Tag: drama
Mank
Friday, April 16th, 2021 Film Reviews,Herman J. Mankiewicz was the kind of character Hollywood couldn’t make up. On the contrary, it was Mankiewicz who made it up for Hollywood. Once the highest-paid scriptwriter in the business, ‘Mank’ is said to have worked on 95 movies, although he spent much of his time fixing other people’s scripts and often went uncredited. […]
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Friday, April 9th, 2021 Film Reviews,This year’s Academy Awards is shaping up as an unusually open event. From the eight nominees for Best Picture there are three by female directors, three more made for streaming platforms, with only a limited theatrical release. The directors are French, English, African-American, Korean-American and Chinese-American, with only three fitting the standard white male template. […]
The Father
Friday, April 2nd, 2021 Film Reviews,One rarely hears the adjective “Pinteresque” any more but it came surging to mind as I watched The Father. The edginess of Harold Pinter’s plays owed much to the way he incorporated elements of the Theatre of the Absurd (to use Martin Esslin’s wellknown term), without ever losing touch with plausible reality. In adapting his […]
French Exit
Friday, March 26th, 2021 Film Reviews,How you feel about French Exit will largely come down to your feelings about Michelle Pfeiffer – one of those timeless screen beauties with an army of rusted-on admirers. Pfeiffer dominates Azazel Jacobs’s offbeat comedy so completely that even when she isn’t on screen her presence can still be felt. Yet the cost of this […]
Judas and the Black Messiah
Saturday, March 20th, 2021 Film Reviews,“Fred Hampton” may not be a name that rings any bells, but after watching Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah you wont be forgetting it quickly. This historical drama of the 60s is driven by a memorable performance by Daniel Kaluuya in the role of the youthful Black Panther supremo. King’s theme, needless to […]
Alliance Française French Film Festival 2021
Saturday, March 13th, 2021 Film Reviews,Last year as the world went into lockdown the Alliance Française French Film Festival was nipped in the bud – or, as the French say, dans l’œuf – in the egg. It may have seemed a cruel blow to this ever-popular movie marathon but the egg had already hatched. For the rest of 2020 a […]
Nomadland
Friday, March 5th, 2021 Film Reviews,Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland has been racking up awards and rave reviews since it first appeared in the United States late last year. This week it took out Best Film and Best Director at the Golden Globes. It’s a movie in which almost nothing happens but the images and scenarios remain lodged in one’s mind for […]
Jewish International Film Festival 2021
Friday, February 26th, 2021 Film Reviews,No-one could ever accuse the Jewish International Film Festival of taking soft options. Most festivals choose to screen something suitably light-hearted on opening night but the 2021 JIFF was launched with Yaron Silberman’s Incitement, a film about the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Incitement was crammed with political dialogue and small, significant […]
Minari
Friday, February 19th, 2021 Film Reviews,At last year’s Oscars South Korea reaped the rewards for an investment in screen culture when Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite took out the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature. Parasite may be a hard act to follow but in 2021 Koreans are feeling optimistic about an entirely different kind […]
Another Round
Friday, February 12th, 2021 Film Reviews,Being known as the sexiest man in Denmark may be a dubious honour – it is, after all, a country of fewer than 6 million people. Nevertheless there are plenty of other places where Mads Mikkelsen’s charms are appreciated. Australia, for instance. Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round does not immediately show Mads at his strapping best. […]