Babylon’s director should have known better and not let this movie fall into self indulgence January 23, 2023 Movies about movies tend to do well around Oscar season, and no one knows that better than Damien Chazelle. While La La Land famously didn’t win Best Picture in 2017, it did win six Oscars out of fourteen nominations, including Best Director. In Babylon, he returns to Hollywood but looks through a different lens. Starting [...]
Avatar: The Way of Water was crap – here’s why I’m glad it exists January 10, 2023 A few weeks ago, you might have read my review of Avatar: The Way of Water in this paper. It’s safe to say I wasn’t a fan – I found the story dull, the dialogue inane, and the high frame rate 3D uncomfortable. Thirteen years ago, I wedged myself into a packed screening room in [...]
The Revenant and Birdman director returns with an inscrutable journey into his own past December 16, 2022 Six years after The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu returns for an esoteric dive into his own past in the semi-autobiographical Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths. Daniel Giménez Cacho plays Silverio Gama, an experimental filmmaker who has recently won a prestigious American award (can you see the connect yet?). Travelling to his home [...]
Avatar: The Way of Water is a dull sequel to the most forgettable success story in cinema history December 16, 2022 The sequel to the most successful film of all time comes out this week, but despite very little competition at the multiplex, the hype has been muted. For years, Avatar has gained a reputation as an anomaly: the most successful film no one remembers, it’s rarely in any best-of lists, or even talked about when [...]
The best films of 2022, from Tom Cruise to Paul Thomas Anderson – but who won the top spot? December 15, 2022 While not a classic vintage, this year still offered some cinema gems, with indie darlings taking their place at the top of our table alongside one of the best blockbusters ever made. Here’s the definitive list of the best films of 2022. 1. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE This surreal comedy-drama stars Michelle Yeoh as [...]
White Noise sees Adam Driver reunite with Noah Baumbach in a strange narrative experiment December 9, 2022 A mouth-watering cast come together for Noah Baumbach’s first film since Oscar winning Marriage Story. He reunites with one of the stars from that movie, Adam Driver, in an adaptation of White Noise, the 1985 novel by Don Delillo. Set in garish 80s vision of America, Driver plays Jack Gladney. Jack is a professor of [...]
Pinocchio has never been darker than in the hands of Guillermo Del Toro December 9, 2022 Oscar winning Mexican filmmaker finally gets to offer his vision of the story of Pinocchio, a film with no connection to the Disney cartoon or the live action remake that came out this year. There have been countless adaptations over the years, but any time the Shape of Water filmmaker brings his unique eye to [...]
Will Smith follows up his slap with a swing and a miss December 8, 2022 Let’s get this out of the way, shall we? Emancipation is the first film Will Smith has starred in since he slapped Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards in March. What should have been a much- anticipated follow up to his Oscar-winning turn in King Richard now stands as a test to see [...]
The Infernal Machine review: Guy Pearce in sparse psychological tussle December 4, 2022 The title and poster for The Infernal Machine, featuring the face of lead star Guy Pearce lined by fire, could be mistaken for an apocalyptic sci-fi movie. Instead, it’s an ambitious but flawed exploration of paranoia and infamy. Pearce plays Bruce Cogburn, a reclusive author who has been off the map since his best-selling book, The [...]
Lynch/Oz: A fun documentary about David Lynch and the Wizard of Oz December 4, 2022 What makes a movie influential? Is it the story, the visuals, the cultural moment, or all of the above? It’s a topic explored in Lynch/Oz, a fascinating new work all about the link between filmmaker David Lynch and seminal 1930s movie The Wizard of Oz. Documentarian Alexandre O Philippe has made interesting retrospectives on film history [...]