With Tar, his first feature length film as director since 2006’s Little Children, Todd Field mixes high fibre Ingmar Bergmanesque intellectualism with Michael Haneke’s growing sense of threat and some of the meticulous framing and clinical creepiness of Stanley Kubrick. It’s a very impressive but difficult combination requiring patience and work from the audience as they have to negotiate some
Read moreGiven director Guillermo del Toro’s catalogue of ornate gothic horror movies, it seems a film about a carnival freak show would be a career imperative. His latest movie, the confrontingly dark and creepy noir crime thriller, Nightmare Alley – which is a remake of the Edmund Goulding 1947 film – explores this unsettling and often sad world. Bradley Cooper stars
Read moreSince the world-dominating success of the Harry Potter films, teen magic fantasies have been an El Dorado for film makers: guaranteed gold if the right approach can be found but as the likes of The Golden Compass and A Wrinkle in Time have shown, too often disastrous. There were high hopes, however, for the cinema adaptation of John Bellair’s 1973
Read moreThe Ocean’s 11 etc movies are one of the less likely film franchises. Conceived in the 1960’s as a Vegas lark for the Rat Pack, the concept was resurrected in the 2000’s for George Clooney and a gaggle of his bros to play criminal hepcats ripping off casinos. With Ocean’s 8, the Ocean’s concept, like Doctor Who has reappeared in
Read moreAlong with The Danish Girl and The Duke Of Burgundy, the moody, sensitive, Carol continues an intriguing theme in 2015/16 cinema of introspective dramas examining gender and sexual identity. In doing so it provides an impressive showcase for the talents of leads Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara and enigmatic director Todd Haynes. The film tells of a forbidden and fraught
Read moreBased on the non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, Monuments Men dramatises the time during World War Two when art critics invaded Germany. Throughout the war, the Nazis had stolen copious art treasures including Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child, from galleries and private collections across Europe. For what are purported in
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