Reviews
The Collini Case is a courtroom drama adapted from a book written by Ferdinand von Schirach, a laywer-turned-novelist in the John Grisham mould, though being German and having been born in 1964, von Schirach has a different set of concerns. He would have been about 13 when the murder of industrialist and former Nazi SS … Read more
A top astronomer dies before the opening credits in The White Dwarf, the 21st episode broadcast in series 2 of The Avengers. Turns out that a large astral body might be heading towards Earth and we’re all toast if it does in fact arrive. And Professor Richter was the only man who knew absolutely for … Read more
Weird and matter of fact, gory and yet sweet, The Flesh People has a unique vibe, mixing satire and gonzo comedy, a touch of Mel Brooks – Young Frankenstein era – with hallucinogenic fancy, and a strange, odd-couple pairing at its centre that’s inspired in terms of casting and playing. It’s the bizarro adventure of two … Read more
A mix of the familiar and the exotic in A Chorus of Frogs, the 24th episode in the broadcast run of series two of The Avengers, and another chance for Julie Stevens’s Venus Smith to do her wide-eyed naive thing. It’s a useful character trait, since there is plenty of explicatory work to be done … Read more
Top Gun: Maverick comes such a long time after the original film – 30something years – that a quick introductory “previously on Top Gun” wouldn’t go amiss. Instead, new director Joseph Kosinski (who worked with Tom Cruise on Oblivion) puts us at ease with an opening sequence that’s a homage to Tony Scott, director of … Read more
Tuner looks like it’s going to be a cracking drama but it hits a bum note early on, ironic in a film about a guy whose job it is to make pianos ring true. Dustin Hoffman is prominently billed, seems to be prominent dramatically too, but has been all but retired from the movie after … Read more
If you’re over the age of eight, Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie is probably not something you’ll have come across, or the Netflix show it sprang from. Its star, Laila Lockhart Kraner, probably won’t mean much to you either. Your loss? This intensely likeable, positive, bright and sunny excitement isn’t a “something for everybody” offer. But … Read more
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), what a treasure trove of spine-tingling musical goodies this film is. “Directed” by Questlove, whose role is really more curatorial and editorial, it’s a compendium of highlights from a series of six free concerts held on Sundays in Harlem from June to August 1969. … Read more
1947’s Shoot to Kill (aka Police Reporter) opens with a car crash. Two people dead. One is Lawrence Dale, the district attorney, the other a known gangster, Dixie Logan. The DA’s wife has somehow survived. But what were she and her husband doing in a car with Logan in the first place? From her hospital … Read more
Unclenching the Fists could so easily be poverty porn but manages not to be, thanks to an ending offering a sliver of salvation, and a look that’s deliberately trying to avoid the charge that this is just another in a very long series of films using poor people to tell the same story over and … Read more
Fort Ti is a 3D western and it really wants you to know it. Everything that can come the audience’s way does – a tomahawk, an Indian, a cannonball, more Indians, more cannonballs, bats, bullets, yet more Indians. In the action sequences at least it keeps coming. It’s the first 3D western and shot in … Read more
When The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2008, there was disquiet in some quarters. How come Cristian Mungiu’s brilliant 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days hadn’t even been nominated? Didn’t that glaring omission obviously invalidate all the other entries? As with most cases of whataboutery, the answer is yes, … Read more