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Def Jam's How to Be a Player
(1997)
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Philip French
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An inept sexist comedy.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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8 Heads in a Duffel Bag
(1997)
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Philip French
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It's about as funny as being a guest at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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The Myth of Fingerprints
(1997)
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Philip French
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The actors, however, give substance to rather nebulous characters.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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One Night Stand
(1997)
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Philip French
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Some dramatic cracks are papered over with music (by Figgis himself), though much is casually unconvincing.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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A Merry War
(1997)
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Philip French
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Everything that makes this imperfect book worth reading has been lost in turning it into a light period comedy.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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The Tango Lesson
(1997)
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Philip French
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This is a monumentally humourless, self-regarding picture.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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Under the Skin
(1997)
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Philip French
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Avoiding sentimentality and glibness, this is a fine, spare piece of film-making.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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Alien Resurrection
(1997)
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Philip French
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This brilliantly designed movie uses revulsion and disgust as its chief weapons.
Posted Aug 06, 2024
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Lovers
(1991)
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Philip French
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Lovers has a powerful sense of time and place. The sexual scenes are less explicit than is currently fashionable but much more erotic.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Waterland
(1992)
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Philip French
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As adapted by Peter Prince and directed by American Stephen Gyllenhaal, the film is a frequent embarrassment.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Alien 3
(1992)
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Philip French
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Despite the injection of new ideas, the known characteristics of this Alien can only lead to the repetition of familiar shocks. But Weaver brings her customary authority to Ripley and the technical side of the movie is well up to standard.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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2/5
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Harold and the Purple Crayon
(2024)
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Ellen E Jones
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Perhaps the film is more usefully read as a caution against wasteful consumerism in the age of Amazon deliveries. When you can summon an item as soon as think of it, what value does anything have?
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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3/5
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A Place Called Silence
(2024)
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Ellen E Jones
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There are tonally jarring comic caricatures... These, plus an abundance of suspenseful set pieces and proper plot twists, keep us adequately entertained. Unless, of course, you’ve already seen the 2022 original.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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4/5
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Alma's Rainbow
(1994)
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Ellen E Jones
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Alma’s Rainbow has matured into a worthwhile watch, with appropriately colourful costumes, a curvy jazz score and plenty of hard-won womanly wisdom to impart.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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4/5
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Atomic People
(2024)
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Barbara Ellen
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While Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer sought to capture the crushing horror of causing mass death, Atomic People gives voice to those at the sharp end.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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4/5
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Dìdi
(2024)
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Ellen E Jones
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The boy does not become a man, or an artist, overnight. Nor even over the course of one transformative and cinematic summer.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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3/5
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Kensuke's Kingdom
(2023)
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Ellen E Jones
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This is all nobly intended, with impeccable credentials and expertly crafted, but the fear remains that... Kensuke’s Kingdom will fall squarely into the category of “Films Parents Think Their Kids Ought to Enjoy”.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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4/5
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I Saw the TV Glow
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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With its shapeshifting disquiet, I Saw the TV Glow is too languidly weird, too unmoored from genre conventions to be neatly categorised. But there’s not a frame in Jane Schoenbrun’s suffocating second feature that isn’t drenched in dread and unease.
Posted Jul 29, 2024
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4/5
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About Dry Grasses
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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Tiptoes around the edge of being suffocatingly verbose, and there are scenes that could stand a tighter edit. Still, the meaty, novelistic writing and exceptional quality of the performances make for a rich and engrossing viewing experience.
Posted Jul 29, 2024
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3/5
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Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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A film can be obnoxious and simultaneously very funny, and Deadpool & Wolverine is frequently hilarious. But it’s also slapdash, repetitive and shoddy looking, with an overreliance on meme-derived gags and achingly meta comic fan in-jokes.
Posted Jul 29, 2024
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Target
(1985)
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Philip French
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Target might be a lightweight assignment, but Penn works through its dramatic dilemmas with a proper moral seriousness.
Posted Jul 25, 2024
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Rosa Luxemburg
(1986)
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Philip French
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Its defects, however, are outweighed by a performance of intelligence and depth by Barbara Sukowa in the title role.
Posted Jul 24, 2024
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Aliens
(1986)
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Philip French
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Aliens isn't as subtly modulated as Alien but it's far more brutal -- much like the difference between swallowing a cascara tablet with a mouthful of pink gin and being forcibly fed a pint of castor oil.
Posted Jul 24, 2024
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4/5
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Chuck Chuck Baby
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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There’s nothing quite like the bittersweet, cathartic rush of belting out a ballad... First-time feature director Janis Pugh harnesses this to heart-swelling effect in a gorgeous celebration of female camaraderie, second chances and poultry processing.
Posted Jul 22, 2024
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4/5
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Janet Planet
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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An exquisite and treasurable account of a complicated mother-daughter bond.
Posted Jul 22, 2024
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3/5
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Twisters
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Lee Isaac Chung directs this serviceable disaster flick, a change of pace and wind direction after the delicate, cerebral approach of his previous film, Minari.
Posted Jul 22, 2024
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4/5
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Shayda
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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The assured directorial debut of Noora Niasari, Shayda captures the claustrophobic tension and sickening dread of a wife trying and failing to evade the reach of a violent, angry man.
Posted Jul 22, 2024
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4/5
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Crossing
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Crossing is terrific: a rich and rewarding tapestry of characters and cultures flung together and flourishing.
Posted Jul 22, 2024
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Rainbow
(1996)
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Philip French
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[A] movie employing The Wizard of Oz (though more a crutch to hobble on than as a pole to vault with).
Posted Jul 16, 2024
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Denise Calls Up
(1995)
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Philip French
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The movie is inventive and often quite funny, but these yuppies (or phonies) rapidly got on my nerves -- the way people who do gabble on in a telephone booth when you've got an urgent call to make.
Posted Jul 16, 2024
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Twister
(1996)
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Philip French
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The script, written by Anne-Marie Martin in collaboration with her husband, Michael Crichton, is better in conception than in execution. With so few lulls between the storms, the characters have little depth or identity.
Posted Jul 16, 2024
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5/5
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Eno
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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There is a curious, intuitive logic weaving together these randomly chosen scenes and clips. It’s an outstanding achievement.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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4/5
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Longlegs
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Among other things, the writing -- specifically a crude chunk of third-act exposition -- lets it down. But still, there is plenty to admire in this oppressively brooding and superbly acted chiller.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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4/5
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Agent of Happiness
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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A slow-burning portrait that’s infused with warmth.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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4/5
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Sleep
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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It's an impressive first feature from Jason Yu, who is as adept at wielding the sly observational comedy of the film's first half as he is at ratcheting up the claustrophobic tension later on.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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When Harry Met Sally...
(1989)
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Philip French
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Crystal and Ryan work beautifully together, and equally good are Carrie Fisher as Sally's closest friend Marie, and Bruno Kirby as Harry's prissy confidant, Jess.
Posted Jul 10, 2024
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3/5
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MaXXXine
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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While MaXXXine is the weakest of the three films, Goth is well worth the price of admission, if only for the chilling, almost reptilian glaze of ambition in her eyes as she pursues her career dream.
Posted Jul 08, 2024
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2/5
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Problemista
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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Against all expectations, an odd-couple friendship develops. Or so this needy, Kaufmanesque indie would have us believe. In practice, however, Swinton is massively overblown and Torres too wispy and diffident to balance things out.
Posted Jul 08, 2024
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2/5
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Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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It’s not unentertaining -- the blast force of Murphy’s charisma alone carries the picture... It is, however, lazy, formulaic stuff that diminishes the brash brilliance and danger of the actor’s early career work.
Posted Jul 08, 2024
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4/5
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Unicorns
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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The excellent central performances carry the story: Patel’s physicality shifts between the power and magnetism of Aysha and the gentleness of Ashiq... And Hardy is terrific.
Posted Jul 08, 2024
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Lucky Lady
(1975)
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Russell Davies
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The picture simply won't commit itself to any register or mood.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
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Jaws
(1975)
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Russell Davies
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Go on, then, you might as well see it once -- of all the civilian-panic pictures so far made, it's quite the most economical.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
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4/5
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Fancy Dance
(2023)
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Wendy Ide
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While Fancy Dance has a tendency to labour its points a little too emphatically, Gladstone and Deroy-Olson are both phenomenal; their connection, played out in shared glances and urgent wordless messages, is palpable, persuasive and vital.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
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3/5
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Kinds of Kindness
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Without the full-bore stylistic visual onslaught that oiled the wheels of Lanthimos’s last two films, Kinds of Kindness can feel rather a slog.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
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4/5
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Eternal You
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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It’s hard not to watch this without a mounting sense of dread and a suspicion that a fairly significant Rubicon has been crossed.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
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3/5
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Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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This is the kind of handsome, well-nourished film-making that looks an absolute treat up on the screen, but is about as authentically Old West as a set of dental veneers. Still, it’s not uninvolving.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
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4/5
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A Quiet Place: Day One
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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This is a stylish and satisfying prequel that elegantly integrates Sam’s poet’s sensibility into the storytelling.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
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2/5
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Something in the Water
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Something in the Water is competently filmed, with lots of propulsive underwater shark’s eye shots of the flailing legs of the bridesmaids. But there’s rather too much time spent watching the girls bobbing and bickering in the middle of the ocean.
Posted Jun 24, 2024
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3/5
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Federer: Twelve Final Days
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Like its subject, the film is not particularly revolutionary or groundbreaking in its approach. But again, like its subject, it is a work of unmistakable quality and class.
Posted Jun 24, 2024
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2/5
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The Exorcism
(2024)
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Wendy Ide
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Despite Crowe’s commitment to going balls-out nutso in the role, the film unravels, a casualty of slap-dash plotting, lazy directing and a reliance on tired Catholic horror tropes.
Posted Jun 24, 2024
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