New Movies

By Linda Marric When it comes to films about people doing heroic deeds during WWII, it becomes impossible to review the film without taking into account the real people behind these truly harrowing stories. Based on a non-fiction book by Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper’s Wife tells the story of a couple who bravely put their own lives in harms way to save over 300 Polish Jews from certain death by hiding them in their zoo. Directed by Niki Caro, the...

By Linda Marric The very first time I came across The Belko Experiment was a few weeks ago through a controversial review in which an American critic explains why he felt the need to walk out of the screening of the film out of sheer despair and anger at the violence being shown on screen. As I am not here to judge another reviewer’s actions, I will instead attempt to justify why I didn’t completely hate the film, and why...

By Stephen Mayne There’s a grand ambition to Clash that belies its closeted setting. The entire film takes place in the back of a riot van. The van might move but the camera never leaves the confined metal space. Yet by throwing in a broad spectrum of Egyptian society, writer/director Mohamed Diab manages a near perfect distillation of the problems facing a country wracked by uncertainty and division. The action takes place in 2013 in Egypt after the elected President...

Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP Their Finest is set at the height of the Second World War and away from the front line. The British government turns to propaganda films as a way of boosting moral and convincing the America to join the war. They realise that the female parts are underwritten and hire Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) to work as a scriptwriter on an upcoming Dunkirk picture and give it a “woman’s touch”. As bombs land on London Catrin and...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP In the last couple of years, almost as a reaction to the overproduced and sickly Twilight franchise, there have been a number of vampire films that have reimagined the genre in a more realistic and creative way. With Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lover’s Left Alive and the more recent A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night the real potential of vampire tales has really been shown. Made on a low budget with relatively unknown actors, it...

As inevitable as getting old and paying taxes, there is another instalment in the Fast and Furious franchise. Seemingly unstoppable, the latest adventure represents the eighth outing in 16 years, with a sense that after years of trying the series had finally hit its groove. The last three films have not just created excitement at the box office but also garnered some surprisingly good reviews. Impossible as it may have seemed a few years ago, Fast and Furious 8 opens...

By James McAllister If Stoker served to showcase how devilish director Park Chan-wook could be, his new film, The Handmaiden, proves he’s equally as devious. It’s a heated, and handsomely mounted period potboiler that has been adapted by the Korean wunderkind with a gleeful sense of stylised excess, from British author Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel Fingersmith. Transplanting the story from Victorian England to 1930s Korea, when the country was still under Japanese rule, Chan-wook – working with his regular co-writer...

By Linda Marric Book adaptations can often be problematic, but when the book in question has won one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, a whole new set of issues can find themselves attached to the project. Luckily, The Sense Of An Ending manages to cleverly avoid all of those problems. Staring Jim Broadbent and directed by the brilliant Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox, 2013), the film presents its audience with one of the most memorable and thoroughly...

By Linda Marric The main issue with Pete Travis' new film City Of Tiny Lights isn’t its lack of an interesting story to tell. With a great premise and a fantastic cast, this could have easily become one of this year’s greatest British success stories. However, the film is largely let down by a huge dose of schmaltz coupled with a jarringly meandering screenplay which ultimately leaves you wondering what went wrong. Riz Ahmed, is Tommy Akhtar, a private detective...