Tag: drama
The Banshees of Inisherin & A Man Called Otto
Thursday, December 29th, 2022 Film Reviews,It must be a great relief for Colin Farrell to finally be in a film in which he can speak with an Irish accent. A tragi-comedy of insularity, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin is set on a island off the west coast of Ireland. There is no actual place called Inisherin, but one assumes […]
Triangle of Sadness & The Lost King
Friday, December 23rd, 2022 Film Reviews,There’s a kind of shameful pleasure in seeing one’s own prejudices played out on screen, and this is precisely what we get from the films of Ruben Östlund. The Swedish director has struck the right note at Cannes, where his two most recent features – The Square in 2017, and this year, Triangle of Sadness, […]
Stars at Noon
Friday, December 9th, 2022 Film Reviews,When the teenaged Margaret Qualley appeared as one of the Manson gang in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), it was easy to predict we’d be seeing a lot of this young actor. That prediction has come true – literally – in Stars at Noon, a film in which she spends much […]
She Said
Friday, December 2nd, 2022 Film Reviews,Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of film production company, Miramax, was the driving force behind a string of Hollywood hits. From his prison cell in California, where he is currently serving a 23-year sentence for sexual offences, Weinstein must have taken cold comfort from the poor box office that greeted She Said, which garnered only US $2.2 […]
The Menu
Saturday, November 26th, 2022 Film Reviews,There is an entire genre of films devoted to food and restaurants, but The Menuis something different. A foodie horror movie, it’s also a comedy of the very blackest hue – darker than caviar and ladled out in equally parsimonious spoonfuls. It’s not the first feature that has remorselessly satirised trendy people paying a fortune […]
Armageddon Time & The Wonder
Friday, November 11th, 2022 Film Reviews,Armageddon Time owes its title to Ronald Reagan, shown on a TV set in this film, speculating: “we might be the generation that sees Armageddon.” I was thinking of a reggae song covered by The Clash, but that was Armagideon Time, which also gets a quick burst in this movie. Either way, it’s not good. […]
The Woman King
Friday, November 4th, 2022 Film Reviews,Viola Davis is known as a character actor who strives to bring psychological depth to the roles she plays. Who would have imagined that all Viola really wanted to do was get a cool aircut, dress up in battle gear, and go around waving a huge sword? This is pretty much what she does in […]
Decision to Leave
Friday, October 21st, 2022 Film Reviews,Among Korean directors, Bong Joon-ho achieved worldwide fame when Parasitewon the Oscar for best Picture in 2019, but one should not ignore the claims of his contemporary, Park Chan-wook. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Park won the award for Best Director, while his new film, Decision to Leave, has been selected as South Korea’s […]
The Night of the 12th
Friday, October 14th, 2022 Film Reviews,Never has a whodunnit been less dependent on suspense than Dominik Moll’s The Night of the 12th. At the very beginning we are told the French Criminal Investigation Department opens 800 murder investigations every year. “Some are never resolved,” we read. “This film is about one of these.” Even though we know this is the […]
Amsterdam
Saturday, October 8th, 2022 Film Reviews,It’s hard to pinpoint where Amsterdam starts to go wrong, but once that sinking feeling sets in, it never leaves. I’ve come to think of David O. Russell as one of the very best contemporary American directors, but this film swiftly leaves the shining path and wanders off into the wilderness. It’s 1930, and we […]