• Star Wars: The Last Jedi

    There’s a scene near the end of The Last Jedi, the second in Disney’s rejuvenated world-eating trilogy, when Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the floppy-haired bastard prince whose crackling Oedipal resentment makes him the most fascinating of the new batch, has pretty much had enough of the whole Star Wars thing. Rey (Daisy Ridley), the heir apparent to the ways of the Light Side, is talking about The Resistance, but he cuts her off, launching into a speech of delicious, weary iconoclasm. The Jedi, the Sith, the rebels, Luke, Leia… he wants to torch the whole thing, this over-loaded mythology on…

  • Silence

    Martin Scorsese has to be commended for taking on the adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 book of the same name, as Silence requires a deep understanding of Japan, its history and its people. And while what he achieves is impressive with the overall outlook and feel of the film, I have to admit that I felt there was problems with the representation of the Japanese Christians for the first half, along with some of the more grim scenes of violence and torture later on. If you are familiar with some of the many classic Japanese films of this era like Rashomon…