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Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant
(2015)
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Jason Best
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Airborne comedy Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant is striving to recapture the deadpan silliness of classic 1980 spoof Airplane! Unsurprisingly, the jokes don't fly nearly as fast.
Posted Dec 22, 2020
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Heimat 2: Chronicle of a Generation
(1992)
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Jason Best
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Reitz is exceptionally good at capturing the passionate fervour of youth, showing young people giddy with excitement as they encounter new ideas and experiences, flex their artistic muscles and discover soul mates.
Posted Dec 22, 2020
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The Awakening
(2011)
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Jason Best
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Nick Murphy has crafted an elegant haunted-house chiller that turns the screw of mystery and suspense with some cunningly judged surprises and scares.
Posted Dec 22, 2020
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2/5
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Where's the Money
(2017)
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Jason Best
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It's the hopelessly apologetic frat boys - led by Josh Brener's polite preppie - who actually prove much funnier than the film's nominal star as they tie themselves in excruciating knots of white guilt.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Sweet Bean
(2015)
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Jason Best
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Naomi Kawase deftly handles her themes of loneliness, social stigma and the joy of finding a purpose in life, and her story's resolution is bittersweet but uplifting.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Blade of the Immortal
(2017)
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Jason Best
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Miike brings his own distinct sensibility to the limb-lopping mayhem. True, the film's episodic pace flags once or twice, but Miike usually drops in some wry humour to keep us engaged until the next bout of bloodletting.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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3/5
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The Free World
(2016)
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Jason Best
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First-time writer-director Jason Lew is heavy handed with his use of symbolism... But the two stars somehow make their overwrought characters work - and earn our sympathy to boot.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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1/5
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The Emoji Movie
(2017)
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Jason Best
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It's hard to decide what is most annoying about this cinematic botch: the ugly animation, the contrived story or the blatant product placement, or the fact that the filmmakers spoil almost every gag by underlining it twice.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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1/5
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The House
(2017)
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Jason Best
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The stars play the hands they've been dealt as best they can, but the script is so feeble that it's no wonder the film is a bust.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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The Disaster Artist
(2017)
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Jason Best
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Franco recreates The Room's hopeless ineptitude, with spot-on re-enactments of some of its most notoriously dire scenes. But the big surprise is that the decidedly odd, bromantic friendship at the movie's heart should prove so touching.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Maudie
(2016)
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Jason Best
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Bent over and hunched, Sally Hawkins undergoes an astonishing physical transformation to play arthritic Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis... but what's really impressive about her performance is the spark and soul she brings to the role.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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Breathe
(2017)
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Jason Best
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As disability dramas go, Breathe won't leave you gasping. But if it lacks The Theory of Everything's emotional heft, it remains an inspiring and affecting tale.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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The Party
(2017)
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Jason Best
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Shot in crisp black and white and running a brisk 71 minutes, this scathing intellectual farce may appear stagy but it positively zings with cinematic energy.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Annihilation
(2018)
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Jason Best
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Starts off slowly but becomes more scary and suspenseful as it goes along.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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5/5
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The Florida Project
(2017)
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Jason Best
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Fizzing with vitality, brimful of empathy and insight.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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3/5
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Custody
(2016)
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Jason Best
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It's all wildly contrived, but the classy and committed cast somehow make it work.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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3/5
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Wonder Wheel
(2017)
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Jason Best
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How much you enjoy all this will depend on your attitude to latterday Woody Allen. You'll need tolerance for the heightened dialogue and contrived set-up... Get past these, however, and you'll be rewarded by Winslet's incandescent leading turn.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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2/5
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Eat Local
(2017)
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Jason Best
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Scares and laughs are in fairly short supply.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Jasper Jones
(2017)
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Jason Best
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[A] terrifically engaging coming-of-age drama cum mystery thriller.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
(2017)
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Jason Best
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This decidedly odd and kinky tale is evidently a passion project for writer-director Angela Robinson (maker of cheeky teen spy spoof D.E.B.S.), and she brings a sly wit and touching sweetness to her telling of it.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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2/5
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Justice League
(2017)
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Jason Best
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They are no match for the Avengers when it comes to entertaining us. The Marvel bunch fizz with energy and wit. This lot are far too dark and brooding to be much fun, and they spend ages hanging around before we get to the action.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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3/5
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Despicable Me 3
(2017)
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Jason Best
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It's the spectacle of the gibberish-spouting Minions performing an inimitable version of 'I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General', the famous patter song from The Pirates of Penzance, that gives the greatest pleasure.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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3/5
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My Feral Heart
(2016)
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Jason Best
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Steven Brandon, a young actor with Down's syndrome, delivers a captivating lead performance.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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Murder on the Orient Express
(2017)
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Jason Best
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To be honest, Branagh's stately direction means the mystery itself is a bit of a plod. Even if you don't already know whodunit.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Clash
(2016)
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Jason Best
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Mohamed Diab exploits his film's restricted location with brio. And captures a searing snapshot of a divided nation.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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4/5
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Brimstone
(2016)
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Jason Best
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There's more than a whiff of sulphur about Brimstone.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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3/5
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Vincent N Roxxy
(2016)
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Jason Best
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Be warned. It goes all Taxi Driver at the end. Which will be jarring for some but thrillingly right for others.
Posted Dec 20, 2020
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The International
(2009)
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Jason Best
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The International is a thriller that [stokes] the viewer's feelings of outrage and injustice as every fresh enormity by the bank is revealed, and then offering the possibility of vicarious revenge.
Posted Nov 20, 2020
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Gran Torino
(2008)
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Jason Best
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The film is clunky in places... but it is also warm, funny and moving, and genuinely thought-provoking about no end of hot-button contemporary issues, from race and class, to ageing and masculinity.
Posted Nov 20, 2020
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Charlie Bartlett
(2007)
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Jason Best
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Like its protagonist, Jon Poll's debut movie is quirky and smart; how much you enjoy it, though, will probably depend on whether you warm to smug, troubled Charlie.
Posted Nov 20, 2020
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Confessions of a Shopaholic
(2009)
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Jason Best
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Bubble-brained but fun, if you can stand the glossy consumerism.
Posted Nov 20, 2020
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Righteous Kill
(2008)
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Jason Best
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De Niro and Pacino back together but firing blanks.
Posted Nov 20, 2020
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Strip away all the classy art direction and CGI trickery, and the story is a bit of a snooze
Posted Nov 19, 2020
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The Wrestler
(2008)
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Jason Best
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The battered dignity of Rourke's performance is so touching that by the time he makes his big statement of faith to his fans even the toughest and most cynical of viewers will find their eyes going moist.
Posted Nov 15, 2020
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1931)
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Jason Best
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Made during that brief period when Hollywood sound films explored quite racy material... Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde quite explicitly links Jekyll's woes to sexual frustration.
Posted Nov 15, 2020
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Lakeview Terrace
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Jackson is much more menacing when he is quietly insinuating than when he reaches for his gun, and Lakeview Terrace is much more disturbing before the film's corrosive racial resentment and hatred spills into actual violence.
Posted Nov 15, 2020
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Changeling
(2008)
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Jason Best
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We don't only feel outrage at Christine's treatment, but outrage at the treatment of women in general in 1920s America.
Posted Nov 15, 2020
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The Baader Meinhof Complex
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Director Uli Edel and producer and screenwriter Bernd Eichinger don't take sides. They don't condemn, but nor do they excuse. Instead, they leave us to make up our own minds.
Posted Nov 15, 2020
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W.
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Overtly mocking satire is rare in the film and it's a shame that Stone has reined in the crazy, flamboyant side we know from such films as Natural Born Killers and JFK.
Posted Nov 14, 2020
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Hunger
(2008)
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Jason Best
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McQueen is clearly a major talent and he has produced a work that is emotionally harrowing and artistically audacious.
Posted Nov 14, 2020
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Wanted
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Bekmambetov delivers audacious action and jaw-dropping stunts that will have fan boys of all ages hyperventilating with excitement.
Posted Nov 14, 2020
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Frost/Nixon
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Sheen... gradually conveys the grit that lies beneath Frost's jet-set charm, the unexpected steeliness behind the catchphrases and mannerisms.
Posted Nov 14, 2020
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Gomorra
(2008)
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Jason Best
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The violence in Gomorrah is shocking, but there's none of the exhilaration you find in films like Scarface or Goodfellas or City of God. Instead, what you get is a terrible, gut-clenching sense of clammy dread.
Posted Nov 13, 2020
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Brideshead Revisited
(2008)
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Jason Best
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A miscast Emma Thompson in a white wig is the story's steely enforcer of Catholic orthodoxy... She's such a monster that the film comes perilously close to turning into an Invasion of the Soul Snatchers.
Posted Nov 13, 2020
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In Search of a Midnight Kiss
(2007)
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Jason Best
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There's enough wit and tenderness here to put many a bloated Hollywood movie to shame.
Posted Nov 13, 2020
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Made of Honor
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Any British viewer's toes will curl in embarrassment as soon as the movie lands in a tartan-clad, whiskey-swigging, Brigadoon-like Scotland for the wedding.
Posted Nov 13, 2020
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Swing Vote
(2008)
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Jason Best
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Swing Vote, like Costner's protagonist, is too benign to go for the jugular and settles instead for tickling us gently in the ribs.
Posted Nov 13, 2020
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Smart People
(2008)
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Jason Best
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You know the [title] must be double edged; it just has to be an ironic cue for a tale about folk with stratospherically high IQs but with emotional intelligence that would shame an amoeba.
Posted Nov 12, 2020
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4/5
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Lizzie
(2018)
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Jason Best
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Given that most viewers will probably know the gruesome events to which the action is building, it's remarkable how much tension writer Bryce Kass and director Craig William Macneill manage to wring from the tale.
Posted Oct 19, 2020
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4/5
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A Simple Favor
(2018)
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Jason Best
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Deliciously set off by a soundtrack of chichi French pop songs, the film drips with deadpan hilarity.
Posted Oct 19, 2020
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