Watching David O. Russell’s Joy is akin to watching his career: abundant potential dribbling sadly away. The first half hour or so of the film, a biopic of Joy Mangano, Miracle Mop inventor (Jennifer Lawrence), takes the kind of stuff usually brushed over in these films – the anxieties of running household, familial tensions, financial…
Recently I’ve realised that I’m drawn to documentaries that are recognisant of their own failure – that is, the failure of the documentary as a factual medium. Which means that Listen to Me, Marlon, a biographical doco on Marlon Brando told largely through his own hitherto-unheard personal recordings, answering machine messages and the like, was…
Read a synopsis of either of Creed or Magic Mike XXL, two of 2015’s best films, and sight unseen it might hard to understand the excellence of either film. The former film, after all, follows a fairly stock Hollywood formula, hitting its Best Picture-winning predecessor’s plot points beat for beat, while Magic Mike XXL is…
“I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength.” That quote is spoken by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) in The Force Awakens, the long-awaited seventh instalment in the Star Wars franchise, but those words could easily have been put into the mouth of almost every prominent character in the…
Experimenter has a fascinating premise, but loses its way by focusing on the wrong subject. It opens on Stanley Milgram’s now-famous obedience experiments, wherein an unknowing subject provides near-fatal electrocutions to an innocent man who they believe to be failing a multiple-choice questionnaire – or at least, they’re led to believe that’s what they’re doing.…
So I Can’t Play H! is a fanservice anime. Or maybe the fanservice anime, given how shamelessly it’s calibrated to accommodate animated depictions of the naked female form. Here’s its premise: a slender Grim Reaper named Lisara (Aya Endo) strikes a deal with perverted high-schooler Ryosuke (Hiro Shimono), wherein he will supply her with ‘energy’ that…
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant sets out to chart the farthest frontiers of humanity, stranding Leonardo DiCaprio’s bearded, badly-wounded protagonist in the wintery American wilderness and closely observing his desperate quest for survival …and revenge. When The Revenant focuses on the minutiae of survival in the wild – from cauterizing one’s wounds with burning grass…
“You’re nothing in this world.” “War is the only language men listen to.” These quotes perfectly sum up Suffragette – the film and the movement. The film offers audiences a snapshot of the early feminism movement, portraying the violent demonstrations taking place after decades of peaceful protests prove ineffective. We view this era through the…
Iris idolises Iris Apfel. So, it seems, does everyone else. At a glitzy fashion event, J.Crew creative director Jenna Lyons and fashion-enthusiast and hip-hop legend Kanye West alike dote on her. “She’s the perfect example of the intersection of fashion and interior design and art,” says one of documentarian Albert Maysles’ talking heads breathily. All…
I really wanted to like this film. Alas, Ron Howard (usually ‘Mr Dependable’ in the director’s chair) has guided this big-budget seafaring adventure straight onto the reef. In the Heart of the Sea is ambitious but fails to develop its own identity, instead playing out like a highlight reel from better movies. The film is based on…
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