Tag: thriller
All the Money in the World
Friday, January 5th, 2018 Film Reviews,Everything has a price. That’s the philosophy of life put forward by J.Paul Getty – not simply the richest man in the world in 1973, but allegedly the richest man that had ever lived. Getty applied the same principle when he sought to beat down the ransom demands of the gangsters who had kidnapped his […]
The Salesman
Friday, March 17th, 2017 Film Reviews,It seemed inevitable that Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman would win this year’s Oscar for best Foreign Language Film. When the Iranian director cancelled his trip to America in response to Donald Trump’s travel ban he touched the fickle hearts of Hollywood’s finest, with his physical absence proving more eloquent than any acceptance speech. The irony, […]
Miss Sloane
Friday, March 3rd, 2017 Film Reviews, Uncategorized,Last year there were more than 11,000 registered lobbyists in the Washington DC. US$11 billion was spent on this makeshift industry, with some large firms retaining more than a hundred operatives. This well-supplied army is engaged in a continuous assault on a mere 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 Senators. That’s roughly […]
Nocturnal Animals
Friday, November 11th, 2016 Film Reviews,If one had to nominate the most enviable person in the world today it would be hard to go past fashion designer, Tom Ford. Charming, handsome and successful, adored by the rich and powerful. It hardly seems fair that Ford should also possess an incredible talent as a writer and director. What does one do […]
Elle
Friday, October 28th, 2016 Film Reviews,Dutch director, Paul Verhoeven, is a master of electric shock therapy, and in Elle he’s on the job right away. The movie opens with the sounds of glass breaking, thumps and muffled screams. The camera comes creeping around a corner and we find ourselves witness to a vicious rape scene, as Isabelle Huppert struggles with […]
Goldstone
Friday, July 8th, 2016 Film Reviews,In Goldstone, Indigenous director, Ivan Sen, explores a new cinematic sub-genre. Let’s call it Outback Noir. Instead of darkened rooms and night clubs, the action takes place in the blazing Australian desert. Sen’s characters don’t sit at a bar with shadows from a Venetian blind falling over their faces, they squint in the glare of […]
Money Monster
Friday, June 3rd, 2016 Film Reviews,At a Q & A last week, after the premiere of Money Monster, director, Jodie Foster spoke about her admiration for the films of Sidney Lumet. It was no revelation as her movie has resounding echoes of two Lumet classics – Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Network (1976). There’s also a more-than-passing resemblance to Spike […]
Eye in the Sky
Thursday, March 17th, 2016 Film Reviews,“Something inherent in the necessities of successful action,’ wrote Joseph Conrad in Nostromo,’ carried with it the moral degradation of the idea.” He could be describing the contemporary ‘war on terror’, in which the efficient use of drones makes a mockery of the idea of the nobility of armed conflict. There’s nothing romantic about sending […]
Son of Saul
Thursday, February 25th, 2016 Film Reviews,Son of Saul is not the kind of film that will draw large, admiring audiences. Set in the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, it is the latest manifestation of the cinema’s morbid fascination with the Holocaust. It’s a topic that generates a pre-emptive sense of emotional fatigue, as there is only so much horror […]
The Revenant
Thursday, January 7th, 2016 Film Reviews,When he was receiving the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director at last year’s Academy Awards, Alejandro González Iñárritu, was already preoccupied with his next feature. He had begun planning The Revenant as early as 2011 but put it on hold when lead actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, was required for The Wolf of Wall Street. […]