Women Talking

There are some movies that demand your attention. The trailer for Women Talking has that urgency. Not telling too much about the content, all you know is that this is about some great actresses in a bleached-coloured movie, the marketing is perfect. Sadly, once you enter the cinema to view this, you find that this…

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania

There currently seems to be a backlash against Marvel and its cinematic universe. Reading the reviews of their latest and 31st movie, you would be led to believe that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an absolute disaster. It’s not. It might not be up there with Avengers: Endgame, which seems to be the height…

Magic Mike: Last Dance

Before we start looking at the latest in the Magic Mike series, Last Dance, I have to say that I am obviously not the target audience for these movies, but I really enjoyed the first two movies. Unfortunately, this new edition does for the first two movies what Staying Alive does for Saturday Night Fever,…

The Fabelmans

Lockdown obviously brought out memories for some filmmakers. Kenneth Branagh took us to his hometown in Belfast, while Sam Mendes told us tales of his mother and his love of cinema with Empire of Light. Now Steven Spielberg has joined this new cinematic universe with The Fabelmans, a fictionalized account of the director’s early years…

The Whale

It is one of the most talked about movies of the year. It has given a former Hollywood star his best role in years. It’s from a director who often produces controversial and diversive films. It has been lauded with awards and award nominations. Yet does it manage to match the hype? Is it the…

Babylon

I am a huge admirer of director Damien Chazelle. His previous films have all been in my top 20 best movies of the year. Whiplash was extraordinary. La La Land I fell in love with, and First Man was a visual treat. Now we get Babylon, a breathtaking, roller-coaster ride through the early days of…

Tár

The thought of watching a 2-hour 37-minute drama about a female concert conductor with an odd title may not be the most inviting thing you will hear. However, forget about the subject matter, for this is an extraordinary piece of cinema from a director whose last film, Little Children, was made 16 years ago. It…

Till

Be warned. There is a lot of crying in Till. And rightly so, as this is a powerful, shocking and emotional tale based on the true story of a mother desperately trying to bring to justice the men who lynched her 14-year-old son. This is not an easy film to sit through, as it tells…

Corsage

There has been a lot of interest in Empress Elizabeth of Austria recently. At least five TV and film productions have been produced of late, including this, Corsage, which follows the year of the popular Empress as she approaches her 40th birthday. Yet for those unfamiliar with the lady, and while this looks magnificent and…

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel Pinocchio, has been a source of many a film adaptation. Disney’s 1940 version is probably the most famous, although their recent remake by Robert Zemeckis is a pointless exercise. Now, merely months after that version, Academy award-wining director Guillermo del Toro has delivered a stop-motion animated film that takes the premise…

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Rian Johnson is a man who has the perfect answer for his critics. After he was slated for making the second in the new Star Wars trilogy, The Last Jedi, Johnson made Knives Out, an old-fashioned whodunnit with a delicious cast and a lead character who could easily be called the new Hercules Poirot. The…

The Menu

A few weeks ago, we had the satire Triangle of Sadness, which depicted the rich and wealthy having a time on board a luxury yacht. Now we have The Menu, a perfect companion to the movie, as mentioned earlier, in which we have an exclusive restaurant for the super-rich, which turns out to be a…