I began watching Dead to Me on Netflix on Saturday night and despite the fact I had an exam on the Tuesday afternoon, I had finished it by Sunday morning. The balance achieved between the very real and traumatic loss of Jen’s husband, Nick, and the easy watching aspects of the series that Netflix was trying to […]
film review
Review: Wine Country
Any film starring Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, Grown Ups, The Good Place), already sets a precedent that it will be exactly what you expect it to be. Mix in a big ‘ol spoon of Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) in her directorial debut and you get Wine Country. A mildly heartwarming tale of old friends who go […]
Io – Review
When Netflix decided to plough the old, worn out furrow of the ‘Earth is dead and it’s our fault’ Sci-Fi film, you would have thought they would at least have tried to come up with something original, or at the very least entertaining. They have failed on both fronts – Io is the blandest, most uneventful […]
Bird Box – Review
Could this be the front-runner for most memed movie of the year? Bird Box, Netflix’s latest viral hit, is a clunky mish-mash of a film that is barely redeemed by Sandra Bullock’s occasionally strong performance as a woman facing the transition to maternal commitment. Set in an apocalyptic scenario akin to A Quiet Place, the monsters […]
The Old Man & the Gun – Review
Few of us get to decide how we will go when our time comes, and even fewer will make such a choice willingly. A lifetime spent on screen sounds like a boastful statement and perhaps not a bad way to have lived, but the movies tend not to let go of the greats without a […]
Columbus – Review
Now this is a film that owes a lot to its location shooting. It’s stunning. Kogonada’s debut film, Columbus is visually beautiful and is shot very much like a Wes Anderson picture. In fact, Kogonada describes himself as an “academic-turned-filmmaker”, starting his filmic career in video essays around well-known directors (including Anderson). His debut feature follows […]
Overlord – Review
Plunged into gritty action from the outset of the film, viewers of J.J. Abrams’ new release, Overlord, are immediately presented with a war-torn panorama of the largest seaborne invasion in history. The action opens with an introduction to the American paratroopers whose journey we follow as they parachute beyond enemy lines in order to destroy […]
Review – Widows
2018 has been a year of incredible casts, with the likes of Avengers: Infinity War and Ocean’s Eight featuring a who’s who of Hollywood A-listers. Widows boasts a similarly impressive ensemble (Jon Bernthal’s name isn’t on the poster and he’s the goddamn Punisher) with one key difference; Steve McQueen has opted for the best, rather […]
Remember This? Mississippi Burning
Do some films deserve to be forgotten? Not necessarily for their dullness, trashiness, or the sin of being an unnecessary remake – but for something more fundamental? Perhaps we should condemn to the dustbin of cinema history ‘good’ films that knowingly distort the truth of events, that misrepresent the reality behind their own stories, or […]
The Hate U Give – Review
Amandla Stenberg is stunning. As the film’s locus, she moves between two worlds – that of her friends, where her identity seems grounded – quite literally – by her obsession with the latest kicks, music, her friends – and Williamson Prep, where she is forced into a performative ‘whiteness.’ My only critique of the film […]