Film Reviews

Review by Ben Holliday/@bholliday Lights Out is certainly one of the pleasant surprises of an otherwise dreary summer. Director David F. Sandberg makes his feature film debut after submitting a short film of the same name and premise at a film festival in 2014. Despite not winning the competition, Sandberg was contacted by many big Hollywood names hence why you’ll see James Wan’s name plastered across the marketing. Despite doubts from Wan that Sandberg could extend the short into a...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt Louder than Bombs deals with an ex-actor (Gabriel Byrne) and his two sons (Devin Druid and Jesse Eisenberg) try their best to confront their fractured feelings of their lives and each other on the eve of an exhibition of their deceased wife and mother (Isabelle Huppert). This somber tale is the first English-language feature from Norwegian director Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st) And for the most part, this fragile piece does well to hold together....

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt In Poor Cow; Joy (Carol White) may be the name of the woman we watch in this slice of life tale, yet as we observe this young woman’s life, we sense that joy is merely a title for her. She gains little pleasure from the choices she makes. As Joy narrates her story in doleful narration, it often speaks of love and aspirations. The reality always seems far from the talk. Ken Loach’s first cinema...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt B-Movies: When you keep them simple and sharp, you often heed the best results. The Shallows never overstays its welcome, nor does it overcomplicate its obvious silliness. It takes a Dario Argento approach towards proceedings. As much as we like to often deny our baser urges, sometimes our film cravings will drive us towards an attractive person being tormented by a killer shark. Just this writer? Ok then. The Shallows introduces us to its lead...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt I can’t remember the time I saw a film so incredibly inoffensive. Usually, as a film writer, one is often attracted to a film with an intense, diverse reaction. Dexter Fletcher’s Eddie the Eagle; the colourful true story of Eddie Edwards, the tenacious underdog whose passion and charm, managed to win enough people over and gain a chance to complete in the 1988 Winter Olympics, is only interested in warming the hearts of those who...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt "Tarkovsky for me is the greatest (director), the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." – Ingmar Bergman The films of Andrei Tarkovsky demand attention in a way that other films could never come close to asking for.  Mirror a 1975 semi-autobiographical drama, is no exception. Non-linear by design, this evocative mixture of lyrical cinematography, poetic narration and flashback,...

Review By Leslie Byron Pitt As the United Kingdom almost begrudgingly trudges towards Brexit and certain political parties seem hell bent on eating each other alive, my second viewing of High-Rise has firmly confirmed that it's one of the best films of the year. Ben Wheatley's adaptation of 70’s civilisation falling afoul to modernisation and rampant capitalism is not as cutting as J.G Ballard’s original novel, but it’s a wry cynical take of Ballard’s work. Managing to be a darkly...

Review By Leslie Byron Pitt Steven Spielberg's first Disney branded film (it's weird that it's taken so long), is a rather wistful adaptation of the beloved Roald Dahl book The BFG. The novel, which is over 30 years old, tells a light-hearted tale of an orphaned little girls relationship with a benevolent giant, as they work together to stop a group of man-eating giants who look to invade the human world. This is not the first time that the Big...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt The movie River involves a young American doctor (Rossif Sutherland) who doesn't know when to stop, intervening a sexual assault while on sabbatical in Lao. His violent intrusion leads to the assailant's body being found in the Mekong river the next day. This leaves the guilt-ridden doctor open to charges of murder, causing him to make the decision to flee Thailand and look towards making it back to the U.S. What transpires is a beautifully...