Tag: Opinion
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The Miseducation of Cameron Post Review –Not much learning here
I didn’t cry at all watching The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which seems to suggest that there’s something wrong with the film. Given my background I was sure that I would be a wreck the entire way through. But Desiree Akhavan is not interested in mining the story of young queer folks in enrolled in…
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American Animals Review – No harm, no fowl
Bart Layton, writer and director of American Animals released his first feature in 2012 to critical acclaim. The Imposter was a true crime documentary that no doubt would have been huge if it came out a couple of years later, after the true crime documentary craze exploded. The film accounts through interview and reconstruction the…
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Cold War Review – There’s warmth at the centre
Cold War opens on a sequence of two musicians travelling around Poland in a beat up van, recoding the folk music of those who had just survived the horrors of World War Two. They sit under on porches and in bars and around breakfast tables, inviting those who have recently lost so much to perform.…
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The Children Act Review – Not as well as you’d like
The problem you encounter casting Stanley Tucci in literally any role is that he’s too preternaturally charming. You have to work against the unstoppable force of nature that he represents for us to do anything but love him. The Children Act unfortunately, is nothing but blandly directed and has to struggle against Ian McEwan’s second…
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Searching Review – Static action
Searching has got me thinking about how we interface with contemporary technology in the aesthetic properties of storytelling. Earlier this year we saw Soderbergh’s Unsane which used the burnt out visual quality of mobile phone footage to great effect in building up its unsettling and uncanny sense of place. This summer came Stephen Susco’s horror…
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Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation Review – Drac Pack
There’s little more that could be said about Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation that isn’t said in the first shot of the trailer below. One of the best shots of the year, and quite possibly all time. Like, I’ve gone back and watched it over five times while writing these opening sentences and I’ve laughed…
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Mission: Impossible – Fallout Review — Ethan Hunt, madman
I don’t know exactly how it is where you are, but in the UK cinema isn’t generally a participatory sport. Outside of comedy or horror there’s very few acceptable reactions one is allowed to have. I’ve been to screenings with the director present where the audience were too British to have the courtesy to applaud.…
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Leave No Trace Review – Nature’s wander
I read Walden first when I was a teenager and assumed that because it was written in this elaborate, if occasionally beautiful, way there must have been something insightful in there. You know, minimalism, simplicity, getting in touch with our roots. Society is square anyway, to hell with all the people who tell you what…
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First Reformed Review – Protestant guilt
I remember a point in my life when I were sure of things. Then I remember a point where I weren’t sure of anything. Then I think I realised that in an atmosphere of uncertainty, I could choose my own truths and in the acknowledgement of those the world had the possibility to become a…
A Grand Quiet 