M3GAN [2023] – ★★★ Everything in M3GAN is “in vogue”: sentient artificial intelligence (readers must have had their fill of it with Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and McEwan’s Machines Like Me, and viewers – with After Yang (2021), Finch (2021) and Brian and Charles (2022)), cinematic mishmash of genres, and, in line with Ari Aster’s popular…
Tag: Film Review
“White Material” Review
White Material [2009] – ★★★★1/2 White Material is set in one unspecified French colonial African country, and follows Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert), an owner of a large coffee plantation. Well-known to the area, Maria lives on the estate with her ex-husband Andre (Christopher Lambert), her ex-husband’s father Henri and grown-up son Manuel. However, there are…
“Titane” Review
Titane [2021] – ★★★★ 🔥 Titane hypnotises and mystifies as it repels and shocks, delivering not only a story, but also “an experience”. Titane is the second feature film of French director Julia Ducournau (Raw (2017)) and the Palme d’Or winner of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film is not for the faint of…
“The Power of the Dog” Review
The Power of the Dog [2021] – ★★★★1/2 “Deliver my soul from the sword/My darling from the power of the dog” (Psalms, Preface to Thomas Savage’s novel The Power of the Dog (1967)). The Power of the Dog centres on two very different brothers Phil and George Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons) living on…
“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” Review
The Last Black Man in San Francisco [2019] – ★★★1/2 “There is no place like home”. Housing is an important but often overlooked topic in films (see my discussion of two notable films about housing here). The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2019, tells…
“The Mauritanian” Review
The Mauritanian [2020] – ★★★★ Based on a memoir Guantamano Diary (2015), this film tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi (played by Tahar Rahim), a man from Mauritania who was arrested on heresy some time after the 9/11 terrorist attack and then spent 14 years (from 2002 to 2016) in the notorious Guantanamo…
“Rabbit Hole” Review
Rabbit Hole [2010] – ★★★★1/2 Based on a Pulitzer-winning play of the same name by David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole is a film about a husband and wife pair, Howie (Aaron Eckhart) and Becca (Nicole Kidman), who live in suburban America and face a very difficult period in their life: they have lost their small child…
“I, Daniel Blake” Review
I, Daniel Blake [2016] – ★★★★★ Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is a kind of film whose theme of the individual vs. the system, brutal honesty and underlying power make it a compulsory watch for everyone. The story centres on Daniel Blake (Dave Johns), a…
“Departures” Review
Departures [2008] – ★★★★1/2 Departures is the Japanese winner of the 2009 Academy Award in the category of the Best Foreign Language Picture. Loosely based on a memoir by Shinmon Aoki titled Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, it tells the story of Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), an ex-cellist who comes to his home…
“Snowpiercer” Review
Snowpiercer [2013] – ★★★★ “Eternal order is prescribed by the sacred engine: all things flow from the sacred engine, all things in their place, all passengers in their section, all water flowing, all heat rising, pays homage to the sacred engine, in its own particular preordained position”. “A blockbuster production with a devilishly unpredictable plot”, says character Wilford in Snowpiercer. That is what this film, directed by Bong Joon-ho (Parasite…
“Little Joe” Review
Little Joe [2019] – ★1/2 Little Joe is a British/Austrian/German-produced film that was selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival 2019. In this story, Alice Woodard (Emily Beecham) works at a special laboratory that produces genetically-modified flowers for the public market. Alice and her team have managed to produce one type of a plant…
“Parasite” Review
Parasite [2019] – ★★★★★ Parasite or Gisaengchung is a South Korean dark comedy-thriller from Bong Joon-ho (Okja ((2017)) that won the grandest award at the Cannes Film Festival 2019 – Palme d’Or. And, a well-deserved win, too, since this film must be seen to be believed. In Parasite, the Kim family, consisting of a mother,…
“Joker” Review
Joker [2019] – ★★★1/2 Directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover (2011)), Joker is a latest, much-hyped film starring Joaquin Phoenix (The Master (2012)) in the titular role of Arthur Fleck or Joker, a stand-up comedian fallen on hard times, who resorts to violence in Gotham City to avenge wrongs allegedly committed against him. Being supported…
“25th Hour” Review
25th Hour [2002] – ★★★★1/2 Today (11th September) marks 18 years since the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City, and I thought I would review a film that incorporates the post-9/11 atmosphere – Spike Lee’s film 25th Hour – as a tribute so that we never forget what happened and what it meant. Spike…
“Midsommar” Review
Midsommar [2019] – ★★★★★ ☀️ In this immersive, subtle and unsettling horror master-work, Ari Aster takes his audience by the hand, and slowly and surely introduces the disturbing beneath the festive, relaxing and innocent. Ari Aster takes horror to a completely new level in his latest film Midsommar. Inspired by The Wicker Man and horror…
“The Little Stranger” Review
The Little Stranger [2018] – ★★★ In this story, adapted from Sarah Waters’s novel of the same name, Dr Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson) tries to reacquaint himself with one stately house (Hundreds Hall) he used to admire in his childhood. This is the house belonging to the Ayres family who now find themselves in a pitiful…
Spotlight on Film 