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Based on the graphic novel ‘The Coldest City’, this Cold War action thriller is engaging and entertaining and only occasionally lacks pace and plausibility. Charlize Theron is Lorraine Broughton, the atomic blonde of the title with a shock of white hair and the epitome of sangfroid. She’s an MI6 agent and is sent to Berlin to investigate the assassination of fellow agent and former lover James Gascoigne (Sam Hargrave). Continue reading
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I’ll go out on a limb and say the best way to make a film about women is to have one direct it. The fact that the title and trailer of this film focused on William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman and co-inventor of the lie detector, led me to suspect that this might be another hagiography of a bloke who supported women’s rights. Happily it is definitely not. It is a sexy tale that places the women firmly in the centre and has given me a new appreciation of Wonder Woman. Continue reading
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Can Taika Waititi please direct every Marvel/DC film? Then I might be tempted to watch them. Not my favourite genre, New Zealand director Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do in the Shadows, Boy) for the most part refuses to take his job too seriously and peppers the script with largely improvised and genuinely funny dialogue. Continue reading
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The way to make a sequel, and big budget movie, is to give the directing job to a non-American it seems. French-Canadian, Denis Villeneuve, who directed the superb Arrival and Incendies, takes a fair stab at this one and manages to equal the original in mood, visual impact, leisurely pace and partially clothed women. Continue reading
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There’s something lovely about this dark comedy, although it’s almost unbearable sometimes to watch the sad and dangerous trajectory of hapless Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza). Continue reading
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This tense and dirty crime drama by the Safdie brothers hooked me in with its relentless pace, fluoro grubbiness and the first frame of an unrecognisable and mesmerising Robert Pattinson. Continue reading
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This unusually constructed documentary is an illustrated recitation of the words of James Baldwin, American writer and social critic. It begins with a letter to his agent about an idea to write the stories of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, all men who are outspoken about civil rights and all assassinated in the 60s. Continue reading
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Passengers is a neat example of how female characters are stereotyped in Hollywood films. With only four named characters of substance, it’s not surprisingly that only one is female, Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence). Her role is to meet the romantic and sexual needs of the hero, Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), and to provide a framework for the essential goodness and heroism of his masculinity by personifying the worst of archetypal femininity. If you plan on seeing this film, and I wouldn’t rush out to do so, perhaps read no further. I won’t give away any plot points that aren’t obvious from the outset but I will probably say enough about the characters that you have a pretty good idea of the entire film. So, spoilers. Continue reading
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Faced with a choice of only three films that I could see and none of them ones that I would particularly choose (the kind of first world problem you have when your car is being serviced in a country town), I took the advice of the guy selling tickets at the cinema. He warned me off American Made (“It’s crap) and Dunkirk (“It’s boring) so The Hitman’s Bodyguard won the prize. Skimming reviews on IMDb, I expected an illogical but diverting shallow crime caper with two charismatic male leads and a few token women as love interests. And that’s exactly what I got. Continue reading
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Like a Lanthimos film in a fever dream, Mother! is Darren Aronofsky at his most grandiose. Receiving both boos and standing ovations at festivals, this is a film you will either love or loathe. Obtuse, metaphorical and surreal, its central female character and dark vision held my attention throughout, only faltering as the worthy but somewhat prosaic meaning became clear. Continue reading
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