Reviews Archives - Page 26 of 57 - Of All The Film Sites

Your Name: the House of Miyazaki isn’t the only game in Tokyo

The major PR push for Your Name is that it was and remains a smash hit in Japan, making 15 billion yen ($170 million) at the box office over only 10 weeks, a base stat only made more impressive given that it’s a major Japanese animation not from Studio Ghibli.

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Free Fire (LFF Day 10)

Say what you want about overvaulting cinematic ambitions – I’m looking at you, Terrence – it’s sometimes refreshing to see a talented filmmaker take on a simple concept and carry it off with flair and aplomb.

In the case of Free Fire, the latest from British auteur Ben Wheatley, the concept is this: the third-act shootout, with which any self-respecting crime thriller must surely culminate, instead kicks off less than twenty minutes in and occupies the rest of its ninety-minute run-time.…

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – why bother?

Every movie star should have a backup franchise — just in case.

Chris Pratt, for instance, has Jurassic World and Guardians of the Galaxy. Tom Hanks has the Da Vinci Code series and playing heroic real-life captains in films named for them, e.g.…

Their Finest (LFF Day 9)

If the BFI were determined to kick off LFF 2016 with a best-of-British film, they should have picked Their Finest.

True, director Lone Scherfig is a Dane and A United Kingdom has more of a social message; not to mention an irresistible title.…

I, Daniel Blake is a rallying cry for social justice

There’s something strange about reviewing a Ken Loach film in 2016.

When I was born, Kes was already a perennial classic from my parents’ childhoods, and, almost a quarter century on, that film pushing fifty, Loach is still there directing socially pertinent work.…

LFF Day 8: Prevenge & Brimstone

REVIEWS IN 300 WORDS

Prevenge

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned — though the wrath of the pregnant Ruth (writer-director Alice Lowe) still isn’t half as great as that of her unborn brood.

Ruth has suffered a recent tragedy, one that has the baby inside her baying, albeit sweetly, for the blood of those she holds responsible.…

LFF Day 7: The Birth of a Nation, Dog Eat Dog, & I Am Not A Serial Killer

The Birth of a Nation

Reclaiming the title of D.W. Griffith’s feverishly racist silent epic, this ardent biography of conciliatory preacher turned revolutionary firebrand Nat Turner — written, directed by, and starring Nate Parker — makes a case for bloody retribution as the necessary, even inevitable, response to institutionalized evil.…

LFF Days 4-6: The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Voyage of Time, Bleed For This, Personal Shopper, & A Quiet Passion

Sorry for the delay if you’re trying to stay up-to-date on the London Film Festival. I’ve been a bit lax in getting it written up.

Even so, enjoy these capsule reviews of everything I saw over the course of Days 4-6.…

LFF Day 3: La La Land & Manchester By The Sea

Rhapsodic Hollywood dreaming and glacial Massachusetts misery on London Film Festival Day 3.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone soar in Damien Chazelle’s radiant love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals and those who dare to follow their dreams in the City of Angels.

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LFF Day 2: A Monster Calls & The Handmaiden

Fantastical trauma counseling and opulent Gothic fetishism on London Film Festival Day 2.

The Orphanage‘s J.A. Bayona began his career as an acolyte of Guillermo Del Toro and in A Monster Calls he finds his own Pan’s Labyrinth – but one where the monsters make house calls.

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