REVIEW: Sorry To Bother You (LFF 2018 – Day 2)

The directorial debut of Boots Riley, Sorry To Bother You is a delirious satire about, among other things, the sacrifice and self-compromise required to make a success of yourself in present-day America.

Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), ironically known as Cash, is broke and living in his uncle’s garage with his girlfriend, free spirit Detroit (Tessa Thompson).…

London Film Festival 2017 – A Rundown (Part 2)

So, here goes it: Part 2 of my three-part rundown of my 2017 London Film Festival experience. Part 1 is available here.

 

Call Me By Your Name

A story of sex, sculpture, and self-discovery, Call Me By Your Name is the latest in a recent trend of achingly sensitive LGBT romantic dramas that seem to hold such an allure for me.…

REVIEW DOUBLE BILL: Daphne & Final Portrait

Daphne

The feature debut of filmmaker Peter Mackie Burns, Daphne isn’t so much about finding yourself as just figuring out you’re lost.

Daphne (Emily Beecham) is a stylishly insouciant redhead in her early thirties, living and working in contemporary London.

She gets drunk on a nightly basis and hooks up with random guys.…

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.…

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.…

Man From UNCLE is stylish but hardly likely to shake up Bond

 

The second blockbuster based on a ‘60s spy series to hit this summer, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. provides a stylish jaunt back to the Cold War.

Following a red-tinted title sequence that provides a potted history of recent U.S-Russia relations, we find ourselves in 1963.…