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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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It’s a long time since I last watched this movie, which has stuck in my mind primarily due to the unexpected Oscar win of then unknown actors and screenwriters Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. I’d forgotten it was directed by Gus Van Sant, a director I admire for films like Elephant (2003), Mala Noche (1986) and My Own Private Idaho (1991). Sitting down to watch this again for the first time in perhaps 10 or 15 years, I found myself underwhelmed. 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 unusual and well-meaning Australian film by Ben Gilmour follows an ex-soldier as he attempts to contact the widow and children of a civilian he killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, whilst on deployment. Continue reading
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It’s hard not to feel despondent after watching this luminous but bleak story of poverty set on the isolated Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf. 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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This sequel in the slasher horror franchise that launched Jamie Lee Curtis’s career in the late 70s feels like a loving homage, firmly rooted in its origins albeit with better gender (but not cultural) representation. Continue reading
