by Sarah Cook Paul Thomas Anderson has carved out a totally distinctive filmography over the past 25 years from his debut Hard Eight through to 2017’s Phantom Thread. Along the way, he has jumped between genres with some films like There Will Be Blood and The Master far darker than some of his other work. His latest is the coming of age comedy Licorice Pizza … Continue reading Licorice Pizza – Review
by Sarah Cook Marvel is pretty much a spider at the centre of a web, growing ever bigger and ever more complex. It is all about weaving a story that is both engaging and exciting for both hardcore fans and general cinemagoers. The audience – us – are just the flies, ready to be gobbled up by the studio and their superhero stories. And boy, … Continue reading Spider-Man: No Way Home – Review
The opening minutes of Encounter prepare you for a science-fiction adventure. A meteor hurtling through space enters the Earth’s atmosphere and casts a streak of light over a suburban American town. Like a latter-day Roy Neary, the protagonist of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, former marine Malik Khan (the ever-watchable Riz Ahmed) is on a singular mission: to take his two young … Continue reading Encounter – Review
There is a wonderful visual joke early in Tunisian writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania’s sophomore feature, The Man Who Sold His Skin. A truck filled with check-patterned laundry bags pulls up and out climbs man-on-the-run Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni) wearing a shirt with the same pattern. For a brief moment I was transported back to the ZAZ (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker) comedies of the 1980s, Airplane, Top Secret and … Continue reading The Man Who Sold His Skin – Review
by Robbie Jones Jeremy Hersh’s directorial debut centres on Jessica (Jasmine Batchelor), a graphic designer for a non-profit organisation who is unhappy with her position in life. Things are turned around suddenly when her best friends Josh (Chris Perfetti) and Aaron (Sullivan Jones) ask her to be the surrogate for their child. All is going well until the 13 week mark, where the trio learn … Continue reading The Surrogate – Review
by Jordan King Florian Zeller’s beautifully made and masterfully performed The Father portrays dementia from both the perspective of the suffering mind and the suffering family in quite extraordinary fashion. Adapted from Zeller’s own acclaimed stage play of the same name, The Father sees Sir Anthony Hopkins star as Anthony, an 80-year-old man suffering with dementia whose daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) is preparing to leave … Continue reading The Father – Review
Movies on Weekends 