In the days before the pandemic (remember them?), hype swirled around Disney’s adaptation of Artemis Fowl, the much-loved YA novel by Eoin Colfer. Originally slated for a (northern) summer release, COVID-19 torpedoed those plans and Disney moved it straight to its new streaming platform, Disney +. In hindsight, that could have been a wise move….
The Platform (El Hoyo) isn’t just a frightening movie. It’s a movie with a moral. A film that makes you think. Could you call it horror? You could have an extensive discussion about this. For some of the detainees who are locked up in the prison portrayed in this film, it’s indeed horror. It depends…
What a clever idea. Take a huge musical figure and add an element of intrigue to captivate an audience in a period thriller. In writer-director John Stephenson’s Interlude in Prague, that figure is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Aneurin Barnard). The year is 1787. Mozart – usually based in Vienna – is still recovering from the death…
What an amusing movie The Banker was. It’s the kind of movie you start watching and before you know it, the end credits roll across your screen. Even though the subject won’t get you very excited. The world of real estate and banking. A world populated with stiffs in perfectly fitting suits who prefer to…
Unlike a lot of filmmakers, Steven Soderbergh seems quite content being part of the streaming revolution. Alongside The Laundromat, the director booked another film for Netflix. High Flying Bird is rather more subdued than The Laundromat, but it shares some of that film’s DNA. Both are concerned with corporate power; and although the earlier release…
Take a ride on the trippy little train that is The Vast of Night and you will think you have been sucked right back into the golden age of science fiction TV. Let us glide across the living room to see what is about to start on the idiot box. Paradox Theater presents for your…
The despicable nature of workplace harassment comes into sharp focus in The Assistant, a thinly-veiled take on the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Jane (Julia Garner) is the savvy personal assistant to the chairman of a film studio. In the job only five weeks, she completes largely dreary tasks and works long hours. First in the office…
Navigating a romantic entanglement can be difficult enough. But when it comes to two – at the same time – it is in a league of its own, especially when the blokes attracted to the “catch” are best mates. Daphne (Shailene Woodley) opts out of a long-term relationship, quits her job and moves in with…
What do you do when you’ve got two great stories, but only one movie? Mash them together of course. And while this can be fraught, director Tom Harper (Wild Rose) masters the technique in The Aeronauts. Working from a script by Jack Thorne, he deftly melds two real-life stories into one cohesive narrative. The first…
Pain informed the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954), who’s best known for her self-portraits. For her, life was always precarious, but it was only after a tragic accident that the idea of becoming an artist crystalised. The art-house documentary Frida: Viva La Vida gives us rare insight into Kahlo’s tumultuous life,…
