Film Reviews

In Have a Nice Day, Liu Jian has created a world of multiple dimensions in the 2D renderings of a seedy southern China fringe town where lives intersect over a bag of cold hard cash. A suitable alternative title for this pulpy, crime-caper animation would be, “In the Mood for Money.” The story is simple, and the comparisons rife. When Xiao Zhang (Zhu Changlong), a low rent gangster existing on the bottom rung of the criminal ladder, robs underworld kingpin,...

While those of you on this side of the pond are unlikely to be familiar with A Wrinkle In Time: Madeleine L’Engle’s seminal YA novel, originally published in the early 60s, and the first instalment in her highly lauded ‘Time Quintet’ series. Over in America the book is something of a childhood mainstay, studied in classrooms for more than fifty years now, and beloved by many for its intellectual & emotional underpinnings. This warm-hearted and well-intentioned adaptation from Ava DuVernay...

It may have taken almost three years for My Golden Days to make its way from the Cannes Film Festival to British cinemas, but this affecting drama is more than worth the wait. It opens with a middle-aged anthropologist called Paul (Mathieu Amalric) preparing to leave Tajikistan where he has been working for almost a decade. As he gets off the plane in Paris, he is taken to one side and is questioned by a French intelligence agent (André Dussollier). Paul...

Films that fall under the banner of ‘Biblical Epic’ tend to follow the rule that for every Last Temptation of Christ there is a Passion of The Christ. Mary Magdalene is the latest film to fit comfortably under the banner of ‘Biblical Epic’, and it’s from the director Garth Davis of last year’s heartstring twanger, Lion. Rooney Mara plays the titular character, and for the first forty-five minutes she is in every single frame. Mara’s performance is composed and engaging....

Ruben Östlund’s mountain set ski drama, Force Majeure, landed with a bang at Cannes in 2014 and was quickly blanketed by an avalanche of critical success. Three years’ later, the Swedish born director returned and took home the festival’s top prize with The Square, a biting satire of the art world and a surreal, madcap deep dive into the complexities and flaws of humankind. Christian (Claes Bang), the model of Scandi-cool, is handsomely dishevelled in his fitted blazers, open neck...

Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) has forsaken her family fortune to become a London bicycle courier and amateur MMA fighter. After receiving an item from her missing (presumed dead) father, Lara goes in search of a cursed island in Japan carrying ancient treasure and an awful secret. After many of years in need of a revival, a new Tomb Raider game was launched in 2013, taking us to the origins of this pistol wielding archaeologist/thief. Jokes about DD pixels became obsolete;...

Nicholas Cage does a good line in B-movie flicks, they’re often quite bad but well loved because of the manic, hyper-real performances Cage gives and Mom and Dad is no different. In a typical American suburb tensions smolder below the surface in this horror-action-(unintentional?) comedy. The premise is that a bizarre event causes parents to turn on their children, filling them with murderous rage, completely disconnected from their usual loving faculties. Nicolas Cage’s character has moments of The Shining inflected...

After a frustratingly long period of absence, Lynne Ramsey (We Need To Talk About Kevin, 2011) is back with an equally gut-wrenching tale of crime and retribution which is set to thrill the Scottish director’s growing army fans. Based on Jonathan Ames’ novel of the same name, You Were Never Really Here offers an uncompromisingly gory and deliberately unsettling narrative packed full of dark and disturbing imagery, which is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Joaquin Phoenix is Joe (think Taxi...

In 1941 amateur inventor Hedy Lamarr worked with composer George Antheil to create and patent 'frequency hopping', which when applied in naval warfare could prevent enemy jamming of communications with torpedos and move the battle for the seas in the favour of the Allies. Although not put into use by the US Navy until the 1950s, 'frequency hopping' is now used as an integral element of everything from GPS to Wi-Fi. Lamarr's day job was performing as one of the...