REVIEW: Asteroid City

Wes Anderson’s latest is a retro-futurist ’50s postcard that touches intriguingly, if perhaps too lightly, on the theme of making sense of meaninglessness.

Framed as an episode of a black-and-white anthology drama series, complete with Serling stand-in (Bryan Cranston), Asteroid City is at once about the making of a fictional play and a televised colour production of that play.…

REVIEW: A Man Called Otto

Tom Hanks’ is a curmudgeon with a heart of gold in this English-language adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s Swedish bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Rechristened Otto for an American audience, we first encounter Hanks’ titular grouch at the hardware store. He wants a length of rope for a home DIY project and he’s brought his own knife to cut it to order; behaviour that the store staff understandably struggles with.…

REVIEW: Finch (Apple TV+)

People like post-apocalypses, cute robots, and, perhaps most of all, Tom Hanks.

Apple TV’s first big acquisition was last year’s Greyhound, which starred Hanks as a US Navy Commander leading a convoy during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Here he plays the eponymous Finch, one of the only survivors left in a scorched, sand-swept America.…

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: A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood [LFF 2019]

With Operation Yewtree looming large over once-idyllic childhood viewing, in the minds of the British public the last few years have altered what it means to be a beloved children’s entertainer.

As such, it’s understandable that UK audiences might not be entirely comfortable with the notion of Mr.…

REVIEW: Good Time & The Post

Good Time

This seedy, ‘70s-inspired crime thriller from the Safdie Brothers might equally be called “Bad Decisions”.

It’s certainly a bad decision for hustler Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) to yank his developmentally-disabled brother Nick (Ben Safdie) out of therapy and bring him along on a bank robbery.…

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.…

Saving Mr. Banks is self-serving nostalgia from the House of Mouse… It’s also great, hugely feelgood fun

 

Try to think of an occasion on which you’ve seen the celebrated Mr. Walt Disney portrayed in film.

Simply put, you can’t: the Disney corporation has fiercely guarded the image of their founder, almost as fiercely as their iconic mascot.…

Cloud Atlas is a whole lotta movie without quite enough reason for existing

 

“Surely this is one of the most ambitious films ever made.

The little world of film criticism has been alive with interpretations of it, which propose to explain something that lies outside explanation. Any explanation of a work of work must be found in it, not take to it.