Film Reviews

The Hate U GiveFilm is a reactive medium, but because it is expensive and time consuming to make it’s also often a slow one. The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 but this year we seem to have seen a glut of films that feel like they are responding to that movement and the reasons it exists. The Hate U Give, based on Angie Thomas’ 2017 novel is perhaps the most direct of these films, as it spotlights how...

I’m not fond of the tendency to label any interesting new anime director as ‘the next Miyazaki’. Partly this is because I’m a far bigger fan of the Studio Ghibli films by other directors but it also just strikes me as an easy crutch, and to apply it to filmmakers who are as individual in their vision and as different from each other and Miyazaki as Makoto Shinkai (Garden of Words, Your Name) and Mirai director Mamoru Hosoda doesn’t feel...

Welcomes to a new series on TLE Film. Here, each week, our film writers will have free rein to spotlight a few of the films they've seen recently in capsule reviews. The films could be from this week, they could be from the silent era. Hopefully our week in movies can provide a varied selection of ideas for your future weeks in movies. Candyman Candyman is about many things and gory killings are mostly the vehicle for them rather than...

The Peterloo Massacre may be a strangely overlooked event within British history, but there is something undeniably timely about the episode and Mike Leigh’s adaptation of it. Peterloo charts the period between the Battle of Waterloo and the Peterloo Massacre that took place in Manchester four years later. On 16th August 1819, an estimated 60,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field, Manchester to demand parliamentary reform and the representation of them and their city. The authorities and local magistrates misjudged the peaceful rally and sent the yeomanry and cavalry to disband the crowds. The subsequent violence resulted...

In Juliet, Naked director Jesse Peretz (Nurse Jackie, GLOW) offers a disarmingly compelling romantic comedy, which despite its decidedly contrived and uneven narrative still manages to deliver a hearteningly charming storyline about second chances in life, in this surprisingly enjoyable adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 2009 best selling novel of the same name. Annie (Rose Byrne) is stuck in a long-term relationship with Duncan (Chris O’Dowd), a nerdy university professor whom she feels has been taking their relationship for granted for several years. For Duncan, the couple are...

What we mean by horror is something that expands and evolves over the years. This is perhaps especially true of tech horror. From the possibilities of electricity being harnessed to horrific and tragic ends in Frankenstein, to the modern slew of desktop thrillers, horror writers and filmmakers have always harnessed new tech for new scares. Cam, written by Isa Mazzei (who herself used to work as a camgirl) introduces us to Alice (Madeline Brewer), who does cam shows as Lola...

“Did you?” asked the woman at the box office as I asked for my ticket for I Used to be Normal. I considered lying, but decided against it. “Not really”. I’ve been an obsessive fan of movies since I was 8 years old but, while some of the kinds of films I love best are (especially as a 37-year-old man) not exactly considered cool, I’ve never felt judged or that I should hide my enthusiasms. That seems to be one...

The Halloween franchise has taken many forms since the first film was released in 1978. In the subsequent years there have been no fewer than seven sequels, two reboots, several novels, and a series of comics. Rather than tangling itself in the franchise’s messy back catalogue, director David Gordon Green pretends that the underwhelming attempts to bring life back into the series never happened. The latest incarnation of Halloween acts as a direct sequel to the original and takes place exactly 40 years after...

It didn’t surprise anyone who saw his first film, Michael, to discover that director Markus Schleinzer used to work with Michael Haneke. Disquietingly still and at times striking, it was a debut that felt too in thrall to another filmmaker to be more than promising. Angelo, while sharing may of the same stylistic choices, is a more distinctive work. The Angelo of the title is the ‘court moor’ to several families in Viennese society in the 18th century, and the...