Film Reviews

★★★☆☆ In Dragged Across Concrete, Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn play cops Brett and Anthony, suspended for six weeks without pay for an act of police brutality. This perceived injustice stirs something in Mad Mel, and he becomes of the opinion that he and Vince should rob some gangsters as payback. This is the third film from S. Craig Zahler, after Bone Tomahawk with Kurt Russell and The Brawl in Cell Block 99, also starring Vaughn. Each follows a set template, in which...

★★★☆☆ The career of one of British music’s great eccentrics is affectionately told in Steve Sullivan’s documentary Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story. The film chronicles the life of Chris Sievey, a musician who took many guises between the early 1970s and his death in 2010. Sievey’s work was full on experimentation and saw him dabbling in homemade film and even early video games. His career took an unexpected turn when he began portraying his larger than life alter-ego Frank Sidebottom....

★★★★☆ Evil, posing not as a demon or vampire, but rising from within us, pitting family members against each other. While there is lots to be said for Jordan Peele’s Us, this same format followed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s Pet Sematary is another excellent feature that dares to delve within the horror inside of us all. Based on the novel by Stephen King, doctor Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), children Ellie (Jete Laurence) and Gage...

★★★★★ Home invasion is among the scariest archetypes in horror, and Jordan Peele’s Us is the latest in a long tradition of twisted stories that tap into our deepest fears. What’s brilliant about Us is that it subverts what we know about the genre to create a delirious, doppelganger nightmare. This a brash and chilling movie with subtexts in abundance and much like Peele’s debut feature Get Out, it carries a political message. The focus is on the Wilson family....

★★☆☆☆ With its offbeat drama and David Lynch-style weirdness, Under the Silver Lake captures a hyperreal version of Los Angeles, taking viewers into baffling world of mystery. It pays homage to a history of iconic movies, but it dances with so many styles, themes and subplots that the film collapses from the weight of it all. This is David Robert Mitchell’s third movie after It Follows, one of the best horror films of the decade. Under the Silver Lake is...

★☆☆☆☆ Serenity is arguably one of the most bonkers films in modern cinema. Written and directed by Stephen Knight (Locke; the screenwriter for Eastern Promises), it has such an insane premise that there’s something curiously admirable about the film’s commitment to complete and utter madness. However, it’s not enough to compensate for a story that is too self-conscious and over the top. Matthew McConaughey plays Baker Dill, a chain-smoking Iraq war veteran who lives on an idyllic, remote island. He spends...

Rarely has a foreign language film created as much debate and controversy as director Lukas Dhont’s Girl. The film follows Lara (Victor Polster) a 15-year-old transgender girl who dreams of being a professional ballerina. She attends a prestigious Dutch dance school where her classmates are hostile towards her and who are at times openly transphobic. Her father Mathias (Arieh Worthalter) and her doctors are supportive of her and her desire to have gender reassignment surgery, even if Lara is left frustrated by...

“I have nothing to prove to you,” says Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers towards the end of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s highly enjoyable introduction to Marvel’s mightiest female Avenger. It may be directed at Danvers’ enemy, but this is a statement that transcends the narrative boundaries of the MCU. To the misogynistic male trolls who have been driven by their own blithe entitlement to undermine Captain Marvel’s release at every turn, the message could not be clearer. The gendered discrepancy...

Secrets and lies are brought to the surface in director Asghar Farhadi’s film of a family wedding struck by tragedy. Taking place in a small Spanish town, rather than the director’s native Iran, Everybody Knows begins with Laura (Penélope Cruz) returning home following years spent in Argentina. Her teenage daughter Irene (Carla Campra) and young son accompany her but her husband Alejandro (Richard Darín) could not travel due to an important business engagement. Laura reminisces with her family and old friends...