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3/5
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Chuck Chuck Baby
(2023)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Chuck Chuck Baby may not reinvent the romcom or the musical, but its vibrancy guarantees a crowd-pleaser.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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4/5
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One Fine Morning
(2022)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Hansen-Løve lets these reflections land outside the linear time of the film, finding breathing space for Sandra to process her journey as the belief in a controlled, controllable life – and its myriad choices – becomes increasingly elusive.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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4/5
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Plan 75
(2022)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
The best speculative fiction is fact taken to its extreme conclusion. In its pointed observation, Plan 75 echoes Cuarón’s Children of Men. One hopes it proves more warning than prophecy.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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4/5
|
Medusa Deluxe
(2022)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Unlike the intricate cages and pins securing the models’ elaborate hairstyles, Medusa Deluxe is style over substance – but when the style is this colourful, quotable, and melodramatic, style is enough.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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4/5
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Smoking Causes Coughing
(2022)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Dupieux’s deadpan presentation of gore, guts, and slime strengthens his absurdist credentials, and the cast’s understated delivery of each not-for-the-squeamish twist heightens the offbeat bits.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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2/5
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Close
(2022)
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Carmen Paddock
|
when misunderstandings are taken as fact in a tale of children isolated, with unspeakable tragedy and guilt resulting, the effect is hollow
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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3/5
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BlackBerry
(2023)
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Carmen Paddock
|
...the balance of goofy and deadpan suits the pacing once the phone launches on the market.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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3/5
|
Lynch/Oz
(2022)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
The result is a full-scale celebration of beautifully rendered images that invites further independent exploration.
Posted Dec 14, 2022
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3/5
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Where Is Anne Frank
(2021)
|
Ross McIndoe
|
At times it can feel a little didactic, but there’s no denying the urgency of the film’s message or the earnestness of its conviction.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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4/5
|
Official Competition
(2021)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Official Competition is – like the film-within-a-film it focuses on – overwhelmingly an actor’s picture and Cruz, Banderas and Martínez are at ease throughout.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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3/5
|
Mr. Malcolm's List
(2022)
|
Rory Doherty
|
It’s undeniably satisfying to watch a fantastic cast hitting all the right notes, fresh enough to keep you hooked on the regency romance.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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4/5
|
White Noise
(2022)
|
Xuanlin Tham
|
White Noise tunes out static to land on the rare instance where existential absurdity doesn’t feel like an exercise in laughing at humanity, but with it.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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4/5
|
Bones and All
(2022)
|
Anahit Behrooz
|
A film so entirely monstrous, and so entirely flush with love.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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|
4/5
|
Athena
(2022)
|
Anahit Behrooz
|
Athena considers how the revolution might not only be televised, but rendered electric and sublime.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
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3/5
|
The Score
(2021)
|
Eilidh Akilade
|
There are no revelations, nor any grand musical numbers. There is no special. What we see is what we get; but maybe that’s enough.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Saint Omer
(2022)
|
Xuanlin Tham
|
Meticulously naturalistic but never clinical, it frays into a tapestry of unnerving psychological surrealism, leaving you infected with something hard to pin down.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
|
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4/5
|
After Yang
(2021)
|
Xuanlin Tham
|
After Yang acutely captures the way grief and loss swell into temporal collapse – rendering the past, present and future as one, inextricable timeline.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Flux Gourmet
(2022)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Flux Gourmet sardonically explores decadence in an age of scarcity, though it feels all too easy to leave its questions behind as each squelching, seeping performance ends.
Posted Aug 17, 2022
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4/5
|
Hit the Road
(2021)
|
Ross McIndoe
|
Their rented vehicle acts as a safe haven, sealed off from the state’s suffocating influence.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
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4/5
|
All Light, Everywhere
(2021)
|
Rory Doherty
|
A wealth of philosophical statements are banded around the film, in cool, unfeeling voiceover as well as disconnected subtitles.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
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|
4/5
|
A Chiara
(2021)
|
Stefania Sarrubba
|
The usual, sensationalistic spiel on mob stories is stripped to the bone, with violence existing outside Chiara’s point of view.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
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4/5
|
Futura
(2021)
|
Patrick Gamble
|
Asking a cross-section of young people about their hopes and fears...[The directors] encountered a generation worried about inequality, climate change and the rise of nationalism.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Nitram
(2021)
|
Adam Stafford
|
Through a malaise of angst and early-20s boredom, [the title character] drifts in the Tazmanian suburbs until, in a stranger-than-fiction twist, he meets eccentric older heiress Helen.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
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|
4/5
|
Moon, 66 Questions
(2021)
|
Patrick Gamble
|
A wildly energetic coming-of-age tale with a distinctly intimate style, Moon 66, Questions confirms Jacqueline Lentzou's position as a visionary director.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Everything Went Fine
(2021)
|
Lewis Porteous
|
Everything Went Fine is as erotic and thrilling as a hospital sponge bath.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
5/5
|
Il buco
(2021)
|
Patrick Gamble
|
Il Buco is an immersive, often claustrophobic experience, like plunging the audience into the depths of the abyss and leaving them to blindly search for a spark of revelatory light.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
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4/5
|
Swan Song
(2021)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Revelations are explored with heart and honesty, and Todd Stephens' tonal balance of whimsy and wistfulness finds magic in the everyday
Posted Jul 21, 2022
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|
4/5
|
Showing Up
(2022)
|
Iana Murray
|
As a portrait of an artist and their surrounding community, Showing Up is a more reverential than a satirical perspective on the art world."
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
2/5
|
Stars at Noon
(2022)
|
Iana Murray
|
As a political thriller, Stars at Noon moves so slowly that it's stagnant...As a romance, it’s laughable.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Crimes of the Future
(2022)
|
Iana Murray
|
Crimes of the Future is let down by a story that ultimately goes nowhere, though it certainly makes for a fascinating world-building exercise.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
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3/5
|
Armageddon Time
(2022)
|
Iana Murray
|
While Armageddon Time considers the weight of generational trauma, the film also subtly interrogates privilege.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
The Innocents
(2021)
|
Philip Concannon
|
Vogt takes his time unfolding <i>The Innocents</i> and his pacing could be described as too deliberate, but his chilly, mysterious picture exerts an irresistible grip.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
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4/5
|
The Quiet Girl
(2022)
|
Rafaela Sales Ross
|
Quietness not only aids the tension of those initial days spent in discomfort but also allows for the tenderness of small acts of kindness to linger.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
(2022)
|
Jamie Dunn
|
[Raimi's] take on Benedict Cumberbatch’s wizard is totally goofy, endlessly inventive and often makes no sense.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
5/5
|
The Worst Person in the World
(2021)
|
Philip Concannon
|
While Trier’s film is frequently dynamic and funny, a wistfulness emerges in the second half as the characters contemplate lost time and missed chances.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Good Time
(2017)
|
Joseph Walsh
|
Good Time is a frantic ride, but at the core of the film is the brothers' relationship. Both are desperate to get out of New York and start a new life, even if they have to borrow and steal to achieve it.
Posted Jul 21, 2022
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|
|
Aftersun
(2022)
|
Jamie Dunn
|
What makes Aftersun such a revelatory work is the way these inner emotions are never spelt out in dialogue, and instead are wholly expressed visually or through performance.
Posted Jul 20, 2022
|
|
|
The United States of America
(2022)
|
Jamie Dunn
|
Every shot, even the oil fields, factories and opencast mines, has a painterly beauty but this is not a flattering portrait.
Posted Jul 20, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Triangle of Sadness
(2022)
|
Jamie Dunn
|
Triangle of Sadness is not particularly sophisticated in its critique of late-stage capitalism. That doesn’t stop its gags from being deliriously funny.
Posted Jul 20, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Moonage Daydream
(2022)
|
Jamie Dunn
|
The audio-visual collage is delightfully overwhelming at first, but at over two hours Morgan’s maximalist approach begins to wear out its welcome.
Posted Jul 20, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Baby Assassins
(2021)
|
Ross McIndoe
|
Part oddball slacker comedy, part effervescent action film, Baby Assassins is a delight.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Once Upon a Time in Uganda
(2021)
|
Rory Doherty
|
When the final stretch gives Isaac his well-deserved recognition, you’ll realise how much you’ve been rooting for these jokers the whole time.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Murina
(2021)
|
Ross McIndoe
|
Murina announces Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović as a filmmaker to be reckoned with.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
5/5
|
The Novice
(2021)
|
Rory Doherty
|
The Novice isn’t just a film about obsession... it's about how competitive ideologies can be damaging for people who don’t have an understanding of their self-worth.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
5/5
|
Happening
(2021)
|
Anahit Behrooz
|
The boxy aspect ratio is near-suffocating as [Diwan] soberly charts the imposed risk of female desire, the impossibility of lust when so much punishment might ensue.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Great Freedom
(2021)
|
Carmen Paddock
|
Great Freedom eschews easy answers for Hans and his companions, however long they may stay.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
Both Sides of the Blade
(2021)
|
Anahit Behrooz
|
Set in the aftermath of COVID-19, Fire is most interesting when in direct conversation with its contemporary context of social upheaval.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Vortex
(2021)
|
Ross McIndoe
|
Vortex isn’t a cruel film; just a long, hard look at the sad and lonely way in which even the richest lives can end.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
3/5
|
A Banquet
(2021)
|
Rory Doherty
|
A Banquet remains so watchable because of the tense dynamics between the female characters, including a scene-stealing Lindsay Duncan.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
4/5
|
Ali & Ava
(2021)
|
Eleanor Capaldi
|
An exquisitely calibrated depiction of finding love right on your doorstep.
Posted Mar 17, 2022
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