Black Mass is the parable of Johnny Depp and the Good Acting Choice

 

Everybody loves a good gangster film.

Whether you prefer the shadowy family drama of The Godfather or the stunning expose of Goodfellas, the criminal lifestyle lends itself to a myriad of different portrayals. In the case of Black Mass, it’s the codependent relationship between the Irish-American Mob in South Boston AKA Southie and the FBI.…

Bridge of Spies is a classic Cold War drama from the master of popular cinema

2015 was the year of onscreen espionage: Spy, Kingsman, Mission: Impossible, and, of course, Specter. Bridge of Spies seems like the first one likely to trouble Uncle Oscar.

The film opens in 1957 at the “height of the Cold War” as a title card helpfully informs us.…

The Lady in the Van is a chip (in the sugar) off the old Bennett block

 

For a man widely regarded as Britain’s best-loved living playwright, Alan Bennett sure does have a fixation with old ladies.

It’s a perception Bennett himself laments in The Lady in the Van. He claims he’d much rather be writing about spies.…

He Named Me Malala captures its subject’s achievement but misses out on the full story

 

What were you doing when you were seventeen? If your answer is “Taking the President of Nigeria to task over his failure to secure the return of kidnapped schoolgirls from Boko Haram”, then you must be Malala Yousafzai.

Now perhaps the most recognisable eighteen year-old on the planet, the activist and two-time Nobel laureate is now the subject this documentary from director Davis Guggenheim, which does justice to the scope of her achievements, if not the complexity of Malala herself.…

Steve Jobs is a near perfect fusion of functionality and artistry

 

What is the current fascination with technology entrepreneurs?

From The Social Network to AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, key figures in the PC movement, real or imagined, have grown to legendary status in the public consciousness. Perhaps it’s because they are ambitious dreamers, mavericks who shape the way we interact with the world — by way of example, this review was drafted on an iPhone and written up on a Macbook — or perhaps because they provide an point of entrance into the digital realm, which is otherwise so hard to dramatize.…

Manglehorn is not exactly the summit of Pacino’s career but at least it’s on the slopes

 

If you were looking for a word to describe Al Pacino’s acting career over the past two decades chances are “understated” would not be it.

Generally regarded as one of the finest actors ever to have graced the silver screen, it nevertheless seems sadly fitting that his only Oscar win came as the blind, bellowing Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman.…