Watching a film that’s had a huge amount of hype can be a curse. More often than not it doesn’t live up to expectations, and requires a second viewing for you to really appreciate if it’s great or not. Not so with Alejandro...
Read MoreImagine being J. J. Abrams. Your solid record of rebooting or successfully continuing franchises like Star Trek and Mission Impossible has won you the helm of another beloved pillar of global pop culture – and perhaps of the...
Read MoreSynopsis October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale...
Read MoreSomething happened to the American war film in the 1980s. In a similar way to the revisionist Westerns of the early 1970s, the depiction of war and warriors in American cinema swung from cartoonishly brawny superheroes spouting...
Read MoreIf, like me, you’ve begun to lose hope that Hollywood is capable of making original, intelligent and innovative films, Birdman will restore your faith. It’s a black comedy that examines the nature of celebrity and the way...
Read MoreRussell Crowe’s directorial debut arrives in timely fashion to jump on the centenary of WWI commemorations, and just ahead of the anniversary of the Gallipoli conflict. By taking on such emotive local subject matter, Crowe has...
Read MoreThis based-on-actual-events film tells the story of Sudan’s ‘lost boys’, a group of survivors from Sudan’s bloody civil war who managed to escape to America and build new lives. The film opens in a Sudanese village where...
Read MoreAdapting a much-read and admired novel to the big screen is always a risk, but here it’s a risk that pays off. This is a taut and entirely engrossing film that left me wishing I could’ve seen it without knowing the twists...
Read MoreAs an actor, Clint Eastwood is always worth watching. But it’s as a director I feel he has really shown his depth. Jersey Boys is a big screen adaptation of a hit Broadway musical, but it never feels like a stage show on the big...
Read MoreSeeing the movie adaptation of a book I’ve loved is always a nerve-wracking experience. So often I walk out of the theatre angry or devastated by how spectacularly the filmmakers have failed to capture my vision of the story....
Read MoreJim Jarmusch epitomizes cool. And with his take on the vampire genre, even bloodsucking can be made hip for a new generation. Living apart for now, eternal lovers Adam and Eve drift through their separate nighttime worlds. Eve...
Read MoreBasing a movie musical on the songs of barely-remembered Scottish duo the Proclaimers feels like a shameless rip-off of Mama Mia. Yet Sunshine on Leith is actually kinda fun. The story centers around two soldiers returning from...
Read More