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4.5/5
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Concrete Utopia
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
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Um is interested in how such landscapes seduce us into particular ways of thinking.
Posted Dec 04, 2023
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2.5/5
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How the Gringo Stole Christmas
(2023)
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Jennie Kermode
|
Though we don’t get to know everybody very well, they work as an ensemble, creating a believable family dynamic – chihuahua included.
Posted Dec 01, 2023
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3.5/5
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Everyone Will Burn
(2021)
|
Angus Wolfe Murray
|
A treat for the eyes, if not the ears.
Posted Dec 01, 2023
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4/5
|
Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids
(2022)
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Jennie Kermode
|
It quickly becomes apparent that this is more than just the story of the dolls. It is the story of the modern age.
Posted Nov 27, 2023
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3/5
|
Birder
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
It’s framed as an erotic thriller, and there are comedic elements, but at it’s core it’s doing something important, reminding viewers to take proper care of themselves and each other.
Posted Nov 27, 2023
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4/5
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Queen of the Deuce
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
In piecing the whole thing together, Kontakos appears to have been spoiled for choices, but she delivers a strong narrative which never gets overwhelmed by its content.
Posted Nov 27, 2023
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4/5
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The G
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
While Ann can handle a knife, there’s a sense that her look might just as easily strike others dead.
Posted Nov 21, 2023
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3.5/5
|
My Father's Secrets
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
What Belmont does brilliantly, and largely through pacing and style, is to convey all this in a way which, for much of the running time, feels light and easily relatable.
Posted Nov 21, 2023
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4/5
|
The Narrow Bridge
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
They are facing the same enemy, one of the men says: the madness that has been killing Palestinians and Israelis alike for generations.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3.5/5
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Is There Anybody Out There?
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
There’s lot of video footage of her playing as a child, obviously very happy and doing the same kinds of things as any other kid her age.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Queen of My Dreams
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Mirza may sometimes over-indulge in sentiment, but there’s a warmth to the film that makes it easy to like, and she handles its more chaotic scenes with flair.
Posted Nov 13, 2023
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2/5
|
It's a Wonderful Knife
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
It’s A Wonderful Knife has two ideas, one of them borrowed, and nothing to follow them up with.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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4/5
|
Loch Ness: They Created a Monster
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
With knife threats, a Molotov cocktail and a mysterious disappearance all coming into the picture, there’s plenty to reassure viewers of the old adage that man is the real monster.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
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3/5
|
Manodrome
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Trengove seems determined to defy the standard solutions to this sort of mess.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4.5/5
|
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
There’s a freshness to this world, as if one had just stepped out of one’s own door and arrived in an unexpected place.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4.5/5
|
A Forgotten Man
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Nègre's finely wrought film suggests that it is not that power corrupts, but rather that corrupt people can more easily bear the experience of power.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4.5/5
|
The Holdovers
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
An old school slice of comfort and joy for the cold season.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
|
|
4/5
|
Breathing In
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Succeeds in creating and maintaining a chilly atmosphere of the sort rarely found in modern cinema.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
|
|
4.5/5
|
Superposition
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Whilst there is an element of science fiction here, co-writer/director Karoline Lyngbye focuses on the psychological possibilities that it opens up.
Posted Oct 30, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
Boudica: Queen of War
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
That we stick with her through this is down to the magnetism of Kurylenko’s performance.
Posted Oct 30, 2023
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|
4/5
|
Klimt & The Kiss
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Klimt’s influences were numerous and widespread. It would be impossible to do them all justice here (there is quite enough material for a series), but Ray does her best.
Posted Oct 30, 2023
|
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3.5/5
|
Deep Rising
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Rather than focusing on [the deep sea's] obvious wonders – those who fit the conventional beauty standards of humans – Rytz finds beauty in the strangeness of deep water creatures, inviting us to appreciate them on their own terms.
Posted Oct 27, 2023
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4.5/5
|
Thunder
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Writer/director Carmen Jacquier explores this ideological and psychological clash with confidence and visual flair.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
4.5/5
|
Society of the Snow
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
The impact of the plane crash near the start of this retelling of the remarkable true survival story is shown in visceral detail with a sound design that slams right through you..
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
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3.5/5
|
Life Is Not A Competition, But I’m Winning
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
Takes a team approach to her material, using a group of documentary participants as a collective.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
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4/5
|
Through the Night
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
It’s not the first time a film has scrutinised what it means to be “a good victim” but Girard’s general restraint, coupled with a controlled central performance from Alaoui bring it home.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
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3.5/5
|
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
While Louis-Seize’s treatment of the night is atmospheric, the emphasis here is firmly on comedy rather on gore.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
Gamma Rays
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
Loosely structured, although maintaining an impressive balance between its stories.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
Sultana's Dream
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
Sultana's Dream's dense philosophical backbone proves quite meandering in places but even if not every abstract idea hits the target, the animation is always on point.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
A Silence
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
The film hovers in the grey area of Astrid's psyche, with long takes, often focused on Devos' features.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
4/5
|
Dumb Money
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
The writers care about even their smallest characters.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
3/5
|
The Royal Hotel
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
The feeling that something bad could happen at any moment permeates the mood.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
4/5
|
Flipside
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
Strikes one of those wonderful paradoxes, being simultaneously about holding on and letting go.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
4/5
|
Fingernails
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
There’s something inherently endearing about the way that Nikou always managed to conjure timelessness in his worlds. They’re more analogue than futuristic but ultimately hang in a sort of limbo of ‘here but not quite now’.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
The Walk
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Jobling draws attention not just to the cruelty but to the uncivilised nature of a system more interested in the punitive than the productive.
Posted Oct 23, 2023
|
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5/5
|
Saturn Bowling
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Keys in to the ordinariness of certain kinds of horror and the ease with which they can take root in a society in which many men teeter on the edge of a moral abyss.
Posted Oct 23, 2023
|
|
3/5
|
Ride On
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Red Hare's ... repertoire of tricks is rather limited but he’s wonderful at conveying emotion, and Yang uses this to great effect.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
|
|
3/5
|
The Mattachine Family
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
This is one of those very Californian tales in which the problems that most people in the world have to deal with simply don’t exist.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
Kalak
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
Eklöf also doesn’t deal in absolutes, allowing us to see that Jan is both damaged and damaging, not just to himself but others - a hot mess in a cold climate.
Posted Oct 18, 2023
|
|
4.5/5
|
Housekeeping for Beginners
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
For all the apparent chaos, this is a tightly controlled piece of work which fully delivers on the promise of Stolevski’s earlier films.
Posted Oct 18, 2023
|
|
5/5
|
Goodfellas
(1990)
|
Stephen Carty
|
Mean Streets might be his most seminal picture but Goodfellas is Scorsese's best. Adding his once-a-decade masterpiece for the Nineties (the Seventies had Taxi Driver, the Eighties Raging Bull), this is a movie of the highest order.
Posted Oct 17, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
All the Fires
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
All The Fires is a film built out of contradictions from which meaning gradually emerges.
Posted Oct 17, 2023
|
|
4.5/5
|
The Elderly
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
Cerezo and Gómez remind us that we are living through some of the strangest days our world has known right now.
Posted Oct 16, 2023
|
|
4/5
|
Anhell69
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
The film immerses us in the life of the city.
Posted Oct 16, 2023
|
|
2.5/5
|
Ex-Husbands
(2023)
|
Amber Wilkinson
|
You could be forgiven for feeling as though you’ve stepped back in time while watching Noah Pritzker’s middling, middle-class, midlife crisis comedy. There’s a sweet-hearted but dated dad rock quality to this tale.
Posted Oct 13, 2023
|
|
3.5/5
|
Last Straw
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
It’s a clever structure but one which could easily go awry. Neal handles it well, with the confidence to alter events very slightly so as to communicate the different perspectives of his principal characters.
Posted Oct 12, 2023
|
|
4.5/5
|
When Evil Lurks
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
The film carries us from a carefree existence made possible by not paying attention, to a crushing tragedy.
Posted Oct 09, 2023
|
|
1.5/5
|
The Loch Ness Horror
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
[The] purpose is merely to illustrate the potential that the monster has to offer were she ever brought to the screen with adequate financing and talent.
Posted Oct 09, 2023
|
|
2.5/5
|
Divinity
(2023)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
For all its faults, the film is pretty, and that will probably be enough for some viewers.
Posted Oct 09, 2023
|
|
3/5
|
8 Found Dead
(2022)
|
Jennie Kermode
|
8 Found Dead is a nice little puzzle but sadly, in the end, it lacks the depth to be more than that.
Posted Oct 09, 2023
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