Film Reviews
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil review - fantasy follow-up falls flatSaturday, 19 October 2019
Angelina Jolie is back again with those cut-glass cheekbones and ink-black wings, reprising her role as the self-proclaimed ‘Mistress of Evil’, in Joachim Rønning’s nauseating sequel to the 2014 live-action spin on Sleeping Beauty... Read more... |
Non-Fiction - adultery spices up digitisation dramaFriday, 18 October 2019
It isn’t provable whether adultery is more accepted in French bourgeois life than in that of other countries, but French films often suggest it’s nothing to get in a lather about. Read more... |
Zombieland: Double Tap review - dead dull redoThursday, 17 October 2019
Another unnecessary sequel: we’re used to this sort of thing. The film knows it, too, as lead dork Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) meekly thanks the audience during the opening credits: “There are lots of options when it comes to zombie entertainment, so thank you for choosing us”. It’s a nice line, but feels like an apology for the film industry. “Bad films are everywhere, but this is the least bad”, he could have said. Fair enough. Read more... |
Official Secrets review – powerful political thrillerThursday, 17 October 2019
Early in the political drama Official Secrets, Keira Knightley’s real-life whistleblower Katharine Gun watches Tony Blair on television, giving his now infamous justification for the impending Iraq War, namely the existence of weapons Read more... |
The Peanut Butter Falcon review - sentimental comedy is so damn heartwarmingWednesday, 16 October 2019
It’s an uncomfortable feeling to find oneself completely at odds with an audience in a cinema, but it happens. The recent London Film Festival screening of The Peanut Butter Falcon came complete with the two lead actors and the co-directors and their film went down a storm with a crowd of happy viewers, many of whom had learning disabilities themselves. Read more... |
LFF 2019: The Irishman review - masterful, unsentimental gangster epicTuesday, 15 October 2019
Time passes slowly and remorselessly in The Irishman. Though its much remarked de-ageing technology lets us glimpse Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) executing German POWs aged 24, none of the gangsters here ever seem young. Everyone is heavy with experience, bloated with spilt blood.... Read more... |
LFF 2019: Le Mans '66 review - Matt Damon, Christian Bale and the Ford Motor Company go to warSaturday, 12 October 2019
While recent motor racing movies have been built around superstar names like Ayrton Senna and James Hunt, the protagonists of Le Mans ’66 (shown at London Film Festival) will be barely recognisable to a wider audience. They are Carroll Shelby, the former American racing driver turned car designer, and Ken Miles, a British driver transplanted to American sports car racing. Read more... |
Gemini Man review - high-concept, high-tech Zen weirdnessFriday, 11 October 2019
Will Smith’s giant hand looms out of the screen towards you, gripping his gun’s trigger with weird realism. Read more... |
The Day Shall Come review – Homeland Security satire lacks biteThursday, 10 October 2019
A new film by Chris Morris ought to be an event. The agent provocateur of Brass Eye infamy has tended to rustle feathers and spark debate whatever he does. His last film, Four Lions, dared to find comedy in Islamic terrorism in 2010, when so many wounds were still so fresh. Read more... |
LFF 2019: Marriage Story review – not a dry eye in the houseWednesday, 09 October 2019
Marriage Story, shown at the London Film Festival, feels like an instant classic, that intimate, tangible, resonant kind of classic that touches a chord with almost anyone. It’s not just a film about a divorce, but that added nightmare of a divorce with kids involved, and the yet more despairing experience of separating when there is still love. And it’s heart-breaking. Read more... |
American Woman review - leading lady Sienna Miller moves up a gearWednesday, 09 October 2019
Sienna Miller’s career has been short on leading roles, though she excelled in the TV drama The Girl and has notched up some memorable supporting roles. However, if there’s any justice, her commanding and deeply-felt performance in American Woman should move her career up a gear. Read more... |
Werewolf review - post-Holocaust horrorsSunday, 06 October 2019
There used to be this myth that we knew nothing about the concentration camps until the victors opened their gates in 1945, and that the survivors were then nursed back to health. Read more... |
LFF 2019: The King review - head conquers heart in Shakespeare adaptationSaturday, 05 October 2019
A labour of love for its co-writer, producer and star Joel Edgerton, The King (showing at London Film Festival) is derived from Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V plays, but isn’t slavishly bound to them. Read more... |
Good Posture review - charming coming of age comedySaturday, 05 October 2019
Dolly Wells’ directorial debut employs her best friend Emily Mortimer as reclusive writer Julia Price, having paired up previously in a TV satire of their professionally uneven relationship, Doll and Em. Read more... |
Judy review - Renée Zellweger's bravura screen comebackFriday, 04 October 2019
“She sang from her soul,” Judy Garland’s youngest daughter, Lorna Luft, once said of her world-renowned mum. So it’s right to give the role of this legendary entertainer to Renée Zellweger, an actress who, in the new biopic Judy, acts from her soul. |
Joker review – a phenomenal Joaquin Phoenix on the mean streets of GothamThursday, 03 October 2019
When Joker won the Golden Lion in Venice in September, it was an unprecedented achievement, the first time a comic book-related film had won such a prestigious prize. But then, isn’t your typical comic book film. Read more... |
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