REVIEW: Joker

After all that critical adulation, it’s a punchline worthy of the Clown Prince of Crime himself that Joker isn’t very good.

We’re in early ’80s Gotham for DC’s latest movie. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), battling mental illness, is employable only as a street clown sign-spinner for local recession-hit businesses.…

REVIEW: The Personal History Of David Copperfield [LFF 2019]

As suggested by his use of its full title, Armando Iannucci is clearly a man who knows and loves his Dickens.

That might be surprising given the cynical, politically-driven worldview Iannucci is known for versus Dickens’ warm, colourful humanism, but the social issues of the Victorian era are very much in evidence today.…

REVIEW: Colour Out Of Space [LFF 2019]

Colour Out Of Space, Richard Stanley’s first film since being fired from 1996’s The Island Of Doctor Moreau, loses itself in what is, essentially, the colour of the inside of your eyelids.

The pink glow in question comes from a mysterious meteorite, which crashes down on the front lawn of the Gardner family, a bunch of city-dwellers recently escaped to rural Massachusetts.…

REVIEW: Hustlers

Sick of the so-called “Goodfellas formula” where sleazy, ethically-bankrupt scumbags live the high life from exploiting the system before their inevitable downfall?

There’s the inevitable scene set in a neon-lit club where they share a drink and a joke, and maybe impulsively beat someone to death over a past grievance.…

REVIEW: Bad Education [LFF 2019]

It may share its name with a Jack Whitehall classroom sitcom and its 2015 big screen spin-off, but Bad Education (sans the “The Movie” subtitle) is all the more troubling in the fact that it’s based on a real-life incident.

When Deputy Superintendent Pam Gluckin (a leonine Allison Janney) is found to have embezzled funds from the Roslyn school district, Superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman, clean as a freshly-plucked chicken) makes the case against the calling police.…

REVIEW: Bait

Mark Jenkin’s Bait feels like a treasure carved out of the rocky Cornish coastline.

Mark Ward (Clive Rowe) is a growling, taciturn fisherman who refuses to change with the times. His older brother (Giles King) has started using their late father’s boat to do day trips, which Mark disdains; restricting him to using nets on the beach.…

REVIEW: The Peanut Butter Falcon [LFF 2019]

By Rob Daniel

 

 

A contender for 2019’s best crowd-pleaser, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a celebration of friendship and adventure. A joyous movie leaving you with an aching face after ninety-minutes of smiling.

Alongside the delight is an admiration for the skill with which writer/directors Tyler Nilson and Mike Schwartz (under the banner Lucky Treehouse) put their movie together.…

REVIEW: Waiting For The Barbarians [LFF 2019]

Ciro Guerra’s Waiting For The Barbarians is a finely tempered adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s elegantly allegorical novel about the brutal, self-defeating ironies of colonial oppression.

The Magistrate (Mark Rylance) is, despite his grand title, an administrator, whose unobtrusive care-takingof a small nameless settlement on the frontier of The Empire gives plenty of time for pastimes.…

PODCAST: IT Chapter Two [Electric Shadows]

The Electric Shadows Podcast reaches Bill and Ted’s favourite number. In episode 69 Robs Daniel and Wallis stare into the deadlights of IT Chapter Two, the follow-up to the 2017 smash hit IT.

Rob Daniel is none too impressed at how much has been chopped out of Stephen King’s novel, despite the 171 minutes running time.…