Film

By Linda Marric First of all let’s start with the good news, because despite earlier misgiving about yet another outing, there is no doubt that the fifth film in the Pirates of The Caribbean franchise is far more coherent than its most recent predecessor. Yes Salazar’s Revenge is way more knowing and far better crafted than On Stranger Tides (2011), but that is not to say that this latest instalment brings anything new or original to the usual seafaring shenanigans....

There was a moment of brief dismay during this year’s Oscar ceremony, when it suddenly looked as if a brutish form of populism would once again break our optimism. For many, the awards were already a foregone conclusion, the early momentum swinging, as expected, towards Damien Chazelle’s delightful La La Land & Barry Jenkins’ compelling Moonlight. So when Mel Gibson’s barbarous wartime blockbuster Hacksaw Ridge earned a surprise win for Best Editing, it momentarily planted a thought that – despite...

Comedian Demetri Martin once said that “if you put on flip flops, you’re saying: ‘Hope I don’t get chased today’.” Growing up in Oakland, where just taking a wrong turn in a bad neighbourhood could lead to a beating, or worse, Brandon (Jahking Guillory), a spindly & sensitive soul in his mid-teens, lives an impoverished existence where the girls ignore him and even his two best friends, Albert and Rico (Christopher Jordan Wallace & Christopher Meyer), pick on him. On...

By Michael McNulty We fade in from black and are travelling down a dark country road. Trees with stiff, twisted branches flash by. The accompanying carnival music is beautifully eerie, conjuring images of merry- go-rounds and subtly hinting at the circular existence of the lives of the characters we are about to be introduced to in George Franju’s classic film, Les Yeux Sans Visage. A woman drives a Citröen 2CV, her face a canvas of anxiety. In the back there...

By Linda Marric It isn’t often that you come across a factual feature film which is capable of hitting its audiences the way Rahul Jain’s Machines does. The film which offers a look into to the intricacies of modern day labour, not only manages to wake in its viewers a sense of solidarity towards its subjects, but it also manages to ignite feelings of anger and dismay at the dehumanising conditions they have grown accustomed to at the hands of...

By Linda Marric King Arthur: Legend of the Sword or to give it its full name, “lock stock and a whole load of Arthurian cockney nonsense”, is the latest offering from Guy Ritchie. Directed by Ritchie himself and staring Charlie Hunnam, King Arthur is not so much an epic fantasy adventure, but more of a mammoth production of boorish, noisy and not to mention unnecessarily silly going-ons. Despite earlier misgivings, the film opens with a spectacular CGI infused battle which...

By James McAllister “Our system is rotten. It doesn’t reward honest politicians who vote with their conscious; it rewards rats, who are willing to sell out their country to keep their noses in the trough.” Miss Sloane may have been made back in early 2016, when the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency was more an outlandish nightmare than a chilling reality, but some 15 months on, its release could not be timelier. In a new era of ignorance, here...

By Michael McNulty Bronco Bullfrog was the first of only three features directed by Barney Platts-Mills. He was 25 and working with a group of largely non-professional actors, some of whom were sourced from Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop. Produced on a modest budget of £ 18,000, the film featured at Cannes as part of the parallel competitive section, Semaine de la Critique, where it picked up rave reviews. However, its distributors were unsure how to handle the film and it...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain Set in the ‘Vegas of the North’, Away follows Ria (Juno Temple) and Joseph (Timothy Spall) who have both escaped to Blackpool in an attempt to distance themselves from the problems in their lives. Ria is hiding from her abusive boyfriend, while Joseph is trying to cope with the death of his wife, and as the story progresses they form an unlikely friendship. The film is told in a split time frame in a poor attempt...