Film

I was born in 1981 and while I was a fan in my childhood, I came of age as a movie nerd in the mid-90s. At a certain time, as far as I was concerned, Quentin Tarantino may as well have invented cinema. It wasn’t just his movies (though they were impossibly cool, all the more so because my friends and I weren’t old enough to watch them), it was Tarantino himself. The video store clerk who got his film...

Frances (Hazel Doupe) is from a traditional traveller family, and she’s always been a fighter. When she was nine, her pregnant mother was accidentally killed in a fight between the Garda and Frances’ dad Michael (Dara Devaney). In 1972 Frances is fifteen and even more determined to fight her own battles, despite her Dad’s insistence that it is men who should do the hitting for, and sometimes to, women. Fresh out of prison, Michael skips bail and goes on the...

Retrospekt is a drama from director Esther Rots, which comes nearly 10 years after her 2009 debut, Can Go Through Skin. The plot follows, Mette (Circé Lethem) a social worker who specialises in supporting female victims of domestic abuse, and her descent into danger by getting too close to a case she is handling. The action is told through a non-linear narrative that relies heavily on flashbacks and flash-forwards creating the sense that the film is an elaborate but horrifying jigsaw puzzle....

After decades spent in mostly supporting roles, legendry American actor Harry Dean Stanton reminds us of his talents in the low-key but thoughtful Lucky. 30 years on from Paris, Texas, which propelled Stanton to fame, he once again finds himself in the American desert in his final screen role before his death almost exactly a year ago. Known simply by his old nickname Lucky, Stanton plays an elder man at ease with life and comfortable with his daily routine. Each day he...

After a horrific accident at a rodeo competition, Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) must deal with his brain injuries and a life of mediocrity in rural South Dakota. I had the pleasure of speaking with Brady Jandreau prior to seeing The Rider, and it was a relief that director and writer Chloé Zhao was able to bring his humility and authenticity to the screen. Jandreau gives a powerful performance in this dedicated character study, which often so closely reflects his own affinity with...

There are three things that King of Thieves has to figure out before it’s getting a tan in Margate: First, you’ve got a story that most people watching already know the basic facts to, the 2015 Hatton Gardens robbery. An audience knowing the resolutions can sap the drama if you’re not being alert (also not helped by the existence of a previous film about this, 2017's The Hatton Garden Job). Second, the moment the event happened every man and his dog was saying it should...

“This movie is not an autobiography, but a fictional dramatization based on true characters and real events.  Facts and fiction have been mixed.  Scenes, dialogues, emotions, and thoughts of the characters reflect the maker’s imagination and should not be confused with reality.”  So begins Koen Mortier’s latest feature, Angel. Err…excuse me?   This is the truly bizarre start to a film that slips and stumbles its way through its 104-minute runtime.  Koen Mortier, who wrote the script based on the Dimitri...

She is the second Carry On stalwart to die within a week following the death of Liz Fraser, aged 88, last Thursday

Wood carving artist James O’Neal created the sculptor