Finding Vivian Maier is a sharp-eyed portrait of a brilliant recluse

 

What is it about genius that fascinates us, especially unappreciated genius?

From Edgar Allen Poe to Vincent Van Gogh, there’s a certain narrative of tortured brilliance that we’ve become accustomed to. It’s rare, however, that the story begins with a box of undeveloped negatives going up for auction.…

Nightcrawler makes a scintillating roadshow out of the modern media circus

 

The best films are often a product of the age in which they were made (interesting word that, “product”).

Without the post-‘Nam disillusionment of the mid-‘70s, no Taxi Driver. Without the on-air suicide of TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck the same year, no Network.…

The Babadook is the best horror film you’ll see in 2014

 

In a genre that too often inclined towards schlock, it’s rare to find a horror film that truly has something to say about the human condition.

The Babadook is just such a film.

A micro-budget Australian horror, The Babadook takes place in the home of the frazzled Amelia (Essie Davis) and her seven-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman), who has “behavioral problems”.…

Fury is a war film full of sound and signifying a lot

 

Is there anything quite so cinematic as war? The mud, the blood, the bullets, the explosions; the scale, the intimacy; the stakes, both large and small.

An elegantly uniformed rider on a pale horse makes his way through a graveyard of shattered military hardware.…

Joe ties Nicolas Cage to the stake and prods a great performance out of him

 

Nicholas Cage is a visionary; he strides boundaries.

Few can claim a filmography as eclectic as his: from Rumble Fish to Vampires Kiss, through Con Air and Face/Off, Adaptation and Lord of War, to Ghost Rider, Kick-Ass, and now Joe.…

’71 is a Greengrassian blast from the past

 

The sound of boxing over black – the thuds, the grunts, the heavy breathing – sounds very much like war.

When ’71 opens, however, our young squaddie, Gary Hook (Starred Up’s Jack O’Connell) has not been deployed to Northern Ireland, but is participating in an officially mandated bout.…

The Equalizer is a fairly brutal middle-of-the-road actioner

 

The major issue that almost every attempt to adapt beloved ‘80s TV franchises to the big screen is tone.

Michael Mann’s Miami Vice might have had cigarette boats and more suit jacket-t-shirt combos than you can shake a brick (of coke) at, but, amidst all the neo-noir stylings, it lost it sense of cool.…

The Riot Club is, worryingly, a bit of a blast

An elite club populated by the best and brightest – or at least the richest and most (literally) entitled – of Oxford University; banned from campus and every nearby venue for their wild and destructive behavior; young men groomed for power, who grow up believing that money can buy them anything, including immunity from the law.

…

A Walk Among the Tombstones makes for a forgettable ramble

 

What’s become of Liam Neeson?

The aquiline Northern Irishman, best known for the likes Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, and Kinsey, became an unlikely action hero when, at the age of fifty-six, he starred in the Luc Besson-produced Taken.…

In Order of Disappearance: worth getting lost in the snow for?

 

Known though they are for their bleak crime dramas, the Nords aren’t particularly renowned for their sense of humor.

It’s only half surprising then that Hans Petter Moland’s In Order of Disappearance is both very, very bleak and very funny.…