This enthralling mix of raw realism and uncanny surrealism makes for an evocative portrait of loss. By carefully balancing a sense of fantasy and reality, the filmmakers effortlessly convey the complex idea that grief can often feel unreal. Actual loss is so hard to deal with that our emotive recollections of those who have left … Continue reading Blackberrying (Review)
Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Review)
About half way through Zack Snyder's laborious 'reboot' of an already terrible film, two of our superhero protagonists - Cyborg and The Flash - are digging up Clark Kent's corpse. Why? Well, for drawn out and contrived reasons and - fundamentally - for the same contrived reasons as in the original version (directed and completed … Continue reading Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Review)
Judas and the Black Messiah (Review)
Much to its credit, Judas and the Black Messiah takes an important story and tells it with real energy. Audiences will leave the film informed and with a clear picture of the importance of the Black Panther Party and of the villainy of the Feds and the police (and other) that fought against them. The … Continue reading Judas and the Black Messiah (Review)
Gunda (Review)
Where most nature documentaries focus on anthropomorphising their subjects, Gunda instead zoomorphises the viewer. This is a black and white documentary that purely observes. We watch farm animals (limited to pigs, chickens and cows) and there is no music or voiceover. It is just animals in their given environment. The shooting style is uniformly immersive, … Continue reading Gunda (Review)
First Cow (Review)
Kelly Reichardt is incredibly gifted at gleaning gold from atypical cinematic perspectives. This is most apparent in Meek's Cutoff and Certain Women (though also true of Wendy and Lucy) and continues, beautifully, in First Cow. In this film, we follow Cookie (John Magaro), a skilled cook who begins the film in a group of Trappers. … Continue reading First Cow (Review)
City Hall (Review)
Revered documentarian Frederick Wiseman's four and a half hour documentary about Boston's city government ends up, frustratingly, as too reflective of its subject. This is a well meaning, extremely competently put together thing that is often fascinating but, ultimately, is so unwieldy and talky that it never really gets anything done. This is an exhaustive, … Continue reading City Hall (Review)
Have You Seen… An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)?
Welcome to ‘Have You Seen….’ a regular column exploring an interesting film that is worthy of greater attention – for good or for ill. The focus is on the underseen, the undersung or the underrated – or just those films you just need to write about. The focus is analysis more than evaluation so, expect … Continue reading Have You Seen… An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)?
Have You Seen… The Ascent (1977)?
Welcome to ‘Have You Seen….’ a regular column exploring an interesting film that is worthy of greater attention – for good or for ill. The focus is on the underseen, the undersung or the underrated – or just those films you just need to write about. The focus is analysis more than evaluation so, expect … Continue reading Have You Seen… The Ascent (1977)?
Minari (Review)
At its heart, Minari is a film about assimilation. Why it is such a wonderful film is because it is about in this is so many ways. The most overt layer of this is about the cultural divides the film depicts, focusing on a family that have emigrated to America from Korea who are in … Continue reading Minari (Review)
The Painted Bird
Part way through this film, we have the scene from which it gets it title. It is a visual metaphor that overhangs the whole film and gives us the best window into the film's message. A man grabs a bird in his hand and he paints it, marking it as different. He lets the bird … Continue reading The Painted Bird
Assorted Opinions 