When The Holdovers was advertised last year, I wasn’t very excited, but I was pleasantly surprised, and it became one of my favourite films. I had the same initial thoughts when watching the trailer for Black Bag. It was very underwhelming. I should have remembered the Alexander Payne comedy drama because Steven Soderbergh’s second film…
Tag: movies
The Last Showgirl
Las Vegas has been used as a backdrop to so many movies, mainly for the glitz and glamour. The Last Showgirl, from Gia Coppola, the granddaughter of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, has taken a different approach. This is a film about the death of old Vegas, with the kind of cabaret show that is…
I’m Still Here
One thing that cinema does so well is telling us about historical events that have either been forgotten or we knew little about. I didn’t know much about the Brazilian dictatorship in the early 1970s, but thanks to Walter Salles’s exceptional drama, I’m Still Here, I have become more aware. It also seems very appropriate…
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
It was 24 years ago that Helen Fielding’s singleton creation hit the big screen and became a massive success for fans of romantic comedies. Now, after three previous movies, Bridget Jones is back, with what has been reported to be the final episode in her misadventures with life and love in Mad About The Boy….
September 5
The events of the 1972 Olympics in Munich, in which 11 Israeli athletes were held hostage in the Olympic Village, are still one of the most shocking events in history. Yet it has become a distant memory, even though it has been the subject of films such as Steven Spielberg’s Munich and the Kevin MacDonald-directed…
Hard Truths
Mike Leigh is one of the UK’s most revered and influential film-makers. His style allows his cast to work on their characters in a more free-forming manner where the script comes out of improvisation. In recent years, he has focused on historical events, like Peterloo and Mr Turner, but he has returned to the storytelling…
The Brutalist
How does a three-hour and 35-minute movie about the birth of an architectural style grab you for an evening’s slice of entertainment? Before you say absolutely not, then think again. The Brutalist, one of the main front-runners for this year’s Oscars, is an epic drama that is so deep with topics, so impressive in the…
Babygirl
You can tell that the holiday family movies have been replaced by award-longing films when the opening week of January has proven with Nosferatu, We Live in Time and A Real Pain. Now we have Babygirl, a movie that has had a lot of word of mouth, mainly because of the subject matter of S&M….
A Real Pain
Last week, we had We Live in Time, which worked thanks to the electric chemistry between the film’s leads, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. This week, another film that relies on perfect chemistry between the leads but in very different ways. Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain is a comedy-drama focusing on cousins on a journey…
We Live In Time
Romance dramas are complicated to pull off. You need actors who seem to have genuine chemistry. You need a script that is powerful and heartwarming and, at the same time, manages to stay clear of being too sentimental. You also need a director who can balance the touching with the heartbreaking without making it too…
Better Man
Imagine the scene. You have decided to make a film about the early life and career of Robbie Williams. You are pitching the idea of the troubled singer to studio executives, and you are going through the motions of the story, but you leave the most critical part till last. You don’t want Robbie to…
Mufasa: The Lion King
In 2019, we had the unnecessary live-action/computer-generated version of Disney’s massive hit, The Lion King. A remake that wasn’t asked for. Now we get Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the 2019 film that, once again, no one seemed to ask for. Disney isn’t using the title as a cash cow, are they? On…
