The word relentless springs to mind when I think of Hacksaw Ridge. It’s a film that commits completely to capturing the intensity and brutality of war. It does not hold back. Bloods, guts, limbs are on full display and young Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) is at the heart of the action. Volunteering to fight in WW2, […]
Read more
Some films make you feel good inside. Some can scare you, make you laugh and others can make you want to fist pump the air. But there are films that can rip you to pieces, tear away at any hope you have, and force you to accept that the world is a monstrous place. This […]
Read more
American Beauty, directed with such an ingenious vision and technical flair, is the ultimate midlife crisis movie. Spacey gives a great performance as forty-something Lester Burnham, an ad executive who’s sick of his job and his life. He is unhappily married to Carolyn (Benning), a neurotic real estate agent obsessed with keeping up appearances; their […]
Read more
True classics never get old! It was the turn of the millennia when Richard Kelly created sci-fi drama Donnie Darko, which boasts one of the most complex and compelling stories of this century. It was also the moment cinema discovered Jake Gyllenhaal, who portrays Donnie, a schizophrenic high school kid. And his problems begin when a mysterious […]
Read more
In T2 Trainspotting, Renton (McGregor) and the gang are back wreaking havoc in Edinburgh once again, twenty years on from their 1996 drug-fuelled adventure. This sequel is everything I could have hoped for – it’s funny, entertaining, visually sharp and it’s a joy finding out what these characters, now middle-aged, have been up to… Renton: Heading […]
Read more
Most weird films come from the independent world, not Hollywood, because the stranger the movie, the less likely it will be successful. I have seen plenty of weird films, some good and some terrible. Here are five movies that I believe have a unique place in cinema. Un Chien Andalou (1929) What happens when you […]
Read more
After just five minutes into La La Land, I was certain that I was going to hate it. The large ensemble number, titled “Another Day in the Sun” opens the film, with numerous people jumping out of their cars, singing and dancing on a busy L.A freeway. I normally keep my distance from musicals, but I decided to give La […]
Read more
One of the many things I have great respect for is people who tell it like it is. This is precisely what Ken Loach does with I, Daniel Blake. It’s a film that left me with a knot in my stomach, as it dawned on me that Loach’s portrayal of a poverty-stricken Britain couldn’t be closer […]
Read more
To say the British urban genre is the most disregarded film genre would be an understatement. I’ve seen a lot of these films over the years, the good ones and the bad ones. They take a no-nonsense approach to serious themes concerning race, poverty, drugs and other issues. These films are about stuff that matters. […]
Read more
We had Stand By Me and The Breakfast Club in the ’80s and Dazed and Confused in the ’90s, and yes they are great coming-of-age films, but is there really any need to keep reminding you of that in every film list over and over again? So, I’ve decided to select some alternate choices. I have always strongly connected with coming-of-age […]
Read more
The premise of It Follows sounds like the worst film ever when said out loud. But sometimes the best ideas are the unusual ones. This thrilling horror focuses on teenager Jay (Monroe), who after sleeping with her new boyfriend, becomes the target of a supernatural entity – a curse passed on through sex. There are clear […]
Read more
There’s little more that can be done with the ‘let’s make a band’ formula, but John Carney manages to create something really special with Sing Street. It’s a funny, lively, utterly brilliant coming-of-age story set in 1985 Dublin. It focuses on young Conor “Cosmo” Lawlor, who starts a rock band to impress a girl. This is a […]
Read more
Motion Picture Blog 