Film Review

Released in 2014, The Lego Movie was surprisingly awesome. This 90-minute advertisement for plastic bricks defied expectations to achieve widespread critical and commercial success thanks to warm-hearted humour and an imaginative script.…

“Critique is so limiting and emotionally draining.” Maybe that’s true but Velvet Buzzsaw – the new Netflix horror-satire from Nightcrawler writer/director Dan Gilroy – doesn’t have any right to say it. The film, although visually impressive…

When cinephiles argue the straightforward narratives and clear heroes and villains of Hollywood movies are inferior to international cinema, films like Burning are what they are talking about. South Korea's pick for the Best Foreign…

Polar is literally a film of two halves but not in the temporal sense. Sure you could split this two hour movie into two one hour halves but that wouldn’t make it any less weird or jarring. When I say split it in two I mean the garish,…

There are two films that secured a best picture nomination at this year’s Oscars which, in this humble reviewer’s opinion, did not deserve their place. The first is Black Panther, the decent afro-centric superhero vehicle and a film of such…

With Vice, director Adam McKay has strengthened and perfected his ‘bio/docu/com’ style of political biopic. Eschewing the usual Oscar bait candy floss structure, McKay creates a version of Dick Cheney that seems just as comfortable segueing…

The Mule has a number of moments where a 90-year-old stares at a computer or smartphone and grumbles 'Internet' and yet is still great. Clint Eastwood directs and stars (his first leading role since 2012) as Earl Stone, a 90-year-old Korean…

I’m a big fan of fight scenes. The barroom brawl. The schoolyard scrap. The prison yard punch-up. But I need context. I need someone to root for. A fight scene without these key ingredients is just a theme park stunt show. That’s basically…

Classical to a fault, Stan and Ollie is a biopic that in honouring its two legendary central figures – sands off any rough edges. Steve Coogan and John C Reilly play comedy double act Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, classic Hollywood stars.…

Due to the premise of Susanne Bier’s post-apocalyptic drama Bird Box, a film in which everyone must remain blindfolded or risk insta-suicide, there is a nagging feeling that something is missing. After all, this is a film that is very much…