Film Review: On Chesil Beach

Adapted by Ian McEwan from his novel of the same name, On Chesil Beach follows newlyweds Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle) as they honeymoon on the English coast. It is rather drab by modern standards – the beach consisting mostly of pebbles and the hotel resembling something from Fawlty Towers – but for 1962, the year the film is predominately set in, could legitimately be described as exotic. Through flashbacks we see their upbringings – Florence grew up in a...

Film Review: Deadpool 2

With Avengers: Infinity War still breaking box office records around the world, one could be forgiven for wanting a little respite from big epic superhero productions, even if it is from one which purports to pastiche and subvert this very genre. However, whether we like it or not, Deadpool 2 is here and with it we see the return of a particular brand of crude and immature humour which is guaranteed to break any record set by its predecessor. That...

Film Review: Mansfield 66/67

Mansfield 66/67 focuses on the last two years of the Hollywood bombshell’s life and the documentary presents a slightly odd portrayal with much of it focusing on the salacious newspaper column inches that surrounded Mansfield’s final days and her relationship with the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton Lavey. The documentary opens with a title card stating that the film is a “true story based on rumor and hearsay” which is true as there is a line of actual...

Film Review: Entebbe

In the summer of 1976, two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, aided by 2 members of the West German Revolutionary Cells group, hijacked an Air France flight heading from Tel Aviv to Paris and took its 250 passengers hostages. The group then forced the plane’s mostly French crew to fly its passengers to Entebbe in Uganda, where it was met by the country’s self-proclaimed president for life, the notorious Idi Amin Dada, who then worked...

Film Review: That Good Night

An audience will have a more involving experience watching That Good Night going in knowing that this was the last film of legendary actor John Hurt. Death is on the horizon throughout the film, as Hurt plays terminally ill screenwriter Ralph looking to reconcile with his estranged son (Max Brown) and his partner (Erin Richards) before heading off to the great beyond. What hobbles That Good Night is how uninvolving the whole venture feels. The score hammers home how twee...

Film Review: Redoubtable

French director Michel Hazanavicius, whose previous film The Artist took home the Palme d’Or and wowed critics and audiences alike, this time focuses his camera on Jean-Luc Godard (Louis Garrel) in his tragicomedy biopic, Redoubtable. Set after the release of Godard’s 1967 flop, La Chinoise, and the directors subsequent rejection of the films that cemented him as a visionary and revolutionary filmmaker, Redoubtable centres on the relationship, and its eventual unravelling, between the famed director and his actress, writer and...

Film Review: Avengers – Infinity War

Warning: Though this review is spoiler free, the film’s set-up is referenced throughout. “It’s not overselling it to say that the future of the universe is at stake,” declares Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange with a solemn tone. He’s referring, of course, to the coming of Thanos (Josh Brolin), a galactic warlord with an unhealthy violet complexion, towering height and intimidatingly chunky chin, who supposedly wishes to bring balance to the universe by destroying half of it. The Sorcerer Supreme, however,...

Film Review: Rampage

Loosely based on the video game series of the same name and staring the force of nature that is the mighty Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Rampage had all the makings of yet another meat-headed, big, brash and silly disaster movie, so it was a genuine surprise to find out just how much fun this movie has turned out to be. With the recent release of the hugely disappointing sequel to Guillermo de Toro’s Pacific Rim which left more than a...

Film Review: Love, Simon

While LGBTQ stories have found their rightful place within the safety of indie cinema for a while now — the success of Call Me By Your Name this year, and Moonlight in 2017 can attest to this — the same cannot be said about the visibility of non-stereotypical gay characters in mainstream productions, especially in those aimed at younger audiences. However, with the arrival of Love, Simon, Greg Berlanti's heartwarming tale about a teenage gay romance, things seem to be...

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