Ben Faulkner takes a look back at this years cinema hot takes.
Album Review: Dave’s PSYCHODRAMA
“Stop all the pain. How do you stop all the pain?” Dave’s opens his debut album with an inquisition into his own mental health – and the next 51 minutes are spent encouraging the same self-evaluation from his listeners. Appending certain tracks with snippets of a therapy session, Dave leaves facetious hip-hop skits behind in […]
Sorry to Bother You – Review
If you’re still convinced the industry is stuck in an originality crisis, I’d like to grab your face and point it aggressively towards Sorry to Bother You – an urgent, shocking satire that balances wit and crushingly perceptive socioeconomic observations within one of the most original concepts of the year. Boots Riley directs Lakeith Stanfield’s […]
Review: Alt-J – REDUXER
Alt-J is back, with a dreamy reimagining of their 2017 project, RELAXER, charged with hip-hop, R&B, and escapism. Lomepal, Paigey Cakey, and Rejjie Snow are among an expansive list of features, which showcases different facets of rap, and different languages. This varied, passionate 11-track span succeeds more than it fails, but is equally intriguing and […]
Local elections who?
I’d like to start this with a confession – I didn’t vote in the recent local elections. This was not a choice born out of ignorance, but certainly came from some place of apathy. I had fully intended on voting. It was scheduled in for the evening, right after my busy day of hopping between […]
Review: Avengers – Infinity War
This is one of the most ambitious filmmaking projects of the century – partly because of how brazenly Marvel hyped it up themselves – and it’s handled with all the vision, intelligence, and finesse of masters of their craft. With a film possessing 70+ characters, it had every reason to seem over-stuffed and over-complicated, but […]
Get Out: A monster with human teeth
What Jordan Peele has created with his debut film is a product of genius; it’s a film that feels like a career-defining piece, yet has all the blindingly fresh quality of a first time effort. It is not just a genuinely creepy horror laced with social commentary; it is an impeccably balanced horror-comedy that moulds […]
Three Billboards is sorely misunderstood by its critics
Witty, poignant, and apparently controversial, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri has – since snapping up four Golden Globes and a number of BAFTAs – suddenly established a divisive place for itself in this awards season. It seems there are those of us who like it – looking at you Hollywood Foreign Press – and those among […]
Album Review: The Drums – Abysmal Thoughts
The Drums – now solely comprising of founder Jonny Pierce – have not only just released their fourth album, but have also just released their best album. I realise that’s some statement to open with, especially when their first two efforts – The Drums (2010) and Portamento (2011) – included indie favourites, ‘Let’s Go Surfing’, […]
Review: Sherlock Series 4
It feels like an eternity since we watched Sherlock put a bullet through Magnussen’s skull, and in the three-year wait, Sherlock has established its status as a revered adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle classic with a strong cult following. It is likely a combination of this lengthy wait and devoted fan following that saw […]