La Verónica centres on social media star and footballer’s wife Verónica (Mariana Di Girólamo). Her persistent efforts to procure a sponsorship deal could be derailed by re-surfaced murder charges concerning an infant. Director Leonardo Medel frames the entire film in medium close-up with Verónica’s face in the centre. This conceit hinges on the idea that…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 13 August 2021. Jade Bird’s sophomore album Different Kinds of Light is heavily influenced by the Americana/alt-rock music scene and the legendary RCA Studios in Nashville. That’s where Jade recorded the majority of Different Kinds of Light with powerhouse…
Try as I really wanted to like Free Guy, I simply couldn’t … because it is one very silly movie. Two game developers – Millie (Jodie Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery) – invent a video game, but their boss, Antwan (Taika Waititi), steals the idea and exploits it to makes some serious coin. The basis of…
Liam Neeson’s new action thriller Ice Road is as a cross between reality series Ice Road Truckers and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s tense 1953 drama The Wages of Fear. If you’re not familiar, in The Wages of Fear, a group of men were hired to transport a shipment of volatile nitroglycerine through treacherous mountain passes and across…
Durand Jones & The Indications are easily one of the first bands I would point to if someone wanted to hear some quality modern day retro soul. The five-piece have quickly risen to the top of my list since their 2016 self-titled debut and especially after their Headphone Approved sophomore album, American Love Call, in…
To call Steve Cavanagh’s Eddie Flynn thrillers “courtroom dramas” is to sell them well short. Sure there are some courtroom or other legal shenanigans in every one of Eddie’s outings. But what Cavanagh seems to delight in is how much pressure he can bring to bear on Eddie outside of the case itself. In his…
For quite a while now, Disney/Pixar has “owned” the animation space. The decline of Dreamworks Animation has left the field basically open to them. But competitors are emerging, including (relatively) smaller player Sony Pictures Animation. Their first animated musical, Vivo, is a swing for the fences. Vivo sees the storied Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights)…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 6 August 2021. An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), King Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the…
In the 90s Renny Harlin was arguably the premier director of out-and-out action films. Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight are all his. Since then though his reputation has suffered with a succession of lower budget B-grade films and television work. His latest film is unlikely to restore his reputation though. The…
I hope comic book fans find more to appreciate about James Gunn’s (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) take on The Suicide Squad than I did. I found it a garbled, at times incoherent, mess. The US government is secretly engaging the services of hardened criminals with “special skills” (read: killing). They go on perilous…
