Film Reviews
Birds of Passage
Saturday, October 19th, 2019 Film Reviews,Anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss argued we could learn more about the human mind from studying “cold” societies with fixed rituals, beliefs and traditions, than the “hot” societies of the developed world. Inevitably, when cold met hot there was only one outcome: the cold society had to warm up. Birds of Passage is a story, not of […]
Judy
Thursday, October 10th, 2019 Film Reviews,If Joker has put Joaquin Phoenix firmly in line for an Oscar, Judy has done the same for Renée Zellweger. Like so many Hollywood bio pics the film charts the decline that inevitably follows fame and fortune. We focus on the tumultuous final year of Judy Garland’s life, although the story is punctuated by flashbacks […]
Joker
Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 Film Reviews,Long before it was released Todd Phillips’s Joker was shaping as the most controversial film this year in the United States. The big sticking point is the portrayal of the famous super villain as a sad, mentally-disturbed loser driven to breaking point by a series of unhappy breaks that would have shredded Job’s fortitude. Arthur […]
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Thursday, September 26th, 2019 Film Reviews,Guillermo del Toro may not have planted his considerable bulk in the director’s chair for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but his fingerprints are everywhere. The film is a collection of classic horror scenarios with an undercurrent of social history. It’s scary but not-too-scary, a few gruesome moments but no buckets of gore. […]
Ad Astra
Thursday, September 19th, 2019 Film Reviews,In James Gray’s movies characters seem to act as if they were in a novel, indulging in an inordinate amount of self-reflection. It may, therefore, have been inevitable that the director would eventually set a film in space where there is no limit to introspective opportunities. Ad Astra (Latin for “to the stars”) introduces us to […]
Downton Abbey (the movie)
Thursday, September 12th, 2019 Film Reviews,While the world had a collective orgasm over the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018, Julian Fellowes would have been enjoying his own private celebration. After six highly successful seasons of the TV series, Downton Abbey, Fellowes could see the Royal nuptials creating a highly receptive environment for his next […]
The Kitchen
Thursday, September 5th, 2019 Film Reviews,2019 may go down as the year in which female directors gained a lasting foothold in the movie business. Counting this week, four of the past eight films reviewed in this column have been made by women. I can’t recall anything like this ratio in previous years, where one in ten is a more likely […]
Dogman
Wednesday, August 28th, 2019 Film Reviews,Mention Italy and most of us think of Rome, Florence or Venice – cities rich in antiquities, overrun by tourists. Villaggio Coppola, near Castel Volturno – the setting of Matteo Garrone’s Dogman – is not that sort of place. A failed resort town north of Naples, it has become a desolate camp for African refugees and […]
The Nightingale
Thursday, August 22nd, 2019 Film Reviews,Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale won the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, but made headlines because an enraged Italian film critic shouted abuse from the audience. This is not the only place the film has proved controversial, with viewers walking out of screenings at the Sydney Film Festival, complaining about “gratuitous violence”. The […]
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Friday, August 16th, 2019 Film Reviews,Quentin Tarantino is the flawed genius of contemporary cinema. As a director he has such an assured touch that almost three hours of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood slip by in no time at all. The flaw lies in his love of extreme violence that leaves a nasty taste, no matter how much we […]