commanding, unforgiving performance from actress Margita Gosheva who leads the film. Read more... |
Christmas with the CoopersTuesday, 01 December 2015
We can keep blaming Frank Capra for the lingering notion that Yuletide has magical powers which can turn Scrooges into yo-ho-hoing Santas and convert blood-spattered family feuds into tearful hug-ins by a roaring log fire. To prove it, this would-be seasonal sackful of joy from director Jessie Nelson doesn't shrink from quoting It's a Wonderful Life, both visually and verbally. It's more like an SOS than a homage, though. Read more... |
Goya: Visions of Flesh and BloodMonday, 30 November 2015
"Exhibition on Screen" is a logical extension of the recent phenomenon of screenings of live performances of opera and theatre. Initiated with the Leonardo exhibition of 2012 at London’s National Gallery, this is its third season, and the format remains unchanged: a specific show provides the pretext for a bespoke film that goes beyond the gallery walls. Read more... |
Bridge of SpiesFriday, 27 November 2015
Nostalgia for the good old days of mutually assured destruction? You’d have got long odds on such a thing on 9 November 1989, the day the Berlin Wall was breached. A quarter of a century on, the Americans and the Russians are entangled in a whole other theatre of war in which the idea of negotiating with the enemy is unthinkable. The Soviets may have been abominable commie bastards but, hey, our guys could still clink a glass with them. So Steven Spielberg is able to visit the Cold War in... Read more... |
Black MassFriday, 27 November 2015
The city of Boston has been creeping up the charts as a hotbed of cinematic criminality in the last decade. First came Martin Scorsese's Oscar-scooping epic The Departed, then Ben Affleck chipped in with The Town, both movies driven by their portrayal of tightly-knit groups of characters immovably rooted in their native Bostonian soil. Read more... |
CarolThursday, 26 November 2015
New York, in the early 1950s. Twenty-something Therese Belivet is working in a Manhattan department store at Christmas, wearing a Santa hat and dutifully trying to overcome her boredom. Then Carol Aird strides into view – classy, confident, patrician Carol, archly eyeing the shop girl and nonchalantly buying the most expensive toy on offer, before leaving her gloves on the counter behind her. Therese’s life is about to change dramatically. Read more... |
My Skinny SisterWednesday, 25 November 2015
First-time writer/director Sanna Lenken’s touching anorexia drama is such a heartfelt, fragile thing that it feels churlish to criticise it. Herself a former eating-disorder sufferer, Lenken brings a real warmth and sincerity to her portrait of an ordinary Swedish family rapidly unravelling when their elder daughter seems unable to overcome the horrible physical effects of her aching self-doubt. Read more... |
The DressmakerFriday, 20 November 2015
What begins as a would-be exercise in camp devolves into perfervid tosh and ultimately tedium in The Dressmaker, a belligerently over-the-top revenge drama that might just about have squeaked by as an opera - an art form better-suited to such deliberately over-the-top theatrics. Read more... |
GüerosFriday, 20 November 2015
Mexico City itself is the dominant presence in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ debut feature Güeros, a road movie that restricts its journey to that megapolis and its environs. It’s not just the traffic that holds them up, more the fact that they don’t really have a destination. As one of its initially dispirited student protagonists says, “Why go if we’re going to end up back here again?” Read more... |
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le MansWednesday, 18 November 2015
By the end of the 1960s, Steve McQueen was at the top of the Hollywood heap. Star turns in The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt had established him as the King of Cool, a self-contained anti-hero whose minimalist, watchful performances radiated a mysterious sex appeal. Read more... |
The Fear of 13Saturday, 14 November 2015
David Sington’s The Fear of 13 is many things – blisteringly immediate, compelling, emotionally devastating – but at times it may have you pondering whether it fits into any traditional “documentary” category. Read more... |
The Lady in the VanFriday, 13 November 2015
Maggie Smith is in her element as Miss S in the film version of Alan Bennett's 1999 play The Lady in the Van, her partnership with the playwright-actor one of the defining components of the storied career of the octogenarian dame, whose renown has leapt the decades due in no small part to the Harry Potter and Downton Abbey franchises. Read more... |
Steve JobsThursday, 12 November 2015
A couple of years ago there was a television documentary about Steve Jobs which wafted much smoke up the sainted iHole. A variety of famous fanboys wept over the curve on the iPhone 3 and simpered at the kleptocratic takeover of the music industry. Never mind that Jobs was reportedly short of redeeming features. A documentary has no obligation to supply drama. A feature film is another story. Read more... |
TangerineWednesday, 11 November 2015
American director Sean Baker is an adept at exploring different Los Angeles worlds that we don’t often see portrayed in standard Hollywood fare. His much-acclaimed Starlet, from 2012, took us into the city’s porn industry (in an entirely non-judgmental way), ticking most of the boxes usually associated with “independent” cinema. Read more... |
BrooklynFriday, 06 November 2015
Saoirse Ronan, emerging decorously into womanliness in Brooklyn, deserves a stack of awards nominations for her portrayal of a brave young woman torn between her old life in Ireland and her new existence in 1952 New York's most vibrant borough. Read more... |
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