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.…

20th Century Women: sun-dappled reflections on ’70s history; both personal and cultural

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The surrogate bunch in Mike Mills’ latest, 20th Century Women, is certainly unique; if not quite unhappy.

It’s tough being a kid: discovering your sense of self, your place in the world.…

Everybody Wants Some!! will likely prove the feel-best film of 2016

 

In the last twenty-three years, it’s safe to say that Richard Linklater has moved on from Dazed and Confused. In the case of Everyone Wants Some!!, he hasn’t had to travel very far.

Linklater’s 1993 coming-of-age comedy is arguably the finest cinematic portrayal of the American high school experience since The Breakfast Club.…

Boyhood is a perfect encapsulation of what it means to be a kid

 

You hear a lot of talk about ambition in film: ambitious scale, ambitious complexity, ambitious effects.

It’s rare though that a story is ambitious simply in its conception, in its commitment to telling a story. Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is such a film, a film that could be said to define his whole body of work.…

Before Midnight is a flawless deliberation on what happens when romantic love becomes real work

 

As I commented in my recent review of Stuck In Love, I’m not what you would call a fan of romantic movies.

Regardless of the suffix (romcom, romdram, rom sci-fi), the tropes of filmic love – eyes meeting across a crowded room, the initial dislike, the banter, repartee, the eventual kiss – do nothing for me.…