I never thought I’d say it, but this is the closest that Director Yorgos Lanthimos is ever likely to come to a fluffy rom-com. Dropping contemporary dystopia for 18th Century largesse, The Favourite is a sumptuous, star-studded lark that marks not only Lanthimos’ safest film but will very likely live on as a gateway drug…
Days on from David Gordon Green’s long-awaited sequel to Carpenter’s 1978 classic, I’m still very conflicted about Halloween. On the one hand, it switches so erratically between adrenal murder sequences, waggish teen comedy and psychological fluff, that it’s virtually impossible for the film to build a sense of tension, which leaves it disappointingly lacking in…
Some films resist an in-depth review. With Burning, the sentiment is two-fold, for not only is Lee Chang-Dong’s newest feature so crucially dependent upon being viewed with as little prior knowledge as possible, but is charged with the sort of visual mastery that pertains solely to cinema. Still, if there’s one film released this year…
I’ll say this. It had an effective trailer. In this situation, ‘effective’, does not mean ‘good’ – the sight of an ten-foot slimeboy terrorising a generic criminal by likening him to a ‘turd in the wind’ recalls the cringe-inducing script of a 1990’s kids cartoon – but it does seem to sum up perfectly…
I’ll pitch it to you with a question. What do you get when you throw the town from The Vicar of Dibley, the leading pair of Fawlty Towers and Bleak Expectations’ eccentric ensemble into a big bucket, slosh it about a bit, and pour the slightly fizzed contents into a podcast imagined by The IT…
For all the superficiality promised by its premise, TAG delivers just the sort of overblown idiocy you might ask of a summer blockbuster. Like The Hangover and other films in the ‘boys gone rogue’ genre, Jeff Tomsic’s action-comedy is an exercise in schoolboy camaraderie and immaturity, which would’ve been charming if it hadn’t been weighed…
Kevin Macdonald’s Whitney marks the second documentary to delve into the life and career of Whitney Houston. Following on from Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal’s behind-the-scenes portrait of the star with last year’s Whitney: Can I Be Me, Kevin Macdonald’s rather conventional documentary is a heartfelt, yet curiously distant deconstruction of Houston’s private and public…
At its strongest, Ari Aster’s debut feature fixates upon neutral, offbeat details to the point of paralysing terror. Like the harmless clocking of one’s tongue against the roof of one’s mouth, the minute and unassuming are slowly weaponised as Hereditary’s dysfunctional family unravels into fits of paranoid suspicion. Aster made his directorial debut with…
Through its series of over-the-shoulder glances and extended reflection shots, Camila José Donoso’s inquisitive camera observes the interior happenings of the real Casa Roshell nightclub in Mexico City. Owned by Roshell Terranova, the club provides an expressive safehouse for the transgender women of Mexico City. It holds regular classes in body language; how to walk,…
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