Happy as Lazzaro (2018) (Lazzaro felice)
★★★★☆
Happy as Lazzaro by Alice Rohrwacher is a magical-realist fable that features types of exploitation.
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Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
★★★☆☆
Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughan are cops going brutally rogue in Dragged Across Concrete, S. Craig Zahler’s third film after Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99.
Greta (2018)
★★★☆☆
Neil Jordan’s Greta, starring Isabelle Huppert and Chloê Grace Moretz, is a well-acted, bonkers roller-coaster of horror and laughs.
Red Joan (2018)
★★★☆☆
The intriguing Red Joan, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson, is inspired by a real-life, very British wartime spy story exposed 50 years on.
The Sisters Brothers (2018)
★★★★☆
The Sisters Brothers is a darkly funny, revisionist Western directed by Jacques Audiard.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
★★★★☆
Stanley Kubrick’s must-see cult classic A Clockwork Orange is finally released in the UK.
Ben is Back (2018)
★★★☆☆
Julia Roberts plays a mother fighting to hold onto her relationship with her son in the face of his drug problems in writer/director Peter Hedges’ drama Ben is Back.
3 Faces (2018)
★★★★☆
3 Faces is Jafar Panahi’s fourth film since receiving a 30-year ban on filmmaking (or leaving Iran). It’s an involving, compelling, deeply ingrained criticism of the society it quietly observes.
Out of Blue (2018)
★★☆☆☆
Out of Blue by Carol Morley, the director of Dreams of a Life, is a metaphysical neo-noir, a Schrödinger’s cat of a film.
At Eternity’s Gate (2018)
★★★★☆
Willem Dafoe stunningly inhabits the outer shell of tormented artist Vincent Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s disturbing, arty biopic At Eternity’s Gate.
Eaten by Lions (2018)
★★★★☆
Eaten by Lions by Jason Wingard is a crisp and surreally comic film, starring an array of British comedy talent. It’s a more raffish and comedic East Is East for our times.
The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)
★★★★☆
The pursuit of artistic desire goes too far in writer/director Sara Colangelo’s slow burning drama The Kindergarten Teacher based on the 2014 Israeli film and showcasing a tremendous performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal.
BBC Arabic Film Festival 2019
Arab film is receiving international attention following Nadine Labaki’s Foreign Lnaguage Oscar nomination for Capernaum. This year’s BBC Arabic Festival programme of 18 films includes four feature…
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Us (2019)
Review to follow.
★★★★☆
Us is Jordan Peele’s truly scary, more-than horror, state-of-the-nation follow-up to his acclaimed Get Out.