The Apprentice film review: A gloriously dark origin story for Trump October 17, 2024 As we near the US Presidential election, The Apprentice has attracted much controversy from one of the candidates. This early-days biopic of Donald Trump has been denounced by the 45th President, who sent a cease-and-desist letter causing the film to have trouble finding a distributor. But is it worth the fuss? Starting in the early [...]
Timestalker is the saucy, grizzly anti-romance British cinema needs October 10, 2024 Having spent much of her acting career in cult favourites such as TV comedy Garth Merenghi’s Dark Place and 2012 indie film Sightseers, Alice Lowe broke through as a director with her 2016 comedy slasher Prevenge. She follows up that success with her second directorial effort, high concept comedy Timestalker. She plays Agnes, a woman [...]
Salem’s Lot review: Dreary HBO Max vampire horror lacks bite October 10, 2024 The work of Stephen King has been adapted for TV and film consistently since the author began writing. Some result in classics – The Shawshank Redemption and IT – while other fail to capture the spirit of the story and are forgotten. The latest adaptation of King’s second novel, ‘Salem’s Lot, seems destined for the latter [...]
Transformers One is the best film in this franchise. Here’s why… October 10, 2024 For 17 years the Transformers franchise has proven bafflingly successful. The four Michael Bay-directed movies, spanning from 2007 to 2017, became a byword for shallow spectacle, while the prequels Bumblebee (2018) and Rise of The Beasts (2023) were at best a marginal improvement. The series now moves into animated territory with the star-studded family film [...]
A Different Man review: Expertly observed dissection of image October 8, 2024 A Different Man | Dir. Aaron Schimberg | ★★★★☆ Sebastian Stan plays Edward, a lonely New Yorker with Neurofibromatosis, a series of tumours on the face that make him feel disconnected from the outside world. He undergoes miracle surgery to cure the condition, and begins a new life with the name Guy, finding renewed professional [...]
Children of The Cult review: Cult documentary charts abuse October 7, 2024 Children of The Cult | Dir Maroesja Perizonius & Alice McShane | ★★★★☆ Documentaries about cults have become sensationalist streaming fodder in recent years, but Children of The Cult strips away the headlines and brings you face to face with victims and their stories. It’s an investigation into the Rajneesh Movement, a cult that had [...]
Joker: Folie à Deux review – a strange, dark musical October 7, 2024 Joker was a fascinating outlier in modern cinema. The violent, Scorsese-inspired psychodrama was a huge risk, whisking the Clown Prince of Crime away from the world of comic books and placing him in a grimy 1980s Gotham City that resembled nothing more than Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The gamble paid off, with an Oscar for [...]
My Old Ass review: The big questions of early adulthood September 27, 2024 The premise for breezy coming-of-age comedy My Old Ass is familiar but under the direction of filmmaker Megan Park (The Fallout) there’s a lot that feels fresh. Maisy Stella plays Elliott, an 18-year-old girl on a camping trip with friends who decides to try mushrooms. While high, she is greeted by her 39-year-old self (Aubrey [...]
The Penguin review: HBO batman spin-off series is criminally good September 27, 2024 The streaming feeding frenzy that consumed Covid-era Hollywood may have died down, but studios still make big bets on familiar names. The latest is HBO’s The Penguin, a TV spin-off of 2022’s The Batman which continues the story of Oswald Cobb, played by Colin Farrell. In the aftermath of the film’s events, Gotham City’s criminal [...]
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is hellishly good September 26, 2024 Mike Mignola’s Hellboy stories have an odd legacy in the comic book movie boom. Guillermo Del Toro’s brace of 2000s adaptations, starring Ron Perlman as a monster-busting demon, were cult favourites but never quite blockbuster material. A 2019 reboot starring Stranger Things’ David Harbour was a notorious flop; now the creator of the comics wants [...]
