A Good Girls Guide to Murder TV Review copy

‘A Good Girls Guide to Murder’ Has Child-Lock On (Review)

In 2019, author Holly Jackson released the YA fiction novel A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to critical acclaim. It went on to win 2020’s British Book Awards Children’s Fiction Book Winner of the Year and, as with most award-winning novels, it was soon picked up for a television adaption. …

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Armand Movie Review

‘Armand’ Movie Review: A Trippy Moral Drama (Belfast Film Festival)

At first glance, Armand – from writer and director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel in his feature debut – seems cut from the same cloth as Roman Polanski’s 2011 film Carnage and Fran Kranz’s 2021 film Mass: thrillers of the interpersonal, where parents of squabbling, troubled, or otherwise problematic children come together …

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Universal Language Movie Review

‘Universal Language’ Movie Review: A Nostalgic, Fantastical Journey (Belfast Film Festival)

Universal Language, the latest from Canadian director Matthew Rankin, follows Abdolreza Kahani’s A Shrine as another delightful Iranian-Canadian comedy hitting the 2024 international film festival circuit – a welcome trend, judging by the quality of these two excellent films. Written by Ila Firouzabadi, Pirouz Nemati, and Rankin, a vignette structure …

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Say Nothing TV Review

‘Say Nothing’ Review: A Powerful Drama About the Limits of Memory

Based on the bestselling book by Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing rockets viewers back to 1972 Belfast with an explosive opening scene. The miniseries employs different framing devices to Keefe’s nonfiction tome, but both work to great effect. Widowed mother of ten Jean McConville (Judith Roddy) sends her eldest daughter …

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‘Nickel Boys’ Review: An Important Piece of Cinema (LFF)

From the moment the programme for the London Film Festival was announced, Nickel Boys quickly became one of my most anticipated films of the entire festival. Not only did the film receive positive reviews after its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival at the end of August, but its …

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Blitz Movie Review

‘Blitz’ Movie Review: The War Through The Eyes of A Child (LFF)

Steven McQueen’s latest film, Blitz, marks the director’s return to fiction, after focusing on documentary filmmaking in 2023. Naturally, this comes with a lot of excitement for fans of the director as well as for fans of the historical drama genre. With its period setting and focus on the Second …

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Megalopolis Movie Review

‘Megalopolis’ Review: Baffling, Bad, Brilliant, and Achingly Sincere

Francis Ford Coppola’s first feature film in 13 years was always going to generate excitement, but Megalopolis – since its divisive Cannes premiere and disastrous marketing campaign with AI-generated quotes (the fault of US distributor Lionsgate, not Coppola) – is almost a sensation. Add in a star-studded cast, some of …

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Timestalker Movie Review

‘Timestalker’ Review: Delightfully Off-kilter Time-hopping British Comedy

Timestalker, the sophomore directorial feature of writer-director Alice Lowe, takes the Shakespearean adage “The course of true love never did run smooth” to its most extreme and fantastical conclusion. Lowe plays Agnes, a woman who lives an ordinary life with only a nagging, unplaceable inkling that something is missing. More …

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