Tag: drama
Don’t Worry Darling
Friday, September 30th, 2022 Film Reviews,Don’t worry darling, you can look it up when you get home. This is the best advice I can offer to those who walk out of Olivia Wilde’s much-discussed movie, wondering what on earth it was all about. No film this year has been more thoroughly picked over by the gossip columnists, following reports of […]
The Quiet Girl
Friday, September 2nd, 2022 Film Reviews,Before I sat down to watch The Quiet Girl, I was told, over and again, it was “a beautiful film”. Regardless of the professional cynicism weekly reviewing breeds, I can now report: It’s a beautiful film. Colm Bairéad’s debut feature has won major awards at international film festivals in Berlin and Dublin, triumphing in eight […]
Blaze
Friday, August 26th, 2022 Film Reviews,It was inevitable that Del Kathryn Barton’s debut feature, Blaze, would gather a swag of rave responses. Every new Australian film, no matter how bleak, depressing or sadistic, finds plenty of people willing to sing its praises. Too often this compulsive need to support the local product only helps perpetuate the artistic mediocrity that has […]
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Thursday, August 18th, 2022 Film Reviews,Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is that rare cinematic beast – a two-hander. The very nature of the cinema prompts filmmakers to stuff plays with extra scenes and characters when adapted for the screen. The worry is that audiences will feel bored by long conversations between two people, or miss the usual […]
Nope
Friday, August 12th, 2022 Film Reviews,Jordan Peel has enjoyed a meteoric rise from the margins to the mainstream in the space of only three features. Peel’s debut effort, Get Out (2017), had all the hallmarks of a cult classic. An off-beat zombie movie with a political subtext, it gave a dark, satirical twist to those racial anxieties that have divided […]
Full Time & Juniper
Saturday, August 6th, 2022 Film Reviews,If you’ve been to Paris and not experienced a demonstration or strike, you’ve missed one of the quintessentially French cultural experiences. Perhaps it’s a legacy of the Revolution, but Parisians have never been shy about taking their grievances to the streets. It’s tremendously stirring for those doing the marching and chanting, but a pain for […]
The Forgiven
Friday, July 29th, 2022 Film Reviews,No-one is ever really “forgiven” in a film scripted and directed by John Michael McDonagh, or his brother, Martin. Like the Coens or Jim Jarmusch, the McDonaghs specialise in overturning the cinema’s age-old storytelling conventions. In a James Bond movie, for instance, a large part of the audience’s pleasure comes from watching the same predictable […]
Lost Illusions
Friday, July 1st, 2022 Film Reviews,Everything is taxed, everything is sold, everything is manufactured, even success. […]
A Hero
Friday, June 3rd, 2022 Film Reviews,Iranian director, Asghar Farhadi, has forged an international reputation with a cinema of complex moral dilemmas. It’s a defining characteristic of Iranian movies in general, partly as a result of oppressive censorship that restricts the range of subjects and treatments available to filmmakers. The best directors have learned how to work within state-imposed limitations, making […]
Maigret
Friday, May 27th, 2022 Film Reviews,Not for the first time I feel as if my reading habits might be working against my ability to enjoy a film-as-film. The great Belgian crime writer, Georges Simenon (1903-89), is a personal addiction. By any standards, Simenon is one of the most remarkable authors of all time. He is said to have written in […]