REVIEW: Maestro [London Film Festival 2023]

Maestro is a film obsessed with virtuosity.

Given the rapturous reception of his directorial debut, 2018’s A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper, who also stars, co-writes, and produces, has stacked the deck somewhat with his biopic of esteemed American conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein.…

REVIEW: May December [London Film Festival 2023]

The latest film from director Todd Haynes, May December is a misleadingly sunny exploration of uncomfortable truths.

Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) is a popular actor who has travelled to Savannah, Georgia, to spend some time with Gracie (Julianne Moore), who she is due to play in an upcoming TV movie.…

REVIEW: The Killer (2023) [London Film Festival 2023]

Three years on from the roaring historical drama of Mank, David Fincher returns with The Killer, a chilly, methodical thriller very much rooted in the present.

The Killer (Michael Fassbender, coolly compelling) is a professional.

His working life is meticulous, based on a routine designed to help him perform with maximum efficiency.…

REVIEW: London Film Festival 2022 Roundup

White Noise

With White Noise, Noah Baumbach has managed to make a compelling and remarkably coherent dramedy from Don DeLillo’s postmodern epic of optimism and catastrophe.

Jack Gladney (Adam Driver; winningly ungainly with long limbs and beer belly) is a renowned professor of “Hitler studies”, who works at a fictional American college sometime in the 1980s.…

REVIEW: Red Notice (Netflix)

Bromancing the Rock. Jungle Snooze. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dull.

Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot. Should be a winning combination, but Netflix’s latest somehow manages to make the trio unfunny, uncharming, and even a bit dull.

The streaming service’s second heist-based blockbuster in recent weeks, Red Notice is written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who previously worked with the actor formerly known as The Rock on both buddy comedy Central Intelligence and actioner Skyscraper.…

PODCAST: LFF 2021 – The Harder They Fall & Spencer [Movie Robcast]

Episode 129 of The Movie Robcast is the first instalment of our London Film Festival review.

To keep it to a manageable length we’ve decided to break it down into multiple episodes this year.

Kicking off proceedings is Jeymes Samuel’s lively Western, The Harder They Fall, starring Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, Lakeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz, and Delroy Lindo.…

REVIEW: The Harder They Fall (London Film Festival 2021)

The opening gala of this year’s London Film Festival, The Harder They Fall is a classic Spaghetti Western with a few incendiary extra ingredients: all-star cast, stylised violence, pounding bass.

The feature debut of writer-director Jeymes Samuel, the film recasts historical figures from the Old West as combatants in a bloody, stylised tale of revenge.…

REVIEW: Gunpowder Milkshake [Sky Cinema]

Gunpowder Milkshake is the latest in a line of hyper-stylised, neo-noir action-thrillers going back to John Wick.

At the time it was a welcome change of pace from the no-frills, Liam-Neeson-on-an-x that was dominating the genre. Seven years, though, all that neon is beginning to pall.…

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.…

PODCAST: Mank & The Godfather Coda [The Movie RobCast]

Episode 106 of The Movie Robcast sees Robs Daniel & Wallis joined by friend of the podcast and regular contributor Adrian Zak.

The three discuss the new David Fincher film, Mank, which tells the story of Herman J. Mankiewicz, co-writer of Citizen Kane.…