With the Oscar nominations rolling in last week, this year’s batch features quite a few noticeable entries that stand out as untypical Oscar fare, which, based on plot and content alone (i.e. excluding buzz and praise), you wouldn’t immediately think the Oscars would be interest in. There are a huge number of indies in this…
Once again, we have reached the beginning of the fever pitch of Awards Season; the announcement of the Oscar nominations. As was to be predicted, The Shape of Water has taken the lead with 13 nominations (almost tying with the record), followed by Dunkirk with eight, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri with seven. The…
Playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonaugh’s work is characterised by its pairing of darkly comic sensibilities with crime led drama, and he continues that thread here. Three Billboards is an astonishing film whose story is derived from a tragic event, yet the film manages to be equally laugh-out-loud hilarious, and utterly heartbreaking. Seven months on from the rape…
The film that gained a lot of complicated publicity due to the controversy prompting a last minute recasting has arrived on our screens a mere couple of months since the Spacey sexual assault allegations surfaced. The result is not the mess that could have resulted from a huge, quick reshoot, but a solid thriller-drama where…
With a new year rolling around, and with it a new batch of film anniversaries, I thought I’d take a look at the type of event (often put on in celebration of anniversaries) that seems to have become increasingly popular in recent years: the presentation of a film, with its score played along live. Now,…
Spielberg. Hanks. Streep. A story about freedom of the press and women in the workplace. This is a film with high expectations, and high expectations that needed to be met. Thankfully (and predictably), The Post delivers in spades. The film details The Washington Post’s involvement in the leaking of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ in 1971. The…
In the latest film involving the events at Dunkirk, Joe Wright’s drama chronicling Winston Churchill’s first few weeks as Prime Minister uses an elevated pace to convert craft a film that frequently grips, but sometimes falters. The film begins with the decision to select Churchill (Gary Oldman) as the new prime minister, following a vote…
I don’t usually talk about the Golden Globes; as hardly any of the nominated films have been released here yet, I can’t really have an opinion on the results (and I cannot watch the ceremony in full). However, this year’s ceremony seems to signify that MeToo and Time’s Up are going to be the game…
Another genre that has become a rare species – the western – is revived here in a fairly traditional manner, but with themes that are still sadly quite relevant today, over 100 years after when the film is set. Set in 1892, at the height of the ‘Indian Wars’, where brutality between the Native Americans…
After the release of Molly’s Game earlier this week, I’ve decided to take a look at the career of its star, and one of my favourite actors, Jessica Chastain. Having truly burst onto the scene at the start of the decade, Chastain is one to be relied on for strong, layered performances, in generally very…
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