I was expecting a somewhat easy ride from this Irish thriller starring GOT villain Aiden Gillen. Its slow and sparse storytelling occasionally faltered but it sucked me right in to its compelling and unsettling tale.
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It’s good to start a film festival on a high and this sweet, sexy, lyrical and hopeful first feature by Faraz Shariat hit just the right note.
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It’s a rare treat to see a mainstream Hollywood film where so many of the leads are women of colour. Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers takes a true story of a group of women in the late 2000s, who survive the financial crash by fleecing businessman, and turns it into a warm and vibrant story of female friendship. Continue reading
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I went in expecting an over-sugared gingerbread house of a romantic comedy but forgot this was British and written by Emma Thompson and partner Greg Wise. It’s fun and witty and the Christmas theme is front and centre, as is the always delightful music of George Michael that weaves a spell throughout. Continue reading
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Nicolas Cage, you seem to have made your way out the other side of the Hollywood leading man stereotype and into something rather delightful. Continue reading
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Hirokazu Kore-Eda has crafted a deceptively complex story within a film that feels as airy as a soufflé. Continue reading
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I’m sure there will be a growing number of Hollywood films made that show how the oppression of women is being acknowledged and ‘fixed’ (the trailer for Miss Behaviour (2020) looks like a particularly heavy-handed girl power movie that ticks all the boxes). Bombshell does a fair job, despite its awful title.* Continue reading
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I’ll declare a bias upfront: I’m a Taika Waititi fan. From Boy (2010) and Eagle vs. Shark (2007) to What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), his dry, droll, irreverent humour never fails to win me over. He even made a superhero movie watchable with Thor: Ragnarok (2017) mostly not taking itself too seriously. Continue reading
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Memories of reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott are distant. I remember feisty Jo and the warm and chaotic March family, full of charity for the poor and hopes for the future. Continue reading
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Don’t forget the full stop. Emma is my least favourite of Jane Austen’s novels (other than the superlative adaptation Clueless (1995). This remake by Autumn de Wilde is nicely staged with beautiful sets, clothes and a humorous thread of caricature and it mostly surmounts the biggest challenge of the story – that the eponymous character is not very likeable. Continue reading
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