New Movies

It would be far too easy to sneer, mock and feel a little exasperated by its saccharine sweet narrative, but Bill Holderman's new romantic comedy Book Club remains one of the most groundbreaking films of its genre, regardless of how contrived or predictable it might seem to some. Staring Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen as members of a book club who find a new lease of life thanks to the introduction some unlikely new reading material,...

Sheila Hancock plays the eponymous, Edie in this drab and slow moving film about a woman slowly moving. We see Edie in the first instance as a carer for her frail, elderly husband, George who seems to be nearly completely incapacitated. Her life as we first see it appears to be draining, lacking joy and not filled with the traditional things a potential Grandparents’ life should be filled with such as laughter, fun and love and it is a bleak...

At the beginning of This is Congo a solider says that according to God’s will growing up in the Congo is paradise, but according to man’s will it is misery. The Congo is indeed a beautiful country and this can clearly be seen in the luscious green landscapes of director Daniel McCabe’s documentary. Conflict has engulfed The Congo for more than 20 years with rebel forces constantly at war with the government. Of the 50 rebel groups that can be...

Perhaps one of the most inspiring things about Nora Twomey's Oscar nominated first feature animation The Breadwinner is how female it is in it all its aspects. Adapted from Canadian writer Deborah Ellis’s best selling Young Adult novel of the same name, and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, the film offers one of the most heartening stories you are likely to come across this year, and is further elevated by the simplicity of the means used to tell it. The...

Adapted by Ian McEwan from his novel of the same name, On Chesil Beach follows newlyweds Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle) as they honeymoon on the English coast. It is rather drab by modern standards – the beach consisting mostly of pebbles and the hotel resembling something from Fawlty Towers – but for 1962, the year the film is predominately set in, could legitimately be described as exotic. Through flashbacks we see their upbringings – Florence grew up in a...

With Avengers: Infinity War still breaking box office records around the world, one could be forgiven for wanting a little respite from big epic superhero productions, even if it is from one which purports to pastiche and subvert this very genre. However, whether we like it or not, Deadpool 2 is here and with it we see the return of a particular brand of crude and immature humour which is guaranteed to break any record set by its predecessor. That...

Mansfield 66/67 focuses on the last two years of the Hollywood bombshell’s life and the documentary presents a slightly odd portrayal with much of it focusing on the salacious newspaper column inches that surrounded Mansfield’s final days and her relationship with the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton Lavey. The documentary opens with a title card stating that the film is a “true story based on rumor and hearsay” which is true as there is a line of actual...

In the summer of 1976, two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, aided by 2 members of the West German Revolutionary Cells group, hijacked an Air France flight heading from Tel Aviv to Paris and took its 250 passengers hostages. The group then forced the plane’s mostly French crew to fly its passengers to Entebbe in Uganda, where it was met by the country’s self-proclaimed president for life, the notorious Idi Amin Dada, who then worked...

An audience will have a more involving experience watching That Good Night going in knowing that this was the last film of legendary actor John Hurt. Death is on the horizon throughout the film, as Hurt plays terminally ill screenwriter Ralph looking to reconcile with his estranged son (Max Brown) and his partner (Erin Richards) before heading off to the great beyond. What hobbles That Good Night is how uninvolving the whole venture feels. The score hammers home how twee...