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: Walk of Fame review
Some films are trashy, but fun. You know the ones I mean, your friend would put them on and they would be about stupid people doing stupid things and eventually fall for one another and so on. We all know that plenty of those movies are great, not just a guilty pleasure, but an actual pleasure. I can absolutely assure you that Walk of Fame is not one of those…
Read MoreThe Unseen: Screenwords Meets Jasmine Hyde
Jasmine Hyde talks to Screenwords about her experience of working on the small intimate production of psychological thriller The Unseen, what it was like to come across a script with a strong female lead, and about her time as a satanic nun filming Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens. What initially drew you to the role? JH: I read the script about 18 months ago when the director, Gary, who I’d previously…
Read MoreInterview: John Shackleton
As social media horror feature PANIC BUTTON gets a remastered DVD & Download release, writer and producer John Shackleton reflects on the film’s inspirational journey.
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…
Read MoreFilm Review: Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Time waits for no one and for an actress in Hollywood this adage has a cruel pathos. At the peak of her fame in the 40s and 50s, Gloria Grahame was the quintessential “femme fatale” in films like The Big Heat, In A Lonely Place and The Bad and Beautiful, for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Married four times and considered too old and unpredictable by…
Read More