Richard Jewell (2019)
Eastwood’s gentle touch steers Richard Jewell towards sympathy at every turn.
Jojo Rabbit Makes …Nazis …Fun?
Nazi-centric films don’t tend to be particularly fun. Enter Taika Waititi.
Vice Makes Political Corruption Fun
Vice makes contemporary politics fun and funny while underlining its monstrous corruption.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
McDonagh’s radical sympathy creates his film’s best scenes, while undercutting any kind of coherent thesis.
Digging For Fire (2015)
On the surface, Digging For Fire doesn’t diverge significantly from the previous Joe Swanberg flicks I’ve seen. It’s populated by funny, attractive actors (the likes of Brie Larson, Orlando Bloom, Chris Messina, Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell) casually the shooting the shit (often in various states of undress). Pretty much everyone is on the boundary…
The Martian is the Anti-Alien – an Optimistic Paean to Science and Nerddom
Three-and-a-half decades ago, Alien established Ridley Scott as a director to watch. Drawing on the conventions of the increasingly-popular slasher film and rejecting the Star-Trek-esque optimism of the sci-fi films of that era, he created a chilling classic. But his potential as a director has dribbled away somewhat in the years since; while I don’t…
The Way, Way Back (2013)
The Way, Way Back is a lightweight coming-of-age summer holiday comedy/drama, often funny but rarely convincingly dramatic. Much like After May, it places at its centre an actor not quite up to the task – here, Liam James as the introverted, awkward teenager Duncan. He’s not supposed to be particularly charismatic, but James finds little…
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
I should love Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It’s about a game show impresario who is, according to his own supremely questionable accounts, a CIA assassin. Said alleged assassin is played with trademark jerky charm by the inimitable Sam Rockwell and the screenplay is from the legendary Charlie Kaufman. In short: exactly my kind of…
Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Martin McDonagh’s last film was In Bruges – a spiky, acerbic, unpredictable black comedy/crime thriller. Seven Psychopaths is all those things and many more. The film follows a possibly alcoholic Marty Farahan (get it?) and his attempts to write a film called …Seven Psychopaths. He’s worried that the screenplay that’s supposed to be about “love…
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