Tag: Three Stars
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Skate Kitchen Review – Treading the boards
The way that Crystal Moselle shoots skateboarding feels a lot like anybody else would shoot flying. It is loose and liberating, the camera gliding alongside as they perform, humanity captured in the shared joy of movement. The drama of Skate Kitchen comes in the fact that this promise is not one held up by society.…
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King of Thieves Review – Well aged
Say what you will about Michael Caine, at eighty five he’s still plugging away. Even if nowadays people are giving him less to do, he’s still turning up when called. Steady hand on the tiller, and if the audience can overcome the accent then they follow that man anywhere. Or maybe that’s just the British.
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Crazy Rich Asians Review – Conspicuous consumption
There is nothing more powerful in this world than a determined Michelle Yeoh. In the prologue to this film, arriving rain drenched to some fancy London hotel whose staff refuse to acknowledge her reservation, you wonder how these men are not rendered dead under her gaze. She has a better way to exact revenge though,…
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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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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…
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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…
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The Young Karl Marx Review – Well, it’s better than that Young Morrissey joint
So, the first time we see Marx and Engels meet in The Young Karl Marx, Raoul Peck has to two of them sitting at far ends of this elaborate drawing room. Marx is trying to demand payment for his last two essays from his publisher, Engels is arrived to the man’s house as his patrician…
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Review – Island something
So, as far as romantic heroes go, island pig farmer has gotta be roughly in the middle of the pack right? Like, it’s all the necessary parts of rugged and parochial but slightly elevated. Nobody wants to fall for the dullard with a field full of leeks. And a horse breeder would obviously be some…
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Rampage Review – Ham meets hammier
Y’all know, maybe waiting for a while before writing a Rampage review was a good call. Stops me from making any embarrassing mistakes. I really liked this flick, y’know. It were pulpy and anonymous in that way that franchiseless action movies (and the Dark Universe) manage to be.
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Ghost Stories Review – Worse than the sum of its parts
Ghost Stories as a movie finds itself in a sticky predicament. The play, also written and directed by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman is presented as an investigation, partly this paranormal investigator looking over the most mysterious cases of his life, but also an investigation into horror tropes. It’s particularly concerning older horror flicks I…
A Grand Quiet 