You seem to wait ages for an Elvis biopic, and then two come along quickly. Actually, that’s not exactly true, for the second release, Priscilla, is more about his former wife than about the King. Yet, suppose Baz Luhrmann’s barn-storming 2022 film was about the showman. Sofia Coppola’s film is about the private life, or…
Tag: drama
One Life
Some films almost make themselves. You get a decent enough story and cast the right people in the roles, and all it takes is for a competent director to point the camera in the right direction. One Life is one such story. The tale of an ordinary man who did a most remarkable thing. It’s…
Napoleon
My partner’s son is an enormous Napoleon fan, having studied everything about the French leader. When asked what he thought about the film, he replied: “It’s weird!” I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. When asked if he could expand, he began listing all the inaccurate things about the history. We know this…
Eileen
Some films don’t work; you can almost forgive them for their flaws. Then some work so well you wonder where they are going and then deliver a flimsy ending that makes you want to boo the screen. Eileen is one such movie. It builds slowly, giving the audience a detailed character study brimming with style,…
Saltburn
Writer and director Emerald Fennell’s debut movie was the darkly comic Promising Young Woman, with Carey Mulligan as a woman who pretends to be drunk to ensnare men who are willing to take advantage of her. The film won Best Original Screenplay for Fennell. Now she is back with Saltburn, or what could be described…
Typist Artist Pirate King
It has taken writer and director Carol Morley six years to bring to the screen the story of Audrey Amiss, a woman suffering from severe mental health issues who was a hidden gem in the art world. Typist Artist Pirate King is a fictional tale of two women who may seem so different yet are…
The Burial
If there is one genre that suffers from cliches, it has to be the courtroom drama. Real courts rarely have as much drama, as many extended monologues or as many over-the-top moments as they do in the movies. Yet, they fascinate and often get the blood pressure rising with their levels of excitement and enjoyment….
The Great Escaper
At the prime of their successes, Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson were the darlings of British cinema. He was the king of action and adventure, many hits including The Italian Job, Zulu, the Harry Palmer movies, and The Man Who Would Be King. She was the Oscar-winning actress in Women in Love and…
The Creator
You have to give kudos nowadays when a director produces an entirely original blockbuster, not part of a franchise or reboot. That is precisely what director Gareth Edwards has done. Instead of heading down the easy option of producing something already out there, he has come up with The Creator, a science fiction action movie…
Dumb Money
Something extraordinary happened at the height of the pandemic in America. A videogame store became the focus of Wall Street when its shares went through the roof, all generated by a mild-mannered blogger and YouTuber. Dumb Money is a story told most simplistically by the director of I, Tonya and a cast that does a…
A Haunting in Venice
Hercule Poirot and his double moustache are back for a third thriller from Agatha Christie, and unlike Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, director, producer and star Kenneth Branagh has gone for a story not previously filmed, and in a sense, this is all the better for the movie, as this…
The Nun II
Do you remember the 2018 Conjuring spin-off, The Nun? No, neither do I. The film was obviously a success, otherwise Warner Bros wouldn’t produce this sequel, which continues the story set up in the original film. If you can’t remember that film, then you are going to be a little confused, for while this could…
Stu Loves Film 