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.…

REVIEW: The Last Duel

In The Last Duel, Ridley Scott returns to his cinematic first love.

The idea of two rivals in a duel to the death is an innately romantic one, but where Scott’s directorial debut was devoted to it, in his latest it’s both beginning and ending.…

PODCAST: The Lecter Variations [Movie RobCast]

SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains spoilers for Hannibal (2001), Red Dragon (2002), Hannibal Rising (2007), and the Hannibal TV series. 

After the epic dissection of The Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter in our last episode, The Movie Robcast moves onto The Lecter Variations.…

Morgan is a generic sci-fi thriller straight off the assembly line

A man stands in front of a glass cell, ready to question its occupant; a woman who is not truly a woman. If she fails the test, she will likely be terminated.

Where that scenario provided the focal point of last year’s Ex Machina – a restrained study of trans-humanism and toxic masculinity – in Morgan it is part of a much more generic effort.…

The Martian: by far the best film to maroon Matt Damon in space

 

Are the 2010s the decade that made space travel cool again?

Gravity swept the Academy Awards back in 2013, Interstellar reminded us of the potential wonders of the universe in a way that no one had arguably done since Kubrick – Marvel even got in on the action with Guardians of the Galaxy.…

Exodus: Gods and Kings is a Biblical epic with a humanist slant

 

Of all the obscure film genres to make a comeback in recent years, who among us expected the resurgence of the Biblical epic?

Thanks to Aronofosky’s triumphantly bats**t crazy Noah, it seems we can now expect a slew of Old Testament supermen to be battling it out with the comic book contingent for control of our screens.…

The Counselor is a film in desperate need of help

 

The Counselor is an unusual beast.

In its opening moments, cheetahs stalk wild hares on the Savannah, not of Africa but Mexico; a flamboyant, eccentrically rich couple picnic nearby in the company of some luxury motors.

Sometime soon Michael Fassbender’s nameless eponym will be buying a diamond from Bruno Ganz’s merchant, who pontificates on the beauty of the stone lying in its flaws.…