Category Archives: Film Review

Review in Brief: Elle (2016)

Posted on August 22, 2017 by

ELLE is like the darkest soap opera you’ve ever seen. You get all the extra-marital affairs and mummy and daddy issues you might expect from nightly soft drama telly of the like of EAST ENDERS, but it also subjects us … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Get Out (2017)

Posted on August 14, 2017 by

You might have an idea of the general direction GET OUT is heading in, but few will guess how far down this deep and murky thematic rabbit hole writer-director Jordan Peele will take us. This is a horror film for … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Review in Brief: Sing (2016)

Posted on August 9, 2017 by

SING is a pleasant surprise. It may be a clichéd underdog/competition story retold with singing animals, but it’s got a lot of pep and ends up being the most soulful and best-realised animations Illumination have produced so far. The characters are … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Boy (2010)

Posted on August 6, 2017 by

Handled delicately, grief makes for a great film. Boiling Taika Waititi’s films down to their core themes, if EAGLE VS. SHARK was about battling depression and HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE was about finding a place to truly belong, then BOY … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review in Brief: Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Posted on August 4, 2017 by

KONG: SKULL ISLAND is what it is, and what it is is a big, dumb monster brawl. The just-post-Vietnam War setting is just window dressing to the standard, laboured story setup. While the creatures are impressively realised, clearly nobody has … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Dunkirk (2017)

Posted on August 2, 2017 by

Some directors just need to get a film out of their systems. For Steven Spielberg it was SCHINDLER’S LIST, for Christopher Nolan it is surely DUNKIRK. The French coastline, May 1940. With the Allied army surrounded and with the sea … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review in Brief: Prevenge (2016/17)

Posted on August 1, 2017 by

We’ve had plenty of schizophrenic serial killer movies, but PREVENGE must be the first where the voice telling the perpetrator to kill is her unborn child. Our antihero is utterly miserable in her pregnancy, so turns to killing and maiming, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Review in Brief: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Posted on July 27, 2017 by

There are surprisingly few horror movies set in morgues. Plenty with morgue scenes, but a scarcity that really make the most of that cold dread atmosphere for an extended duration. What they do with a few key simple sounds and … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Review in Brief: Elvis & Nixon (2016)

Posted on July 25, 2017 by

ELVIS & NIXON is an intriguingly simple title and unfortunately, a pretty disappointing final product. In the depiction of this remarkable partly true, partly hypothetical series of real-world events, Kevin Spacey makes for a good Nixon. He’s slimy and calculating … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Posted on July 23, 2017 by

The new Apes movies, up to and including WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES are pretty special. They’re respectful of what has come before in the franchise, but not afraid to reinvent it. They want to be far-reaching conceptually, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Film Review | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment