Reviewed by Lee Hill For international audiences, Andrey Zvyagintsev is THE Russian director in the way that Andrei Tarkovsky was in the 80s. Since his astonishing debut in 2003, The Return, he has found a way to combine portraits of individuals in crisis with wider examinations of Russia’s inability to move away from totalitarianism. In his last two films, Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014), relationships between men and women are…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Mercy
Reviewed by Lee Hill In 1968, Donald Crowhurst, family man, struggling inventor and amateur sailor, was determined to boost the profile of a navigation device too ahead of its time. He decided to enter the Golden Globe, an around the world race sponsored by The Sunday Times. Despite not having sailed beyond the coast of Devon and struggling to keep his tiny company going, Crowhurst felt the risk was worth…
Read MoreFilm Review: Phantom Thread
Reviewed by Rachael Kaines Not quite the harrowing experience some might be expecting, Phantom Thread is closer to a perverse romantic comedy than a serious or dark drama. If the idea of watching people throw beautiful barbs at each other over a breakfast table sounds appealing, then Phantom Thread is your film.
Read MoreFilm Review: Den Of Thieves
Reviewed by Freda Cooper There are two Gerard Butler films around at the moment. One sees him explaining Scottish slang. The other is Den Of Thieves. This is a movie that’s bursting to be something else. With its chases and gunfire, it fancies itself as the DeNiro/Pacino face-off, Heat (1995), but its ambitions don’t stop there. It also sees itself as something of a Sicario (2015), especially when a gun…
Read MoreFilm Review: Native
Reviewed by Lee Hill For an independent filmmaker, a first feature, without access to the near unlimited technical and financial resources of a major production entity or studio, is always a gamble. It is one thing for a new director and company to argue that “less is more”, but another thing entirely to pull off this aesthetic if one small, but significant aspect of the project misfires. It’s no surprise…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Commuter
Reviewed by Linda Marric Sticking to what he does best, this week sees the return of Liam Neeson in yet another action packed thriller which is as ridiculously outlandish as we have come to expect from this most unlikely of action stars. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop, Orphan, House of Wax), The Commuter is the kind of production which doesn’t seem to care about convincing story-wise, nor does it seem…
Read MoreFilm Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
Reviewed by Freda Cooper It was only a matter of time. One of the brothers McDonagh had to hit the jackpot. Big brother John Michael had made The Guard, Calvary and, more latterly, War On Everyone. Martin had In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths under his belt. And now he brings Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri to the screen – the most cumbersome of titles for a film which is the…
Read MoreFilm Review: All The Money In The World
Reviewed by Freda Cooper Only two months ago, a large question mark hung over the fate of Ridley Scott’s All The Money In The World. We all know why and we all know what happened next. Rather than have his film shelved, the director reverted to his original choice of Christopher Plummer to play billionaire J Paul Getty and re-shot his scenes in just six weeks.
Read MoreFilm Review: Walk With Me
Reviewed by Rachael Kaines The introspective and sedate documentary Walk With Me, from directors Marc J. Francis and Max Pugh, works as a soothing balm to a hectic mind, much like the mindfulness practice that the Zen Buddhist pioneer Thich Nhát Hanh introduced to the west. Thich Nhát Hanh was forced to leave Vietnam in the sixties when his efforts towards peace were not appreciated. Now 91, Walk With Me…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Greatest Showman
Reviewed by Matthew Turner The trailer for The Greatest Showman goes out of its way to convince you that it’s not a musical, and that it is, in fact, an uplifting let’s-do-the-show-right-here biopic of 19th century circus impresario P.T. Barnum. However, a musical it most emphatically is, while its biographical details have received something of a revisionist tweak. The feature debut of Australian director Michael Gracey (who has a background…
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