Film Reviews
Hitsville: the Making of Motown - a thrilling celebration of the record label's heydayTuesday, 01 October 2019
Berry Gordy, who founded the Motown label in Detroit in 1959, borrowed his star-maker machinery from the car assembly line. When he worked at the Lincoln-Mercury plant he was inspired by how a bare metal frame would emerge as brand new car. “What a great idea! Maybe I could do the same thing with my music. Read more... |
The Last Tree review - young, angry, and black in '90s UKTuesday, 01 October 2019
Putting a radical spin on a fish-out-of-water story, The Last Tree explores troubling aspects of the African diaspora experience in an England riddled with xenophobia and black-on-black racism. Read more... |
San Sebastian Film Festival: Latin films thriveMonday, 30 September 2019
Ever since Latin American cinema re-emerged in the 1990s from years in the shadow of dictatorships, films have been distinguished by a number of trends, including dramas about the dictatorship years and the social and psychological consequences; social and family dramas; the experience of young people; the quirks and characters of everyday life. Read more... |
San Sebastian Film Festival: The Burnt Orange Heresy review – art world noirSunday, 29 September 2019
When cinema isn’t revering the greats of the art world, it’s usually debunking the superficiality and immorality of the power brokers of the business. On the one hand Eternity’s Gate, on the other, The Square. Read more... |
Ready or Not review - bloody awfulSaturday, 28 September 2019
Equal measures class system satire and Scream or Saw genre knockoff, Ready or Not is entirely appalling, except perhaps to those forgiving hipsters in the crowd who will view its ineptitude as some deliberate "meta" statement all its own. Read more... |
The Goldfinch review - a pale reproductionFriday, 27 September 2019
Midway through John Crowley’s The Goldfinch, a character compares a reproduction antique with the real deal. “The new one is flat dead,” he says. He might as well be talking about the movie. Read more... |
Hotel Mumbai review – Dev Patel shines in harrowing real-life dramaThursday, 26 September 2019
Like recent films about the Anders Breivik terror attacks in Norway, Hotel Mumbai unavoidably raises questions of taste. Do audiences really need to be subjected to harrowing recreations of real-life suffering, when the events themselves are still fresh? Read more... |
The Laundromat review – The Panama Papers as root canalWednesday, 25 September 2019
With The Laundromat Steven Soderbergh is trying to do for the Panama Papers what The Big Short did for the 2008 financial crash, namely offer an entertaining mix of explanation, exposé, black comedy and righteous anger. Sadly, it doesn’t come close. Read more... |
San Sebastian Film Festival: Proxima review – Eva Green has The Right StuffTuesday, 24 September 2019
Proxima is a very special, very beautiful space movie, one of those that are more concerned with the bread-and-butter reality of getting people into space – practically, emotionally, psychologically – than with the starry shenanigans themselves. Read more... |
The Farewell review - warmly comic culture-clashFriday, 20 September 2019
The cancer weepie is knocked off its tear-jerking axis by Lulu Wang’s sly and heartfelt autobiographical tale. Read more... |
Ad Astra review – out of this worldThursday, 19 September 2019
There have been a number of excellent science fiction films of late – Gravity, The Martian, Annihilation among them. But Ad Astra may be the most complete and profound addition to the genre since 2001: A Space Odyssey. Read more... |
The Kitchen review – more gangsters' molls taking over the reinsWednesday, 18 September 2019
Three women decide to take over their husbands’ criminal activities, proving more than a match for the men who dominate the underworld. Read more... |
For Sama review - besieged, bombed, and defiant in SyriaSaturday, 14 September 2019
People who idly use the phrase “it’s like living in a war zone” when considering their domestic mess should see Waad al-Kateab’s documentary For Sama. Read more... |
Phoenix review - Norwegian family tragedy with an autobiographical slantSaturday, 14 September 2019
“You’re so meticulous,” says Astrid (Maria Bonnevie) to her teenage daughter Jill (impressive newcomer Yvla Bjørkaas Thedin) as they create a batik artwork together at the kitchen table. Little son Bo (Casper Falck-Løvås) looks on as he munches a jam sandwich. A happy domestic scene? Anything but. “Meticulous” isn’t even really a compliment, coming from this chaotic, mentally fragile mother. Read more... |
The Shock of the Future review - for the music nerdsSaturday, 14 September 2019
The Shock of the Future is for anyone who's watched a music biopic and thought "that's not how it works!" Directed and co-written by Marc Collin of Nouvelle Vague fame, it's perhaps the most realisitic film about recording music ever made. Read more... |
Hustlers review - strip club crime paysFriday, 13 September 2019
When did Dorothy (Constance Wu) really want to be a stripper? Maybe it’s when she looks with love at Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) during her strutting set piece dance, as she descends to a carpet of cash. Read more... |
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