Fantastical trauma counseling and opulent Gothic fetishism on London Film Festival Day 2.
LFF Day 1: A United Kingdom
In these turbulent and divisive times, what more apposite title could be found to open the London Film Festival than Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom?
However, the film is not an oh-so prescient rebuttal to present-day parochialism, but rather a polished period drama about colonial misdeeds past that nevertheless feels vaguely “state of the nation”.…
Swiss Army Man: not so much Weekend At Bernie’s as Settling Down And Making A Life With Bernie
Say what you want about Daniel Radcliffe’s acting abilities, but the man who was The Boy Who Lived has certainly branched out.
From his first big post-Potter role in The Woman In Black back in 2012 to his recent turn as an ingenue FBI agent infiltrating white supremacists in Imperium, his is a career defined by interesting choices.…
Empire Live 2016: a rundown of the weekend
In light of proximity to both Raindance and the LFF, late September (23rd-25th to be precise) seems like a weird time to hold a new London-based film event.
That being said, when the event in question is run by Empire Magazine, one of the last bastions of mainstream film journalism in print and an institution in its own right you’ve got to sit up and take notice – even if they did give inexplicably award Suicide Squad four stars.…
Arrival is a Möbius strip movie that home-schools Interstellar
Oh for the days of Close Encounters when we dreamed that first contact would be as elegant as five simple notes.
Arrival, the latest film from Sicario director Denis Villeneuve1, looks at the complexities of communicating with an alien race.1 When twelve mysterious craft appear at sites around the globe, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is drafted in to help start a dialogue with their occupants before China and Russia set off an inter-species war.2 Where do you begin, though, when you know nothing about their language or customs?…
My 2016 LFF gets off to a five-star start with the utterly captivating Moonlight
A silent boy with accusatory eyes. A shy long-limbed teen picked on at school. A musclebound man looking for a connection. All the same person, all lost; all trying to make sense of the world and their place in it.
Based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s un-produced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, Moonlight, directed and adapted by Barry Jenkins, is a powerfully intimate triptych about growing up poor, black, and gay in contemporary America; specifically Miami, Florida.…
The Girl With All The Gifts has excellence in its DNA
The Young Adult movie has been infected by the zombie genre. The result revitalizes them both.
Based on the novel by M.R. Carey, The Girl With All The Gifts follows Melanie (newcomer Sennia Nanua), a gifted girl who also happens to be possessed with a ravening hunger for flesh.…
The Infiltrator doesn’t go deep enough
Bryan Cranston goes Donnie Brasco in this 80s-set crime thriller.
Bob Mazur (Cranston) is an unassuming U.S. Customs agent with wife Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey) and two kids. He’s also undercover as Bob Musella, a flash, ingratiating money launderer for the Columbian mob.…
Captain Fantastic: a very good (Buddhist) drama
SPOILERS
Ben Cash is not your average dad.
A grizzled hippy living off the grid in the forests of Washington State, his daily routine includes stalking deer, rock climbing, and self-defense; all accompanied by his six extraordinary children. They all speak several languages, have undergone rigorous physical training, and are versed in both literary, scientific, and political theory – though they’ve all been raised as diehard libertarian socialists, of course.…
Free State of Jones: a restrained but impassioned anti-slavery drama overtaken by history
Almost twenty years on from Spielberg’s Amistad, who would have thought that we’d be talking about any film that doesn’t see Matthew McConaughey as a serious Oscar contender as something of a disappointment?
Opening in the midst of the American Civil War with a battalion of grey-suited Confederate soldiers marching calmly to their deaths – their ranks thinning as the least fortunate among them fall underfoot – Gary Ross’ Free State of Jones initially feels more like reenactment than dramatization.…