REVIEW: King Richard (London Film Festival 2021)

King Richard is an unconventional biopic about an unlikely sporting figure.

Having received his first Oscar nomination in Michael Mann’s Ali back in 2002, Will Smith may finally walk away with the little gold man for his performance as Richard Williams, father to Venus and Serena Williams.…

REVIEW: Spencer (London Film Festival 2021)

In his latest film, Pablo Larraín continues to play out our fascination with private lives and public personas.

Spencer gives us a woman on the verge of a breakdown during one final, terrible Christmas with her forbidding in-laws. It just so happens that the woman is Diana, Princess of Wales, and the in-laws are the British Royal Family.…

PODCAST: WandaVision & Stardust [Movie RobCast]

In episode 109, Robs Daniel & Wallis review the opening two instalments of WandaVision, the first Marvel series to hit Disney+.

Happily, they find plenty to talk about. Not that our intrepid casters in pod are ever stuck for words.…

REVIEW: Shirley [LFF 2020]


After 2018’s disassociative coming-of-age story Madeline’s Madeline, Josephine Decker returns with another twist on a conventional narrative – the biopic as psychological thriller.

We first see our subject in soft focus, extreme close-up: bare skin, tangled hair, the hint of a face.…

REVIEW: Mad To Be Normal

Mad To Be Normal is a biopic that is nowhere near as radical as its subject: ’60s anti-psychiatry shrink R. D. Laing, “the acid Marxist” who advocated treating patients holistically, without medication or surgery.

David Tennant is mesmerizing as the soft-spoken guru, wandering the corridors as the schizophrenic whisperer, intermittently capable of the miraculous: like bringing a non-communicative patient out of her shell through a hippy laying on of hands and the prospect of pizza.…

REVIEW: The Mercy

Director James Marsh makes domestic drama out of an expeditionary tragedy in this slight but sympathetic biopic.

All Is Lost by way of Theory Of EverythingThe Mercy delves into the ill-fated attempt of amateur sailor Donald Crowhust’s (Colin Firth) to compete in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe race; an unprecedented non-stop, one-man boat race around the world.…

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.…

Bridge of Spies is a classic Cold War drama from the master of popular cinema

2015 was the year of onscreen espionage: Spy, Kingsman, Mission: Impossible, and, of course, Specter. Bridge of Spies seems like the first one likely to trouble Uncle Oscar.

The film opens in 1957 at the “height of the Cold War” as a title card helpfully informs us.…

Steve Jobs is a near perfect fusion of functionality and artistry

 

What is the current fascination with technology entrepreneurs?

From The Social Network to AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, key figures in the PC movement, real or imagined, have grown to legendary status in the public consciousness. Perhaps it’s because they are ambitious dreamers, mavericks who shape the way we interact with the world — by way of example, this review was drafted on an iPhone and written up on a Macbook — or perhaps because they provide an point of entrance into the digital realm, which is otherwise so hard to dramatize.…

The Program is the real dope

 

The sound of the wind. Breathing. A steady heartbeat.

A man on a racing bike waggles his way up a scrubby hillside – his progress is measured, a gradual, steady ascent. Whether or not this is slow motion, it feels like it.…