Festival Review: Grandma (2015)
★★★★☆
A female road-trip with a devastating performance from Lily Tomlin, Paul Weitz’s Grandma delves into feminism past, present and future.
USA
Macbeth (2015)
★★★★☆
Bringing a fearsome pace and inescapable style to Shakespeare’s tragedy of murderous ambition, Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is a luscious, bloody triumph.
Life (2015)
★★★☆☆
Recreating a brief episode in James Dean’s life, Anton Corbijn’s Life sees the icon on the cusp of fame thanks to a series of photographs for Life magazine.
Everest (2015)
★★★★☆
Ain’t no mountain high enough, Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest climbs the nuts and bolts of the fight to the summit without descending into human conflict.
Pasolini (2014)
★★★★☆
Evoking the last days of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini lets the controversial Italian filmmaker’s thoughts and ideas do the scandalising.
Manglehorn (2014)
★★★★☆
David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn is a surreal and painfully accurate portrayal of isolation that features the most essential Pacino performance in over a decade.
Love & Mercy (2014)
★★★★☆
With Paul Dano and John Cusack embodying the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy is a triumph of performance and the creative force.
The Choir / Boychoir (2014)
★★☆☆☆
Boasting a stellar cast of Dustin Hoffman, Eddie Izzard and Kathy Bates, François Girard’s The Choir belts out one disappointing cliché after another.
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
★★★★☆
Charting the rise, fall and rise again of Nina Simone, Liz Garbus’s What Happened, Miss Simone? creates an icon of the High Priestess of Soul.
Listen Up Philip (2014)
★★★☆☆
Conceived by a writer/director influenced by Philip Roth, Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip is a darkly comic satire of the American literary world.
Results (2015)
★★★☆☆
A wry comedy on the new-age mantras of fitness training in Austin Texas, Andrew Bujalski’s Results is a sentimental education of love and dreams.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
★★★☆☆
An Iranian skateboarding vampire movie, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a quirky, stylish addition to the genre.
Rosewater (2014)
★★★☆☆
Jon Stewart’s Rosewater is a political satire focusing on the absurd interrogation of a journalist imprisoned for his coverage of the presidential elections.
While We’re Young (2014)
★★★☆☆
With While We’re Young Noah Baumbach hits you with everything and the kitschen sink in this incisive, funny but often distractingly clichéd comedy about the passage of time and the illusion of youth.