Anti-heroes make for compelling subjects, particularly in a world as unjust as the one we live in, and 1970s American cinema has absolutely no shortage of them. Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire revisits the era by dramatising an infamous 1977 hostage stand-off staged by Tony Kiritsis, who rigged mortgage broker Richard Hall – who he … Read more
Guillermo del Toro first voiced his dream of making a “faithful Miltonian tragedy” version of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ back in 2007, just after announcing himself to the world at large with the haunting fairytale Pan’s Labyrinth. By that point he already had six feature films under his belt, but it was his spellbinding story of … Read more
There was a time in the mid-00s when the prospect of a new film by Italy’s newest favourite son, Paolo Sorrentino, was a cause for celebration. Titles such as The Consequences of Love (2004), The Family Friend (2006) and Il Divo (2008) heralded a mercurial talent, one who might finally be able to hold the mantle of Italian auteur giants … Read more
Sepideh Farsi’s video calls with the late Palestinian photographer Fatma Hassona vividly document daily life in Gaza under Israel’s unrelenting violence. “Meeting her was like a mirror held in front of me that made me realise how both our lives were conditioned by walls and wars,” notes Sepideh Farsi early on in her documentary about … Read more
In Eden, Jude Law and Daniel Brühl find themselves stranded on a tropical island with Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, and a very horny Ana de Armas. Whatever will they do? Aside from those selling points, though, the drama is much less sexy than you’d expect (or want) and instead serves as a serviceable exploration of the … Read more
From the guys who made the incredibly intense Talk to Me comes Bring Her Back, an equally grisly but less impactful horror-thriller about orphaned teenagers who are sent to live with a seemingly friendly but utterly psychotic Sally Hawkins, who I am pretty sure is playing herself. Hawkins plays Laura, a traumatized mother whose only … Read more
In East Germany, where director Andreas Dresen grew up, Hilde and Hans Coppi were talked about with the kind of reverence normally reserved for saints. Members of a Communist German resistance group known as the Red Orchestra, which was working to aid the Soviet Union against the Nazis, Hilde and Hans were regarded more as symbols … Read more
When Elizabeth Bennet first gets a glimpse of Pemberley, Mr Darcy’s enormous estate, she experiences a fleeting pang of “something like regret” over the marriage proposal she rejected and the loss of the home that would have been hers. In her follow up to Past Lives. Celine Song doesn’t update Jane Austen à la Clueless, but she is concerned with … Read more
In Weapons, some children gleefully disappear into the darkness, their teacher is blamed and becomes an alcoholic, and bad things are a’brewing–a satisfying mix for one of the most entertaining movies of the year. Writer/director Zach Cregger, who made the divisive horror film Barbarian, is back with this oddly titled horror-thriller that defies convention as … Read more
Like the doddering sexagenarian at the centre of its plot, Chicken Town lumbers along, frequently mis-stepping and fluffing its lines. It’s a dull, eye-roll-inducing half-way house of a film, neither a biting, black comedy nor an uplifting, whimsical jaunt. British comedy royalty Graham Fellows stars as Kev, who teams up with teenagers, Paula (Amelie Davies) and Jayce (Ethaniel Davy) … Read more