After almost a decade of work as a director for hire, Duncan Jones makes a return to more personal projects.
Mute, which released on Netflix this week, is a neo-noir that draws on everything from Blade Runner to Total Recall. …
Month: February 2018
REVIEW: The Mercy
Director James Marsh makes domestic drama out of an expeditionary tragedy in this slight but sympathetic biopic.
All Is Lost by way of Theory Of Everything, The Mercy delves into the ill-fated attempt of amateur sailor Donald Crowhust’s (Colin Firth) to compete in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe race; an unprecedented non-stop, one-man boat race around the world.…
REVIEW: Den Of Thieves
Sorry for the bait-and-switch, but this review is actually over at Electric Shadows. I hope it’s worth the extra click!
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REVIEW: Phantom Thread
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is a meticulous study in mastery and the submission.
In what will proclaimedly be his final performance, Daniel Day Lewis stars as Reynolds Woodcock. A revered fashion designer in postwar London, his refined demeanour – his lithe form always impeccably attired; silver hair swept back gracefully from his forehead; that characterful crooked nose – conceals a bundle of neuroses and repression.…
REVIEW: The Commuter
In his fourth collaboration with director Jaime Collet-Serra (Unknown, Run All Night), Oscar-nominated-actor-turned-punchy-man Liam Neeson stars as Michael Macaulay, insurance salesman.
Fired from his job after ten years, and already old enough to qualify for a senior rail pass, Michael is on his regular commute home, trying to figure out how to tell his family, when he’s approached by a mysterious woman (Vera Farmiga).…
REVIEW: Winchester
Gun-house, not fun-house.
The House of Haunted Hill. The Shining. Poltergeist. The Amityville Horror. The Conjuring. The haunted house is perhaps the staple trope of the whole horror genre. The things that go bump in the night are, as a rule, scarier when they’re living – or not living – in your home, and in Winchester, the Spierig Brothers have given themselves some prime real estate to play with.…
REVIEW: Early Man
Aardman Animations’ latest sends comedy back to the Stone Age… but not in the way you might hope.
We open, according to a subtitle, on Neo-Pleistocene Earth, tracking away from a furiously erupting volcano. Dinosaurs tussle up on a ridge; a tribe of primeval persons are exuberantly beating the tar out of one another; all of which are expertly made of plasticine.…