It makes no sense when a movie spoils itself through its own marketing. The central relationship in Washed Up has a twist that you probably haven’t been able to avoid! This is a giant mistake, because most of the humour and a great deal of the charm comes in how …
If you think Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s aesthetics will get more refined after his films have, over the years, preferred a more digitized (read: pixelated, desaturated, out-of-focus) aesthetic, think again! His latest film, within a corpus of slow cinema experiments, What Does That Nature Say to You, contains many of …
Someday a movie in which a group of teenagers throw a mock funeral for a hamster, complete with stone-faced pallbearers carrying a small coffin past hordes of wailing kids dressed up to the nines, will deserve a bad review, but today is not that day. Black Burns Fast has an …
Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover arrives as Frankenstein tales are having a real cultural moment. With Guillermo del Toro’s film released last autumn (and picking up three Oscars) and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride currently in cinemas, Glowicki’s picture as director, co-writer (with Ben Petrie, who also stars) and star may not …
I went into the screening of Reminders of Him with a very specific curiosity: how would an actress like Maika Monroe (Longlegs), who has such a solid career in genre cinema — specifically horror — behave in a role of exposed vulnerability, typically molded to pull at the heartstrings of …
The first series in a name chronology series from super-producer Ryan Murphy follows the tragic romance of JFK’s son, John F Kennedy, and publicist Carolyn Bessette. Based on Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the limited series charts the couple’s whirlwind romance, marriage …
Talk about melodrama! It is not so much that this adaption of Wuthering Heights goes to eleven, but that this version of Wuthering Heights starts at eleven and keeps going and going, and going, without losing its momentum for a moment. This over-the-top depiction of secret and dangerous passion makes …
The representation of queerness in the past decade on TV has found itself on an uptick. Shows like Heartstopper, Queer Eye, Modern Family, and Schitt’s Creek have led the charge in normalising the existence of queer people on television, and therefore in life. Despite the challenges the queer characters face …
Already the second film adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 coming-of-age novel of the same name, Bonjour Tristesse, a debut feature by Canadian director Durga Chew-Bose, offers a modern, feminist spin on the original material, which was an overnight sensation written by the French novelist at age 18. Remakes can become …
The best thing about Girls & Boys is one of the main characters is trans and absolutely no one blinks an eye at this. This is not something that could be said when I ran around Dublin, back when just being a member of the gay student clubs was an …
In the history of cinema, the Anglo-Saxon perspective has been the most prominent in mainstream filmmaking. As society seems to include and understand diverse ethnicities, different ethnicities may develop their own viewpoints of reality. Unfortunately, the Palestinian history told by its people took plenty of time to get an opportunity, …
As the title makes abundantly clear, Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri (which means ‘you’re mine, I’m yours, I’m yours, you’re mine’ in Hindi) is here to have its cake and eat it. Its explicit purpose is to make a 90s-style romance (this means old-fashioned, readers of a …
The Brazilian director Daniel Nolasco has been creating a trademark for himself as a filmmaker. Drawing inspiration from his personal interests and his academic path, his films approach the stories of the LGBTQIA community in a conservative state. In his debut feature, Vento Seco (Dry Wind), he approaches the monotonous …
A mishmash of moods held together by preposterous musical numbers is part of the appeal of most Indian cinema, but Telugu-language The RajaSaab holds together worse than most. There are three movies inside The RajaSaab struggling to get out: a haunted-house horror thriller, a paean to the grandmothers who raised …
Things are finally looking good for Aris and Blythe. After twenty-seven years apart, they’ve found their way back to each other and are starting their lives over again, together. All Blythe wants now is a perfect Christmas to mark the beginning of their happily ever after, and Aris wants to …
Wicked: For Good is one of the most anticipated films of the year. It is the conclusion of the musical saga adapted from the 2003 stage show by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz, which became a massive success at Broadway, and in various local adaptations of the story of Glinda …
When the screening I attended of Colors of Time finished, the woman next to me mentioned how unusual it is to see a movie without a whisper of violence in it. She is right: some slightly hurt feelings are as bad as it gets here. But this is not to …
This examination of privilege in the modern American moment tries to have its cake and eat it, and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, the badly-titled Dreams botches the recipe. Considering that ballet is at the center of this movie and director Michel Franco (and his cinematographer Yves Cape) …
The greatest glory of Pillion is that its sexual boldness is in service to an important point about self-determination and personal desire. We can watch this for the action, the message, or both. Though don’t get your hopes up too high: not a great deal of ‘action’ is shown, although …
Amir El-Masry is the lucky owner of one of the great faces in modern cinema, and he got to show it off not once but twice at this year’s London Film Festival. Unfortunately in neither case was it shown off to his best advantage. Giant managed somehow not to be …