• The Lobster

    October 28, 2015 - By 

    Eccentric Greek auteur, Yorgos Lanthimos, brings his dark and distinctive style to a much wider audience with his English-language debut, The Lobster. Happily though, more money and an incredible array of stars hasn’t seen Lanthimos compromise an inch in this beautiful, pitch black oddity. Set in a near future, which is minimalist and classicist in form- the world itself is completely recognisable to the audience- it is the rules of society that have been contorted and changed in The Lobster. David (Colin Farrell, at his deadpan best) finds himself alone after his wife leaves him for another man and, in line…

  • Catch Me Daddy

    March 18, 2015 - By 

    Lovers on the run, honour killings and bounty hunters form the narrative context for a film that nails its colours firmly to its stunning visuals and visceral soundtrack in Daniel Wolfe’s dark thriller, Catch Me Daddy. Laila (played by superb newcomer Sameena Jabeen Ahmed) and boyfriend Aaron are laying low from her possessive father in a small northern town on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, idling away their time walking in the hills, doing drugs and dancing in their tiny caravan. The prosaic beauty of their youthful existence is shattered, however, when Laila’s brother, Zaheer, arrives with some low level…

  • I am Divine

    July 28, 2014 - By 

    Prolific filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz turns his attention to the life and career of drag artist Divine, the cinematic muse of John Waters’ signature films. Divine didn’t invent the idea of being a drag queen, but she did reinvent it, challenging expectations, boundaries, society’s idea of ‘beauty’ and just plain decency and taste, and she did it like nobody else before. As Waters quips in the film, “Divine took it to another level, a level of anarchy”. The film begins with perhaps the crowning moment of Divine and John Waters’ long professional partnership – the premiere of Hairspray in 1988 –…

  • Cold In July

    June 30, 2014 - By 

    Michael C. Hall has established himself as a talented, highly watchable actor with considerable range through his successful roles on television in Dexter and Six Feet Under. But can he make the breakthrough onto the big screen? With roles in Gamer and Kill Your Darlings, among others, it’s been a fairly mixed bag so far and in his latest film Cold in July the greater mystery is Hall’s future career path, rather than the film’s narrative. Based on the novel of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale, writer of Bubba-Ho-Tep, Cold In July finds Michael C. Hall in everyman territory as…

  • X-Men: Days of Future Past

    May 26, 2014 - By 

    Before Sam Raimi’s Spiderman films, before Iron Man, the Avengers and even Marvel Studios, before Christopher Nolan’s Batman, there was X-Men. The film that jumpstarted this comic book movie boom, Bryan Singer’s effort from 2000 remains perhaps the best installment in the series, along with the sequel that followed, X-2: X-Men United. Then Singer jumped ship to helm Superman Returns and the franchise went belly up with a series of misfires. That is until Matthew Vaughn restored some prestige with X-Men: First Class. But now Singer is back and he’s brought a few friends along too. Days of Future Past…

  • Fading Gigolo

    May 23, 2014 - By 

    John Turturro has carved out an incredible career as a character actor in the films of the Coen brothers and Spike Lee in particular. Fading Gigolo sees him breaking new ground as writer, director and star and he’s brought the undisputed master of this art along for the ride in Woody Allen. A comedy about sex and religion sounds like vintage Woody, but while Fading Gigolo may be about the oldest profession in the world, it’s far from vintage. Fading Gigolo sees Woody Allen break new ground, playing pimp to Turturro’s reluctant prostitute and as a premise it’s a pretty…

  • Starred Up

    March 24, 2014 - By 

    Muscular and raw, Starred Up is a film with teeth- both dramatically and literally, as one scene in particular bears out. Director David Mackenzie pulls no punches and produces a film laden with atmosphere that reeks of intimidation, violence and stale prison air. Starred Up is a story of father and son, with Eric (O’Connell) finally reunited with his long absent father, Neville (Mendelsohn). The difference between this and other family dramas is that this one takes place behind bars. From the first shot to the last, the audience never leaves the prison grounds. The film begins with the arrival…

  • Her

    February 18, 2014 - By 

    Her opens with a close-up of its star, Joaquin Phoenix, speaking directly into the camera, but he is not addressing the audience. Nor is he speaking to another character on the other side of the camera. Instead he is talking to a machine. Her imagines a world only one step removed from the one we live in today, where the only conversations people have are with their phones or their computers, of a lonely, cellular existence where every human interaction is managed through a digital medium. The film takes place in a near-future Los Angeles and follows Theodore Twombly (Phoenix),…