Reviewed by Lee Hill Earlier this year, Michael Haneke lost out on a possible third Palme D’Or for his latest film, Happy End. In the hothouse and often clubby critical atmosphere of the festival, some commentators dismissed the film as a “greatest hits” package. The big prize was won by Ruben Östlund for The Square, a younger director who shares Haneke’s preoccupations with modern anxiety, the shaky moral and intellectual…
Read MoreFilm Review: Lost In Paris (Paris pieds nus)
Reviewed By Linda Marric Even if you’re a newcomer to the wonderful world of Abel and Gordon (Rumba, The Fairy), and their whimsical slapstick style of filmmaking, one cannot help but admire the amount of the work that goes into their output year in year out. Back with Lost In Paris or to give its original title, Paris pieds nus (Barefoot In Paris), the comedy duo achieve a huge coup…
Read MoreFilm Review: Brakes
Reviewed by Lee Hill One of the pleasures of regular film going is seeing a favorite actor or actress in a striking cameo or supporting role. Such appearances add immeasurably to the mix of a great film and can salvage or redeem fare one might dismiss or simply forget. Brakes, the self-produced directorial debut of Mercedes Grower, who has appeared in films like Sixteen and Revolver as well as TV…
Read MoreFilm Review: Manifesto
Reviewed by Lee Hill Manifesto walks a fine line between the art house circuit and the museum. The resulting feature began life as a 2015 installation by visual artist Julian Rosenfeldt and Cate Blanchett. Its purpose is to restore the original shock, boldness and honesty of various manifestos – political, literary, cinematic, social, etc. To achieve the goal of restoring radical, epoch altering energy to words that have, for better…
Read MoreFilm Review: Beach Rats
Reviewed By Linda Marric Despite it being only her second feature, it’s easy to see why It Felt Like Love director Eliza Hittman’s newest offering Beach Rats is being talked about in the same breath as Barry Jenkins’ brilliant 2016 multi-award winning film Moonlight. With its understated mood, poetic tone and truly astounding performances, the film not only offers an honest non-judgemental portrayal of youthful bravado and coming of age,…
Read MoreFilm Review: Daddy’s Home 2
When discussing Mel Gibson at last years Independent Spirit Awards, presenters Nick Kroll and Mulaney said, “people wondered how long it would take Hollywood to forgive someone for anti-Semitic racist hate speech, the answer? Eight years.” A year on from his directorial return, some smart aleck in Hollywood thought it sensible to cast Gibson in a broad family friendly Christmas comedy alongside treasure Jon Lithgow, perennial man child Will Ferrell…
Read MoreFilm Review: Mudbound
The opening scene of Dees Rees’s Mudbound shows two brothers digging a hole in the dreary half-light of an approaching storm, surrounded by mud. This scene bookends the film as we spend the rest of the film finding out how the characters got there, and evokes Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying — a stormy and unforgiving Mississippi, full of mud, washed out bridges, and the need to bury dead relatives.
Read MoreFilm Review: Good Time
You’re the only one who’s going to have a good time with Good Time. This stylish and energised thriller from Ben and Josh Safdie stars Robert Pattinson as Connie, a petty criminal and devoted brother, in one of his best roles to date (Pattinson has always been good, don’t listen to the haters). Good Time is intermittently bleak and neon, like a dreamlike section of an LSD trip, and will…
Read MoreFilm Review: Ingrid Goes West
Directed by new comer Matt Spicer, Ingrid Goes West is perhaps one of the most knowing film of its genre. This brilliantly put together and genuinely engaging dark comedy knows more about its subject than the average Hollywood blockbuster around, and does a fantastic job in reconciling some of us with the world of social media in the most honest way possible. Spicer and co-writer David Branson Smith offer an…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Film can be such a literal medium at times that the more subtler forms of the fantastic – those stories that do not rely on overwrought special effects – can divide viewers. This was the case with Yorgo Lanthimos last film, The Lobster, set in a dystopian spa for lonely hearts, which blended black comedy, fable and Bunuel-like surrealism. The film took audiences and critics into a world that looked…
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