https://www.thefilmagazine.com/adventures-of-robin-hood-at-85-review/ SSP
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‘Speed Racer’ at 15 – Review
Posted in Film, Film Review, The Film Magazine
Tagged Action, Anime, Christina Ricci, Emile Hirsch, Sci-fi, Speed Racer, The Wachowskis
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Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) Review
Posted in Film, Film Review, The Film Magazine
Tagged Alexander Molony, David Lowery, Disney, Ever Anderson, Family Film, Fantasy, Jude Law, Peter Pan and Wendy
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Renfield (2023) Review
Posted in Film, Film Review, The Film Magazine
Tagged Action, Chris McKay, Comedy, Dracula, Horror, Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Renfield
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‘The Birds’ at 60 – Review
Posted in Film, Film Review, The Film Magazine
Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Rod Taylor, The Birds, Thriller, Tippi Hedren
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Review in Brief: Women Talking (2022)
It’s a clear sign of writer-director Sarah Polley’s skill and awareness that her beautiful, hard-hitting and verbose piece about processing sexual assault isn’t wall-to-wall misery. Yes, the debate this community of Mennonite women are having is important and will change their lives forever no matter the outcome, but they are people who laugh, cry, comfort and clash with each other, resulting in many a dramatic peak and trough in their discussions. Thankfully we never see the crimes themselves, only the traumatising aftermath and so the film is intense rather than explicit, more thought-provoking than shocking. What is shocking is another great woman filmmaker not being recognised with a Best Director nomination. The ensemble, particularly Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley and Judith Ivey, is sublime, and the striking way the whole thing looks and sounds in the hands of cinematographer Luc Montpellier and composer Hildur Guonadóttir really lodges in the memory. SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged Drama, Hildur Guonadóttir, Jessie Buckley, Luc Montpellier, Rooney Mara, Sarah Polley, Women Talking
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Review in Brief: Tár (2022)
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but TÁR is a bit good. An often uncomfortably close character study of a complicated genius, we follow conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) hailed as the greatest of her generation as she goes through a particularly tumultuous time in her life. Just as she is about to complete her life’s ambition of conducting all of Mahler’s symphonies she makes some questionable choices in her private life, which spills over into the professional, before controversies in her past resurface in a magazine profile. Just seeing the intensity with which Blanchett explains the role of a conductor or tears down a student unwilling to look past Bach’s less admirable side when talking about his music makes this well worth your time. As Tár’s life unravels around her in the final act the film becomes an oppressive psychological horror full of creepy-subtle imagery where our lead lives a waking nightmare, obsessing over niggling, unidentifiable sounds in her house before completely losing track of who she is. SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged Cate Blanchett, Drama, Noémie Merlant, Oscars, Psychological Horror, Tár, Todd Field
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Review in Brief: Decision to Leave (2022)
Park Chan-wook’s latest is less extreme than the films he’s most famed for (that’s the Vengeance Trilogy, particularly OLDBOY for most audiences) but is just as dazzlingly stylish and intriguing to unpack, a good deal sexier (OK, not sexier than THE HANDMAIDEN) and more emotionally heightened for good measure. An insomniac, obsessive Busan detective (Park Hae-il) becomes fascinated with a woman suspected of murdering her husband (Tang Wei) who seems to be keeping tabs on him in turn and the two embark on an ill-advised affair. You know the relationship is bad news from the start, but you are compelled by it nonetheless. The imagery doesn’t need to be explicit to make your stomach lurch and the whole thing has this gallows humour running through and punctuating all the affairs, deception and intrigue. How did this not even receive a nomination at the Oscars? SSP
Posted in Film, Film Review, Review in Brief
Tagged decision to leave, Oldboy, Park Chan-wook, Park Hae-il, Tang Wei, Thriller, World Cinema
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