“I wanted you to find me looking pretty. Dead, but pretty.” From the mind of Pedro Almodóvar comes a new adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, starring an impeccably dressed Tilda Swinton. Almodóvar has always excelled at delving into the psyche of a woman scorned, perhaps never so literally as in his 1988 feature, […]Read More
It would probably be more shocking to discover a Michel Franco film that doesn’t leave you with a sickly feeling in your stomach, so of course, New Order does just that. This Mexican-French thriller is viciously shocking from start to finish—but the brutal dystopia lacks any depth or insight. In a house so grand it […]Read More
Some may find the sweeping chilliness of Francis Lee’s sophomore feature too bleak, but consider this critic’s cockles warmed. Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet are devastatingly brilliant in Ammonite, forming an unlikely romance between a sickly young wife and a respected paleontologist. Though most take a little warming up to their craft, Francis Lee’s directorial […]Read More
Thirty-six years after Stop Making Sense set the bar stratospherically high for the concert film, an unlikely duo has created an urgently joyous match. Spike Lee and David Byrne’s new venture combines the rapturous joy of Byrne’s music with Lee’s trademark style of confronting us with contemporary truths. The result is nothing short of wondrous. […]Read More
Supernova is an elegant, elegiac story of two soulmates facing the cruelty of dementia, with director Harry Macqueen crafting a mature, affecting story of galactic proportions. Every star in the night sky looks the same to me—glinting uniformly in the inky darkness, unthreatening in their anonymity. Would I find the night sky less beautiful if […]Read More
The full line-up has been revealed for this year’s BFI London Film Festival, which will be fully virtual for the first time. The BFI London Film Festival will open with Steve McQueen’s “rousing tale of Black solidarity and resistance,” Mangrove, starring Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes and Malachi Kirby. Also previously announced was Francis Lee’s Ammonite, […]Read More
As COVID-19 continues to upset the cinematic calendar, film festivals have been forced to cancel or postpone en masse. In the wake of such disruption, YouTube and Tribeca Enterprises (the organisation behind New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival) have partnered to bring us an entirely virtual film festival named “We Are One: A Global Film […]Read More
From its opening shots, you might be tricked into thinking that Knives Out is going to be your standard whodunnit. Isolated mansion in unspecified location? Check. A score replete with screeching strings? Check. Various creepy trinkets, dolls and weird paintings on the walls? Check. And yet, director Rian Johnson perfectly satirizes this Agatha Christie-esque setting […]Read More
Tonally confused and accidentally hilarious, David Michôd’s big-budget Medieval caper The King is an unbelievably silly film – and only half the cast seem to be aware of it. Starring Timothée Chalamet as King Henry V and Joel Edgerton as Falstaff, we follow King Henry/Prince Hal as he goes from binge-drinking to the battlefield, navigating […]Read More
For François Ozon to make a topical clergy-drama after cultivating the moniker ‘monsieur extreme’ was quite an unexpected turn for the man behind films such as 8 Women and Young & Beautiful. Known for his erotic dramas, his move to a fact-driven contemporary film was met head-on and without teething problems, showcasing the undeniable range […]Read More
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