REVIEW: House of Gucci

Between House of Gucci and Christopher Pratt’s casting as Mario, it’s been a difficult time for Italians in cinema.

Ridley Scott’s second film this year after historical epic The Last Duel, House of Gucci is more in the vein of his 2017 effort All the Money in the World – a stylish crime drama based on a real-life event, though trading that film’s shadowy restraint for a smorgasbord of scenery chewing character work.…

Assassin’s Creed: bored game

It’s clear that Justin Kurtzel, director of Assassin’s Creed, didn’t want to make just any old video-game movie. In fact, it seems clear that he didn’t really want to make a video-game adaptation at all.

Indeed, that’s just about the only thing that is clear in this adaptation of the long-running Ubisoft franchise, which manages to drain all the fun from the premise.…

High-Rise is the cinema of concrete and chaos

 

There’s something about the technology-driven dystopias of JG Ballard that appeal to a certain breed of director.

Steven Spielberg’s mainstream adaptation of Empire of the Sun is ironically something of an oddity of an oeuvre encapsulated by the steely paraphilia of David Cronenberg’s Crash.…