Tag: Film
-
Ocean’s 8 Review – All jewel, no heist
Here’s the thing about Steven Soderbergh, the director of this decade’s Ocean’s 11-13. He’s not a very cool filmmaker. Sure, his films are cool, and as he’s grown they’ve only become more effortlessly so. But the way he approaches them is like watching a masterclass in restraint. He is interested in the primacy of the…
-
Hereditary Review – Sad times
There’s a lot of grief in Hereditary and none of its characters know where to put it. It opens on the funeral of this family’s matriarchal grandmother. Toni Collette’s Annie struggles through her speech at the alter, trying to reconcile her mother’s abusive personality with the weight of her loss. Like, when the feelings that…
-
McQueen Review – Corporate art
It must be hard being extraordinary. It’s like once the world has singled you out as being so, there’s no escaping it. All of a sudden your hours are not yours, your living becomes an act of public service. I guess everyone deals with it in their own way. It seems easier the more populist…
-
Ismaël’s Ghosts Review – More haunting than haunted
Now I haven’t seen any of Arnaud Desplechin’s other films. Maybe I should have. Maybe it would have prepared me a little better, the trailer certainly did an inefficient job of that. I thought it would be one of those French flicks that one could comfortably nap through, man on holiday with his partner at…
-
My Friend Dahmer Review – More cereal than serial
When the title comes up at the end of My Friend Dahmer saying that the man would go on to murder 17 people over the course of the next 20 years it feels like a punchline. The film ain’t been particularly cagey about the young leads predilections. We see him in his the shed where…
-
The Breadwinner Review – Concentrated melancholy
You expect children’s animated films to be a little sad don’t you? A little salt to balance out the sugar, enough melancholy to allow our spirits to be lifted later on. Nobody expects the death of Anna and Elsa’s parents to be the entire trade of Frozen, they’re just another dash of something in the…
-
Solo: A Star Wars Story Review – A studied affair
I’m telling you, I knew that Alden Ehrenreich would be a great Han Solo from the start. Maybe I was more confident on the performance that he would turn out under the originally slated directorial duo; but I was certain that there could be no level of charm that the man who brought us Hobie…
-
Deadpool 2 Review – Reference material
I’ve been struggling on the how of criticising Deadpool 2 (what no witty subtitle?) for just about a week now. Not because there’s loads to criticise, or even that I really disliked it. No, the problem lies in its relationship to itself, or more accurately Deadpool’s relationship to the entire construct that surrounds him.
-
Redoubtable (Godard Mon Amour) Review – Nouvelle (but) Vague
It’s a question that we don’t really got to think about too much anymore. What if your idol turned out to be a big old shit? Like, not just gross in the egregious ways that have sprung wild into our consciousness this past year but just an all round shit. A pretentious, self-important, uncommunicative asshole.…
A Grand Quiet 