Elle (2016)
Elle, Paul Verhoeven’s latest, inserts trashy rape-revenge tropes into polite French melodrama with provocative results.
Critical Dissent: Debating Ex Machina with Alex Heeney
Alex Garland’s Ex Machina is one of those films that’s going to provoke a lot of questions whether you like or dislike it. I was mostly in the “like” camp – giving it 3.5 stars and generally praising its merits in my review for The Essential – but this instalment isn’t going to be so…
Chappie (2015)
The toxic critical reaction to Neil Blomkamp’s latest sci-fi flick, Chappie, is understandable coming from those expecting the film to offer up a coherent social allegory, a coherent narrative or coherent action. It doesn’t deliver on those expectations. But once you recognise that the sharp satire of District 9’s opening half is an outlier rather…
