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This is undoubtably an unusual movie. Like a genre mash up of a Scandi crime drama and a dark and dirty fairytale, Border keeps you decidedly uncomfortable from start to end. Continue reading
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This dramatisation by James Franco about the making of the cult classic The Room (2003) should only be watched after attending a midnight screening of the film it explores (the only way to watch it, in my opinion) or perhaps not at all. Continue reading
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The film that should have won the best picture Oscar, Alfonso Cuarón’s sublime meditation on the life of an indigenous maid in 1970s Mexico city is filmmaking at its best. Continue reading
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Unrolling like a gentle dream, Beatriz Seigner’s Los Silencios takes the serious subject of the displacement of Colombian refugees and tells it in a lyrical and ethereal way. Continue reading
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Climax is a drug-infused, sweaty and self-indulgent nightmare. It immerses you in a single night with a bunch of unlikable dancers as bad things happen to them. Continue reading
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A Christmas-themed zombie musical set in a British high school? I couldn’t buy my ticket fast enough and John McPhail’s endearing comedy, packed with just the right amount of gore and catchy tunes, didn’t disappoint. Continue reading
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If you’re in the mood for a feelgood Aussie flick that celebrates footy, country towns and mateship then The Merger will not disappoint. Filmed in around Wagga Wagga in the fictional town of Bodgy Creek, like its second-cousin-once-removed The Castle, it tells of underdogs fighting for a fair go. Continue reading
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This serviceable dramatisation of the life of author Mary Shelley (Elle Fanning) satisfies as much as it disappoints. Feeling a bit like a made-for-TV movie, director Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda) paints by numbers, giving us a long succession of plot points with a good dose of high emotion but little drama. Continue reading
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Jafar Panahi is not one of my favourite Iranian directors. His self-conscious self-referential technique of centring his films around his persona as a director has always kept me at a distance from his films, although I understand the relevance given his 20-year travel and directing ban. Three Faces follows this same style but, for the first time, I felt he kept himself to the margins of the story and let the real star, Behnaz Jafari, shine. Continue reading
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This absorbing and layered tale by Debra Granik (Winters Bone 2010) explores PTSD and its ramifications through the story of a father and daughter living off the grid. Continue reading
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