Festival Review: Beasts Of No Nation (2015)
★★★☆☆
A violent exploration of civil war in West Africa, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts Of No Nation is a powerful portrait of a continent thrown into darkness.
USA
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.
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.