REVIEW: The Power of the Dog (London Film Festival 2021)

Jane Campion return to filmmaking after a twelve-year hiatus with a composed yet striking rumination on masculinity and repression.

The second Netflix western of the festival, The Power of the Dog starts as a tale of two brothers – the plump, well-scrubbed George (Jesse Plemons, an undemonstrative Newfoundland dog) and the lean, raw-boned Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch, a sharp-eyed Border Collie) – who run a large ranch in Montana circa 1925.…

PODCAST: The Suicide Squad & Jungle Cruise [Movie RobCast]

Episode 122 of The Movie Robcast casts an eye over James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and the Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt starring Jungle Cruise.

Rob D’s eye is a little grumpier than the kind-hearted Rob W, so you’ll have to listen and see which team you’re on.…

PODCAST: Greenland & News of the World [Movie RobCast]

It’s been a minute since our last episode so #110 is a bumper wrap-up of what the Robs have been watching.

First, the shocking revelation that Gerard Butler has made a good movie with end-of-days disaster movie Greenland, currently available on Amazon Prime.…

REVIEW: i’m thinking of ending things

For a filmmaker whose first script, Being John Malkovich, plunged us, literally, into the head of a revered character actor and whose most recent, Anomalisa, was a stop-motion meditation on individuality, a couple’s car journey to visit the boyfriend’s parents might seem a bit… prosaic?…

Black Mass is the parable of Johnny Depp and the Good Acting Choice

 

Everybody loves a good gangster film.

Whether you prefer the shadowy family drama of The Godfather or the stunning expose of Goodfellas, the criminal lifestyle lends itself to a myriad of different portrayals. In the case of Black Mass, it’s the codependent relationship between the Irish-American Mob in South Boston AKA Southie and the FBI.…

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.…

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.…