Film Reviews
Dangerous Lies, Netflix review - slick sillinessSaturday, 09 May 2020
When not dipping into its bottomless debts to write Scorsese blank cheques, Netflix tends to favour old-school TV movie potboilers such as this slick, silly thriller, in which young couple Katie (Camila Mendes) and Adam (... Read more... |
The Whistlers review – a smart, self-aware noir concerning a crooked copThursday, 07 May 2020
Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has made a career crafting perceptive and cerebral examinations of his native country. From his 2006 debut 12:08 to Bucharest to The Treasure, they were cerebral films that powerfully embodied the Romanian New Wave. Read more... |
Camino Skies review - NZ documentary brings no surprisesWednesday, 06 May 2020
A documentary about six middle-aged Antipodeans, four women and two men, walking the 500 mile pilgrims’ path through France and Spain to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela sounds uplifting, inspiring, even fun. Just the ticket, perhaps, when one's travel horizons are limited. But this soft-focus film fails to dig deeply enough into the lives and motivations of strangers thrown together with nothing much in common apart from grief, and sometimes not even that. Read more... |
Can You Keep A Secret? review - a bumpy rideFriday, 01 May 2020
Featherweight is one thing, brainless is another. Can You Keep A Secret?, the romcom adapted by screenwriter Peter Hutchings from the 2003 novel by Sophie Kinsella, uneasily straddles the two until a conclusion that goes off the rails altogether and tumbles into the ludicrous. Read more... |
A Russian Youth, MUBI review - First World War setting, contemporary orchestraThursday, 30 April 2020
Alexander Tolotukhin’s debut film places the viewer into a microcosm of the first world war and frames the experience with a peculiar musical device. Read more... |
The Assistant review - riveting #MeToo dramaThursday, 30 April 2020
Harvey Weinstein is never mentioned in The Assistant, but the former movie mogul and convicted rapist looms large over this savagely relevant drama, which offers a vivid picture of what life might have been like for every one of the employees – male as well as female, victim or no – trapped in Weinstein’s evil little world. Read more... |
Ema review - vibrant tale of anarchic mum seeking redemptionWednesday, 29 April 2020
The great Chilean director Pablo Larraín specialises in dark psychological reflections on the past, notably his trilogy of Chilean dictatorship dramas – Tony Manero, Post Mortem and No – and his English-language debut about the personal aftermath of the JFK assassination, Jackie. Read more... |
Extraction, Netflix review - mercenary mayhemFriday, 24 April 2020
This is what Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame co-creator Joe Russo and his Thor, Chris Hemsworth, did next. Read more... |
Sea Fever review - more ooze than aahsFriday, 24 April 2020
When Sea Fever premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, no one could have guessed its story about an Irish fishing trawler attacked by a giant jellyfish would in one respect prove prophetic. Read more... |
Moffie review - heart rates will rise with Oliver Hermanus’ powerful war filmThursday, 23 April 2020
Oliver Hermanus’ potent fourth feature Moffie certainly has a controversial film title. A homophobic slur, it can be translated from Afrikaans as "faggot". Read more... |
Selah and the Spades, Amazon Prime review - boarding-school cliques go gangsterSaturday, 18 April 2020
“They always try to break you down when you’re 17,” says queen bee Selah (Lovie Simone) in Tayarisha Poe’s impressive directorial debut. As leader of the Spades, one of the five Mafia-style ruling factions in the exclusive Haldwell boarding-school in Pennsylvania, Selah, with her waist-long braids and inscrutably cool managerial style, seems unbreakable. But not so fast. Read more... |
Earth and Blood, Netflix review - tense and broody thriller ultimately falls shortSaturday, 18 April 2020
There are quite a few good things to be said for Julien Leclerc’s Earth and Blood. Read more... |
Cuck review - tediously nihilisticFriday, 17 April 2020
Deep from the heart of Trumpland comes Cuck, a deeply unpleasant film about a totally repellent character. Read more... |
Why Don't You Just Die! review - Russian rouletteFriday, 17 April 2020
It’s hard to feel sympathy for a young man plotting to stove his prospective father-in-law’s head in with a hammer. Read more... |
Who You Think I Am review - Juliette Binoche dazzles as she wrestles with dual identitiesThursday, 16 April 2020
With influences as diverse as Hitchcock’s Vertigo to 2010’s Catfish, Safy Nebbou’s genre-splicing French-language feature, starring Juliette Binoche, comes loaded with a heady mix of cheap thrills and surprising psychological depth. And it’s a hoot from start to finish. Read more... |
The Host review - implausible suspense thrillerThursday, 16 April 2020
A camel is a horse designed by committee, they say; perhaps that explains why The Host, with several writing credits – adapted by Zachary Weckstein from a story by Laurence Lamers, screenplay by Finola Geraghty, Brendan Bishop and Lamers – doesn't really know what it is. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
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