REVIEW: Asteroid City

Wes Anderson’s latest is a retro-futurist ’50s postcard that touches intriguingly, if perhaps too lightly, on the theme of making sense of meaninglessness.

Framed as an episode of a black-and-white anthology drama series, complete with Serling stand-in (Bryan Cranston), Asteroid City is at once about the making of a fictional play and a televised colour production of that play.…

My London Film Festival 2017 – A Rundown (Part 1)

So, here goes it: Part 1 of my three-part rundown of my 2017 London Film Festival experience. With 242 films on display, I didn’t quite get a chance to see everything – though I’m hoping to catch a few more on the Digital Viewing Library, so watch this space.…

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.…

Trumbo is a barnstorming triumph of cinematic liberalism

 

From Sunset Boulevard to Argo, Hollywood has always been in the business of self-mythologizing.

It’s not often, though, that the industry takes its licks for the mistakes it’s made along the way.

Writ large among them is, of course, the blacklist, which saw scores of talented, Left-leaning film-makers left out in the cold as the paranoia surrounding Communism reached fever pitch.…

Godzilla (2014) is like a storm on the horizon

 

How many films is it possible to make about a giant rampaging lizard?

An idea may be all in the execution – after all, how many films can you make about a Walther-packing, martini-swilling super-spy? – but the need to have buildings crumble and people scream surely serves as something of a limiting factor.…