Nightbitch review: Amy Adams plays a dog in motherhood horror December 4, 2024 Motherhood has been portrayed in various ways on screen, but few films will go to the same extremes as new drama Nightbitch. Amy Adams stars as Mother, a woman who has left behind a life as a successful artist in order to become a stay-at-home mum to Baby, a toddler with no shortage of energy. [...]
Moana 2 can’t quite recapture the magic of the original November 28, 2024 Eight years ago, Moana found box office success thanks to a rich and heartfelt story grounded in Polynesian culture, combined with catchy tunes. A lot has happened in the film industry since then, but Disney will be hoping to capture the same excitement from audiences with Moana 2. Set years after the events of the [...]
Beatles ’64: Scorsese tackles the band’s Beatlemania moment November 28, 2024 Producer Martin Scorsese and Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films bring to life perhaps the biggest moment in pop music history. Beatles ’64 is the story of John, Paul, George and Ringo arriving in America for the first time for a fortnight of performances and press, a phenomenon that was referred to as Beatlemania. Told mainly through [...]
Conclave review: Ralph Fiennes shines in Papal drama November 27, 2024 Religious films rarely make the top of the box office, but they do occasionally catch the eye of Oscar. Although they have differing takes on faith, The Exorcist, 2008 drama Doubt, and 2016 Best Picture winner Spotlight are among those who have found awards success through stories involving the Church. Edward Berger, already an Academy [...]
Bread and Roses: Jennifer Lawrence doc is a troubling success November 22, 2024 Produced by Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, Bread and Roses is a documentary that captures a modern crisis happening right now. It analyses modern Afghanistan, and the effects of the 2021 offensive that saw The Taliban seize control. The film focuses on the effect it has had on women, whose rights to work, education, and privacy [...]
Wicked film review: Ariana Grande helps this musical really fly November 22, 2024 More than two decades after the production was first staged, Wicked makes it to the big screen in the first of a two-part adaptation. Arriving on a tornado of publicity, expectations are high for the Broadway favourite, but can it be just as popular on film? For the uninitiated, Wicked presents an alternative history behind [...]
Emilia Perez is an early tip for all the top awards October 25, 2024 As we approach awards season, Emilia Perez, the new film from director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, The Sisters Brothers), will hope its joyful and jagged tale rightly captures the imagination of judges. Set in Mexico City, Zoe Saldaña plays Rita, a brilliant but frustrated lawyer working to keep the guilty from prison. Feared cartel leader [...]
The Apprentice: Is the Trump biopic fake news? October 24, 2024 The Apprentice, a film directed by Iranian-Danish Ali Abbasi out last week in the UK, constitutes a brutal character assassination against presidential candidate Donald Trump. Focusing on the years 1973 to the early 1980s, it tracks Trump’s rise from real estate mogul’s awkward son (he’s literally knocking on doors collecting rents) to the man liberals [...]
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 [...]