Cannes 2022 Review: Final Cut

★★★★☆ 2017’s Japanese zombie comedy, One Cut of the Dead, became a word-of-mouth sensation on the festival circuit. Boasting a clever film-within-a-film setup, it revealed itself to be anything but the same old zombie apocalypse yarn, more a charming celebration of guerrilla filmmaking, artistic creativity, thinking on your feet and the little miracles that happen on a beleaguered film set. Fast forward to 2022, and Michel Hazanavicius’ wonderful French remake has opened the 75th Cannes Film Festival. The Oscar-winning filmmaker...

Film Review: Holy Spider

★★★★★ In the Iranian city of Mashhad, between 2000-2001, a serial killer murdered 16 prostitutes. Upon capture, Saeed Azimi told the authorities he was doing the work of God, cleaning his home city of vice and moral corruption. Many in the country appeared to believe him and rallied against his conviction, turning the case into a national phenomenon. Ali Abbasi’s grim drama about predatory evil dressed up as a religious cause begins as a textbook Hitchcockian homage before transforming into...

Avengers Endgame: Spoiler free review

★★★☆☆ We left the Avengers in a cloud of dust that used to be their friends and fellow heroes, snapped out of existence along with half the living creatures in the universe. We meet them again a few weeks later, attempting to pick up the pieces, to try once more to retrieve the infinity stones from Thanos and reverse his seemingly final victory. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced a few very good films, some very bad ones and a...

Roundup Reviews: Greta and Red Joan

Greta ★★★☆☆ Dir: Neil Jordan When Frances McCullen (Chloe Grace Moretz) returns a handbag she found on the subway, she becomes friends with a lonely older woman named Greta (Isabelle Huppert). When she discovers some disturbing things about Greta and tries to cut off contact, Frances finds that her new friend isn’t so easy to shake. Neil Jordan’s first film since the underseen Byzantium is a bit of a throwback. 90s nostalgia is in at the moment, and this film...

Hellboy: And to Hell he can go

★☆☆☆☆ It’s probably best to establish, right up front, my engagement with Mike Mignola’s character, Hellboy. I never read the comics, so my only knowledge of the character comes from the two films made by Guillermo Del Toro in 2004 and 2008. I understand that Mignola was happy with them, but I have no idea whether those films or this one cleave closer to his work. Nor do I especially care. A film adaptation is a work distinct from a...

Wild Rose: She can do anything

Glaswegian Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) has just got out of prison after a 12 month sentence. Returning home, she’s greeted by her mother Marion (Julie Walters), who has been looking after her two young kids. She takes a job as a cleaner, but all Rose-Lynn really wants is to go to Nashville to be a country singer. When her employer Susannah (Sophie Okonedo) offers to help, it seems that opportunities might be opening up, but also that life might get...

The Week in Movies: February 18th – 24th 2019

Happy Death Day 2 UDir: Christopher LandonIt would take only two words to sum up the concept of the first Happy Death Day: “Groundhog Slay”. Taking the time looping concept of the classic Bill Murray comedy and applying it to a homage to post Scream comedy inflected 90s slashers, the initial entry in this now newly minted franchise was warmly received and a sleeper hit. For me, while it had going for it a versatile and highly entertaining final girl...

The Week in Movies: January 7th – 13th 2019

KinDir: Josh and Jonathan BakerI talk about the way films are marketed, or rather mis-marketed, a lot. Outside the cinemas, UK distribution is awash with films you might never notice have been released. Some you might have heard of, except they got released with new titles. Others, like Kin, have DVD art that makes them look like something completely different. At its heart, Kin is about brothers. 14 year old Eli (Myles Truitt) is adopted, and his older ex-con adoptive...

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