Festival Review: Nasty Baby (2015)
★★★☆☆
The comic story of a New York gay couple trying for a baby with their 30-something best friend, Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby falls apart in the final reel.
Genre
La Maison De La Radio (2013)
★★★★☆
Did video kill the radio? Nicolas Philibert uncovers the mystery of the medium in his warmly human documentary La Maison de la Radio.
Testament Of Youth (2014)
★★★★☆
A beautiful adaptation of Vera Brittain’s bestselling memoir, James Kent’s Testament Of Youth is a bitter tale of love in wartime for the 21st century.
Wild (2014)
★★★★☆
With a brilliant one-hander from Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed trekking the PCT, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild makes for rehydrated but beautiful soul food.
Whiplash (2014)
★★★★★
Ferocious, electric and unrelenting, Simmons and Teller never miss a beat in Damien Chazelle’s phenomenal second feature Whiplash.
The Last Of The Unjust / Le Dernier Des Injustes (2013)
★★★★☆
If this is a man. Claude Lanzmann’s The Last Of The Unjust recuts unused Shoah interviews to reveal the controversial figure of Benjamin Murmelstein – Europe’s last Jewish Elder.
Erebus: Into The Unknown (2014)
★★★☆☆
A dramatic reconstruction of New Zealand’s worst air disaster, Charlotte Purdy’s Erebus: Into The Unknown loses itself in the snows of Antarctica.
The Theory Of Everything (2014)
★★★★☆
Dramatisation of Stephen Hawking’s life from gifted university student and romance with the woman who became his wife, to international acclaim as a physicist and the break-up of his marriage.
The Woman in Black: The Angel of Death (2015)
★★★☆☆
Horror story which begins as schoolchildren and their teachers are evacuated from London to a deserted house in the remote countryside in World War II.
Unbroken (2014)
★★★☆☆
A well-deserved and accomplished tribute to a survivor’s trials of war, Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken is nevertheless a shallow experience of suffering.
The Circle / Der Kreis (2014)
★★★★☆
Going back to the future through interviews with Switzerland’s first gay married couple, Stefan Haupt’s half-documentary The Circle reveals a postwar openness ahead of its time.
The Great Museum / Das große Museum (2014)
★★★★☆
A fascinating glimpse of the goings-on at one of the grandes dames of Europe’s museum scene, The Great Museum offers a compelling portrait of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
The Green Prince (2014)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating tale of friendship and betrayal, Nadav Schulman’s documentary The Green Prince reminds us of the importance of placing ethics over politics.
School of Babel/La Cour de Babel (2014)
★★★★☆
French director Julie Bertuccelli’s classroom documentary School of Babel examines twenty-four foreign teenagers’ struggles as they adapt to a new life, culture and language in France.