REVIEW: F9

The Fast & Furious franchise returns in its ongoing quest for peak automotive ridiculousness.

In the twenty years since we first heard Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) evoke “fam-lee” in his rumbling baritone, it may have occurred to you that we know nothing about his own.…

REVIEW: The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Four years and an extra possessive noun later, an unexpected hit of 2017, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, returns for an even more unexpected sequel, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard’s.

Eponymous bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds; still snarky, just more tired) is still on the outs following the events of the first film.…

REVIEW: The Killing of Two Lovers

The Killing of Two Lovers is a family melodrama shot as horror that feels like much like the work of David Lowery.

It was, in fact, written and directed by Robert Machoian, but many of the same elements.

Set in the rural midwest, the film follows David (Clayne Crawford), struggling to hold it together due to the breakdown of his marriage.…

RETROSPECTIVE: Johnny Mnemonic

Before there was The Matrix, there was Johnny Mnemonic.

Keanu Reeves’ first foray into the cyberpunk genre came in 1995, four years before the Wachowskis’ genre-redefining classic, but not in a way likely to make his career highlights reel.

Johnny Mnemonic slots neatly into a trend of blockbusters fascinated by the possibilities of the still-emerging internet.…

REVIEW: He Dreams of Giants

Writing about He Dreams of Giants feels a bit like Kirk Lazarus talking about his acting process.

2002’s Lost in La Mancha was a making-of in search of a finished product. Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, whose troubled production it documents, was one of the great unfinished movies – until it wasn’t.…

REVIEW: The Owners

In Julius Berg’s The Owners, a gang of burglars terrorise an elderly couple; only to discover they might not be as harmless as they seem…

The first half of the film seems to be building towards a home invasion thriller with reprobates Nathan (Ian Kenny), Gaz (Jake Curran), and Terry (Andrew Ellis) knocking over a sedate country manor.…

REVIEW: The Father

The Father is an immaculate depiction of a man’s descent into dementia that is all the more harrowing for its formality.

Eighty-year-old Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) owns a stately flat in Maida Vale where has lived for many years. He’s charming but irascible, increasingly prone to outbursts of vitriol; like the one that has driven his latest carer to quit.…

REVIEW: Willy’s Wonderland

For most actors, the switch to straight-to-VOD still feels like a step down. Even now, there’s something about the big screen that seems to promise a sort of immortality not guaranteed by the vagaries of streaming service algorithms.

Not so with Nicolas Cage, for whom acting seems to be an endearing mix of day-job professionalism and performative insanity.…

REVIEW: Shadow in the Cloud

For a year that was itself pretty out-here, 2020 was strangely devoid of cinematic oddities.

As such, I was forced to award my “Mad As Arseholes” award to a film that wasn’t technically released till New Year’s Day.

Shadow in the Cloud is a glossy, unabashed genre mashup, which repositions that old Twilight Zone standard “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” as WW2 aviation thriller, creature feature, and feminist parable.…