THE FACT THAT James Ivory’s screenplay for Call Me By Your Name got this year’s Oscar nod seems like the Academy Awards was trying to bend over backwards for LGBTI issues. The irony is that this pretty, pretty film, which goes under the guise of being LGBTI-sensitive, nay […]
VINCENT VAN GOGH spent 37 tortured years on this planet. He was easily one of the most prolific artists the modern world has seen, but he’s also a key figure in visual culture because he has become emblematic of the popular cliché which reflects on a poor man […]
YOU MIGHT SIT there in the auditorium watching Guillermo del Toro’s film The Shape of Water, and quietly begin to think you’ve stepped into a time-zone. This beautifully crafted fantasy love story is like a rendition of 1950s schlock horror tradition ramped up all the way. It’s a […]
THE MESSY BEAST of the print media, in all its procedural glory and inky mechanisms comes under scrutiny in this completely magnificent Steven Spielberg film that deals with the notorious Pentagon papers. Featuring Meryl Streep opposite Tom Hanks in the leads, it tells the story of the Washington […]
THE CHALLENGE OF telling a complicated story in bold brush strokes in such a way that detail and nuance are not part of the casualties is a stiff one. The creative team behind Molly’s Game has achieved almost the impossible with this finely honed piece of filmography that […]
THERE’S SOMETHING IRREVOCABLY escapist in an Agatha Christie murder mystery. Not for moral reasons, but for the sleight of hand, the twist in the tale and the characters that populate her stories. This remake of the 1974 classic film, featuring a host of enormous names, from Sean Connery […]
CRUELTY, HUNTING, MAKING money and having fun at anyone’s expense are some of the values central to Beatriz at Dinner. Others take a holistic, meditative line. Told with clarity, it is a film that is grown up in sense of balance and of narrative. Astonishingly fine performances by […]
IT’S MID 17TH century Amsterdam and the money making pastime of predicting the rarity of a tulip from its bulb is all the rage. Picture the hustle and bustle and noise of a 20th century stock exchange, or a nineteenth century auction, toss in a bit of Victorian […]
PICTURE THE VISUAL clichés of Victorian England with all its beautiful costumes, complicated pathways and wooden buildings. While you’re doing this, don’t forget to add in its dire poverty, abject filth and propensity toward child labour. It’s a complicated series of images which this filmic team, headed by […]
AN UTTERLY COMPELLING reflection on the terrifying reality of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the value of an editor, Danny Strong’s film Rebel in the Rye starts off with sheer charisma, a great sense of authenticity and a tough confrontation with what it takes to be a published […]
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