Check in to Bad Times at the El Royale for a Good Time at the Movies
Bad Times at the El Royale is the sort of film that’s not supposed to get made anymore: a straight-up genre flick boasting a sizeable budget and A-list stars.
Fifty Shades Darker (2017)
Fifty Shades Darker sands off the sharp edges that made its predecessor an interesting – if not precisely good – film.
Not a girl, not (yet) a woman: Dakota Johnson and Hollywood femininity
As Penelope in A Bigger Splash, Dakota Johnson is enigmatic yet authentic, knowing yet naïve; a daughter, a lover, a seductress, and a child all at once. The role allows Johnson to undercut the cliches of Hollywood femininity: innocent child, sexualised nymph, or idealised mother. In projects like A Bigger Splash, television sitcom Ben and Kate…
A Bigger Splash (2015)
A Bigger Splash is a distinctly musical film. It’s a music film, too – with Tilda Swinton channelling her versatile Bowie charisma as a world-famous rockstar and Ralph Fiennes exhibiting some irrepressible dance moves as a record producer – but what makes the film sing is how director Luca Guadagnino effortlessly bridges its distinct tones.…
How to Be Single Offers Rom-Com Deconstruction Rather than an Instructional Manual
How to Be Single is a film about four women – Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann and Alison Brie – searching for meaning in New York inside and outside of romantic relationships. The film is similarly in search of an identity, swerving from low-key indie dramedy to broad romantic comedy from scene-to-scene with reckless…
Black Mass Makes the Gangster Film Boring
It’s pretty hard to go about making a film about Whitey Bulger, because how do you make it not like every other sub-Scorsese, heated-up-bullshit gangster movie? All the basic elements of the Whitey Bulger story – corrupt feds, brother on the other side of the law, paranoiac crime lord – are well-worn clichés in the…
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