Let me get this out of the way first: Trainwreck is a very good film. That needs to be said upfront, because this one of those reviews where I’m going to spend more time talking about what didn’t work rather than what did, and that imbalance might suggest that I didn’t enjoy the film. But…
There are lots of reasons to like Ant-Man. You’ve got the sparkling comic chemistry of Paul Rudd and Michael Peña (Evangeline Lilly’s there too). There’s a zippy Michael Douglas/John Slattery/Hayley Atwell prologue that makes you long for an MCU film set in the ‘80s. Minus a misjudged training sequence, the film’s bouncy heist framework is…
Talking heads seem to be the most maligned convention in documentaries. Just look at Asif Kapadia’s Amy, which has earnt widespread praise for its omission of such interviews despite not being an especially good film. Certainly, talking heads can be a crutch for uncreative documentary directors, who use them solely as an opportunity to flesh…
Amanda Adolfsson’s Young Sophie Bell is an intimate insight into female friendship; passionate and personal, combative and competitive all at once. Sophie (Felice Jankell) – whose surname is actually Karlsson – has been best friends with Alice (Hedda Stiernstedt) since infancy. They shine together, as exemplified by the opening scene, where their vibrant pink and…
At first glance, Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby appears to slot neatly into the Noah Baumbach/Lena Dunham school of New York indie. You know the type. Loose, naturalistic dramas about trendy people in a trendy city, leavened with a hint of comedy before drifting towards Serious Issues that aren’t taken all that seriously. For most of…
Unlocking the Truth are a metal band composed of African-American teenagers – and I’m talking, like, their-voices-haven’t-broken-yet-teenagers – from Brooklyn. After a YouTube video of the group busking at Times Square went viral, they scored a $1.8 million record deal and performed at Coachella. In most documentaries, that would be the story. Check out these…
The community at the centre of Ariel Kleiman’s Partisan is introduced with rare restraint and precision. After a short prologue, we are deposited into a secluded society, buried within sheltering slabs of through which thin rays of sunlight shine. The society (described in most reviews as a ‘cult’, though I’d argue that’s an overly simplistic…
Why shouldn’t James Bond be played by Melissa McCarthy? Walking out of Spy, the latest film from Paul Feig – of Bridesmaids and The Heat – I couldn’t think of a convincing reason why not. The film is an uneven but enjoyable comedy. After a flabby opening act – weighed down both by an insistence…
Alex Garland’s work as a novelist (The Beach, Coma) and screenwriter (28 Days Later, Sunshine) is, at its best, defined by a careful command of tone balanced with obvious intelligence. It should not come as a surprise that Ex Machina, Garland’s first time behind the director’s chair, demonstrates these qualities in abundance. This sparse sci-fi…
I find horror sequels endlessly fascinating. Specifically, I find first sequels passed off to a new director fascinating (not that I don’t have a soft spot for sequels like Evil Dead II or Hostel 2 made by the original director, or the gems that pop up late in a franchise like Jason Lives: Friday the…
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