The trailer for Promising Young Woman suggests a violent I Spit On Your Grave-style revenge thriller drenched in garish iridescent colours. One scene aside, however, this is a much less confronting film than that, which is a mixed blessing. On one hand, the film is less thrilling than expected and even a little leisurely. On the other hand, the restrained
Read moreCinema-goers would be be pretty optimistic if they expected a documentary about the brilliant but chaotic musician and Pogues frontman, Shane McGowan to be a smooth and straightforward ride, particularly as the director is frequent Sex Pistols documenter, Julien Temple. A swirling storm of words and images stitched together from interview fragments, concert film, stock footage and even animated fantasy
Read moreDavid Fincher’s latest film Mank may be a little perplexing for those who don’t have an abiding love of movies, particularly the film often considered Hollywood’s finest, Citizen Kane. Mank depicts the period in the 1930’s in which renowned screenwriter and according to the film, gambling-addicted drunk, Herman J Mankiewicz aka Mank (Gary Oldman) toiled on the script for Kane
Read moreThe latest film for writer/ director Miranda July (Me, You and Everyone We Know), the oddball comedy/ drama Kajillionaire is at first so irritatingly quirky, many will want to yell insults at the screen. Eventually – and we’re talking by about the last 20 minutes of the film – detractors should begin to embrace or least feel less enraged by
Read moreThese days, it’s almost a spoiler to use the term ‘Liam Neeson film’ as, for the last decade most of his movies have just been a waiting game for Neeson’s gruffly charming, taciturn character to reveal himself as an indestructible tough man on a morally righteous quest which usually involves shooting and beating the crap out of sneering scumbags. Honest
Read moreWith her latest film On the Rocks, writer/director Sophia Coppola (Lost in Translation) once again conjures a restrained, leisurely-paced but extremely charming story of an unusual relationship between an older man and a younger woman. Here, the younger woman is Lauren played by the wonderful Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation) a writer and mother of two small children starting to
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