This is one of those delightful stories you can’t believe is true but you’re so glad it is.
Continue readingSecret Mall Apartment (2024)
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The Substance (2024)
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I think what threw me about this often delightful, often gross body horror was the expectation from reading the synopsis that it was feminist. It has made me muse on what my expectations are when that term is applied to a film, and I think it is about more than putting women’s stories at the centre, It’s about stories of women’s power and autonomy.
Continue readingA Different Man (2024)
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This was not what I was expecting at all. It’s an oddly torturous, funny, thought-provoking story of a man who has significant facial disfigurement.
Continue readingThe Damned (2024)
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Tolkien (2019)
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JRR Tolkien was my first major literary crush. Watership Down was a first love and paved the way for 17 years as a vegetarian and refusal to ever eat rabbit but reading The Lord of the Rings in my teens began a long-lasting love of epic fantasy. I read and reread it many times in my teens and 20s and owned pretty much every published book by or about Tolkien until his estate began churning out unpublished, and unfinished works.
Continue readingPoms (2019)
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Charming and mostly predictable, Poms is like spending a cosy afternoon with wine and a good friend.
Continue readingThe Holdovers (2023)
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Like tragic little rich boy Tully (Dominic Sessa), Alexander Payne traps us in a weirdly quaint version of 1970s white America with little contemporary insight.
Continue readingThe Atomic Tree (VR) (2019)
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On the Rocks (2020)
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This is a completely enjoyable film by Sofia Coppola, led by Rashida Jones’s strong, awkward and likeable characterisation of an every woman who realises she has unknowingly transitioned from exciting and sexy to boring and frumpy in the eyes of her husband.
Continue readingThem That Follow (2019)
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I was reminded of the quiet, rural drama of Dark River (2017) while watching this intense and satisfying dive into fundamentalism. It has some predictable beats but introspective camera work and a strong performance from Alice Englert help it transcend cliches.
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