Film Review: Crimes of the Future

★★★★★ Humans are changing. Humans are … evolving. In David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, people have started to grow extra organs in their bodies, whose functions are yet to be discerned. Some, like Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), have used this biological development for a new type of performance art. Along with Caprice (Lea Seydoux), a former surgeon turned fellow artist, Tenser allows his collaborator to cut open his body with a biotechnological machine, probe around and extract tumours and...

Film Review: Three Thousand Years of Longing

★★☆☆☆ George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) is such a tedious grind from start to finish, it feels three thousand years long in running time. A ponderous and flat entry in the Australian maestro’s slim filmography, which outside of the Mad Max franchise has always been a bit hit and miss, this homage to storytelling and the power of love is a cringey dud. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is a narratologist. That mean she spends her life studying...

Film Review: Elvis

★★★★☆ There is such a thing as too famous. Elvis Presley, king of rock ‘n’ roll, was too famous. In Baz Luhrmann’s excellent new film, the life of the 20th century icon of American culture and music is viewed through the eyes of unreliable narrator, the so-called "Colonel" Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). A former conman and freak show operator turned music promoter, this thoroughly mysterious chap singlehandedly turned the unknown Elvis into the biggest music star on the planet. Elvis...

Final Thoughts on Cannes 2022

The 75th edition of the Festival de Cannes has drawn to a close. A return to a semblance of normalcy after two years of global horror caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it was time again to congregate at the church of cinema and enjoy, or hate, but as long as we debate, the selection of films presented. Look, the festival can be rightly or wrong criticised, nit-picked to death over real matters and extremely trivial ones. It can be held...

Film Review: Pacifiction

★★☆☆☆ Spanish director Albert Serra’s so-called "anti-thriller" takes place in French Polynesia. In it, the island’s High Commissioner, De Roller (Benoit Magimel), begins to hear rumours about France resuming nuclear testing in the area. He does see signs of movement too; engineers showing up, the navy, but isn’t sure if he’s misinterpreting their presence. The native islanders get antsy and pester De Roller for information. It’s a headache De Roller doesn’t need and he's sensitive to French Polynesia being a...

Film Review: Top Gun: Maverick

★★★★☆ Are you ready to feel the need for speed again? Top Gun: Maverick (2022), arriving 36 years after the Tony Scott original, is a fly into the danger zone you won’t forget in a hurry. While it’s had more delays than a Ryanair flight to Malaga, the wait is definitely worth it. If when Covid hit, Hollywood studios panicked, and put tentpole blockbusters out as Video On Demand releases, Cruise, as the film’s producer and a powerful industry figure,...

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...

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