Film Reviews

By Anna Power @Powerpops No stranger to controversy, Oliver Stone continues his exploration of personal conflict enmeshed with the political, in his latest film Snowden. Bringing fresh perspective on Edward Snowden – the man, and his whistleblowing on covert civilian data monitoring by the NSA (National Security Agency), the film casts a paranoiac shadow over labyrinthine, secretive government operations resulting in a tense, dramatisation of events. Building on Laura Poitras Oscar winning documentary Citizenfour, the film starts at the now...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain Originally released in 1992 and winner of that year’s Best Foreign Film Academy Award, it has been nearly 25 years since Indochine was in cinemas. The new DVD re-release and restoration couldn’t in many ways be more timely with an entire generation, including myself, missing the release first time round. This feels like an opportunity to revaluate a film that seems to sit in an in-between state, as it has neither garnered recent acclaim nor classic...

By Linda Marric @linda_marric Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, Office Christmas Party sees the return of a pairing responsible for some of the highest-grossing comedies of the last few years. Fresh from starring in the rather disappointing sequel of Horrible Bosses, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman are back for more awkward gross-out moments and silly shenanigans. Also starring in the film is TJ Miller of Silicon Valley fame, and Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon. Clay (TJ Miller) manages...

By Linda Marric @Linda_Marric Moana is the latest big-budget holiday season animation from the team responsible for Disney’s continued renaissance. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who gave us the timeless Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, this charming and engaging adventure has an empowering, life-affirming message with a subject matter that will withstand the test of time. Voiced by Hawaiian actress Auli’i Cravalho, Moana is the daughter of a Pacific Islands chieftain who goes on the quest of a...

By James McAllistair @jamesmca90 As Emma Stone’s Olive Penderghast observed in Easy A, the one thing the movies don’t tell you is “how shitty it feels to be an outcast”. The reality is that kids can be mean, and growing up is no picnic; trying to cement a position for yourself within the social standings of the schoolyard can leave you anxious, sometimes helpless… and as The Edge of Seventeen – screenwriter Kelly Fremon Craig’s admirable directorial debut – recognises, these...

By Linda Marric @linda_marric Spike Lee's adaptation of of the ancient Greek play “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes manages to avoid the usual pitfalls of play to screen adaptations. Chi-Raq is a play on words coined by Chicagoans, based on a statistic showing that more Americans have died from gun violence in the last decade than soldiers in the Iraq war. In Chi-Raq Lee cleverly addresses not only black-on-black gun violence, but also delves into the misogyny of gang culture; it is a...

By Linda Marric @Linda_Marric Miles Teller puts in a robust performance in Bleed For This as Vinny Pazienza, a working class boxing hero from Rhode Island, who against all odds manages to overcome personal tragedy to make it all the way to the top. Written and directed by Ben Younger, the film tells the real-life story behind the headlines of the man nicknamed “the Pazmanian Devil,” for his less than orthodox behaviour in and out of the ring. The film...

By Wyndham Hackett Pain It would all too easy to think of The Wailing as the South Korean version of The Exorcist. There is a lot the two films share in common: an uneasy tone, a worried family, a young child possessed by the devil. Yet The Waling is much darker, more unsettling, and stranger than the 1973 classic which shocked audiences with its depictions of the horrors and evil that could beset American suburbia. Set in a small rural...

By Linda Marric @Linda_Marric Thirteen years after the original, we finally have a sequel for Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa.   Directed by Mark Waters, Bad Santa 2 is every bit as mean and nasty as the original. Billie Bob Thornton reprises his role as Willie, the lazy, drunk, sex obsessed petty criminal, who we now find in a suicidal state, living a wretched existence with very little prospect. Willie is called upon by his old partner in crime Marcus (Tony...