Reviews
No one involved in Jericho Ridge thinks they’re making art, but neither do they think they’re making trash. It’s the sort of movie that keeps an industry alive – well made, well acted, decent-enough if familiar story and a satisfying conclusion all round, especially if you like happy endings served with lashings of gory violence. … Read more
The legendary titles guy Saul Bass (he did the opening credits sequence for Psycho, The Man with the Golden Arm and Casino) made only one feature film and Phase IV is it. A fascinating sci-fi/horror tale set in the desert, it has ideas, some great acting, excellent close-up cinematography, gorgeous locations and an excruciatingly static … Read more
Mock-serious bad times in New York City. Scorsese did it memorably in After Hours, and 40 years later Darren Aronofsky has a go with Caught Stealing, a gonzo nightmare missing a certain something. Comedy, I think, or the right comedic tone at any rate. Anyway, on the upside there’s Austin Butler as a dude in … Read more
More of the same, that’s what Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse delivers. The follow-up to Into the Spider-Verse is another blistering, migraine- and epilepsy-inducing collision of animation styles, the sort of thing which, if it had been done in the 20th century, would have taken the entire 20th century to do. And if you like it, … Read more
Borgman is one of those head-scratching “what what?” movies which would be entirely transformed if the writer/director gave us access to a vital piece of missing information. But Alex van Warmerdam doesn’t, and so we watch and try to piece together what’s going on from clues scattered throughout, like following Hansel and Gretel’s trail through … Read more
With perfect hindsight it’s easy to see Denis Villeneuve’s first feature, August 32nd on Earth (Un 32 Août sur Terre, in the original French), as the work of a director who would go on to make great sci-fi like Arrival, Bladerunner 2049 and Dune. Back in 1998, when it was released, it looked more like … Read more
What is Footprints on the Moon (aka Footprints aka Le Orme), apart from an Italian movie from 1975? Genre categorisation isn’t easy but how about psychological sci-fi thriller meets love story meets giallo horror meets paranoid modernist dreamscape? Or, from a different direction, it’s DP Vittorio Storaro’s entry in the “world’s best cinematographer” competition. The … Read more
A prime slice of Harold Lloyd, Grandma’s Boy isn’t as famous as Safety Last! (the one where he dangles from a clock), but it is just as good as an example of his skills. Like the other two members of the Big Three of silent funnymen, Lloyd, like Chaplin and Keaton, often found himself tangling … Read more
French neo-noir at its most stylish, Mauvais Sang (confusingly it also goes by the titles The Night Is Young and the more literally translated Bad Blood) was Leos Carax’s second feature, the enfant terrible of French cinema still only a youthful 26 in 1986 when the film was made. The majority of his cast are … Read more
An enigmatic title for an enigmatic film, Darkest Miriam is a puzzling almost 1990s-style drama. It’s a showcase for Britt Lower, star of Severance on TV, who carries the entire movie with a cryptic and compelling performance. And it grew out of a short, Miriam’s World, conceived as an art installation, so there’s a touch … Read more
Stanley Kubrick really gets going with 1956’s The Killing, the first of his grand march through the genres. Paths of Glory, Lolita, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut would follow but here Kubrick’s attempt to do genre movies in a distinctively different way … Read more
In reverse chronological order November Criminals can refer to this movie from 2017, the book by Sam Munson on which it’s based or the German government in 1918, the one that signed the armistice that ended the First World War – the “November criminals” is what purveyors of the “stab in the back” myth called them … Read more