REVIEW: Poor Things [London Film Festival 2023]

A mashup Victorian melodrama with a sting in the tale, Poor Things’ greatest trick is hiding the seams.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ first film since 2018’s The Favourite, Poor Things is a female Bildungsroman in which a still-developing young woman goes into the world to find herself.…

PODCAST: Avengers: Infinity War [Electric Shadows]

Episode 43 of The Electric Shadows Podcast sees Robs Daniel & Wallis enlisting in the Infinity War.

But, they wonder, after a decade of Marvel’s movies to get us to this point – eighteen to date- is it worth all the effort or is it all just a bit, well, beige.…

The novelty’s vanished, but Now You See Me 2 doesn’t cheat

How many stage magic heist films do we need?

When Now You See Me was released back in 2013, the conceit at least seemed original: a quartet of Robin Hood magicians, known as the Four Horsemen, stage (literally) a series of audacious robberies targeted at the rich and unethical.…

Spotlight digs deep and finds light in the darkness

 

Spotlight opens at a police station circa 1976 where representatives of the Church, in conjunction with an Assistant DA, are participating in hushing up one such incident.

“I guess the Father was ‘helping out’”, a stocky old-timer wryly comments to a redheaded rookie as a likely sex offender is ushered into the back of a snow-frosted black sedan and away from prosecution.…

Foxcatcher is a frigid masterpiece about the pursuit of championship

 

Of all the things to confront in life, failure is perhaps the hardest.

How it reflects on us, and we on it, and our desperation to avoid it are universal facts of human existence. Foxcatcher is the second title to feature at this year’s London Film Festival that can be aptly summarized as a “psychotic coach drama” – the first being Whiplash; though the two films are in many ways polar opposites.…

There’s no real trick to Now You See Me

 

I’ve always been slightly puzzled when people talk about the magic of cinema.

Sure, cinema can amaze and enthrall – Orson Welles called it a ribbon of dreams – but, unlike magic, it needs to be explicable.

However much The Prestige went on about the final act, the denouement, being the most important, it only works if it feels like what’s preceded has built up to it.…