Finland’s official entry for the Foreign Language Oscar in 2018, Tom of Finland is a handsome production. This is a biopic of artist Touko Laaksonen. Laaksonen’s erotic drawings (under the pseudonym Tom of Finland) had a huge influence on gay identity and became a symbol of gay pride in the sexually liberated 70s and 80s….
A wintry wonderland hides dark secrets in the atmospheric thriller The Snowman, which has undertones of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the frigid landscape, a sociopath who calls himself “The Snowman Killer” has targeted the one person he wants to appreciate his methodical, unthinkable “skills”. That person is Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender), lead investigator…
Geostorm has to be one of the most ridiculous disaster movies in a pantheon of clunkers in the genre. Even the special effects are severely underwhelming. After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world’s leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep…
Writer and director David Pulbrook (Last Dance) has a way to go before being compared to Alfred Hitchcock. The great director’s command of the genre is what Bad Blood seems to be going for, but it falls short. Carrie (Morgan Griffin) is in love with her new fiancé Vincent (Xavier Samuel), a handsome and successful young…
The low budget indie crime drama Good Time is the latest film from the Safdie brothers (Benny and Joshua). Their films, like Daddy Longlegs, often explore the struggles of losers who live on the edges of society. This is a gritty and downbeat black comedy and heist drama with plenty of energy. Connie Nikas (played…
Life is complicated. A young man growing up in New York who has fallen for an attractive young lady, who happens to be his best friend. You might think you’ve heard it all before, but you haven’t. Unless you’ve seen the trailer for The Only Living Boy in New York – which I sincerely wish…
Boise, Idaho. Storm clouds have rolled in, causing all flights to be cancelled. Ben (Idris Elba) is a neurosurgeon trying to get a flight to Denver. He needs to catch a connecting flight to New York, where he’s scheduled to perform life-saving surgery on a ten-year old boy. Alex (Kate Winslet) is a photojournalist who…
Fifty-eight people died and more than 520 were injured in the Las Vegas slaughter. Joanna Murray-Smith wrote her powerful and affecting one-man play American Song long before that tragedy unfolded. Unfortunately mass shootings in the land of the free have become all too common. American Song was commissioned in the US and first produced there last year…
I loathed the past couple of films from revered auteur Terrence Malick, particularly his To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, with their frustratingly obtuse, indulgent and abstract experimental nature, existential meditations, impressionistic and unconventional approach to narrative, the mumbled and at times inaudible dialogue often delivered as internal monologues, the non-linear structure and fractured…
I want to do something different with Blade Runner 2049. Rather than discuss the plot, the acting, and the score (which are all excellent by the way), I want to take a step back a bit. Blade Runner (1982) wasn’t the first dystopian sci-fi movie (or even the first noir sci-fi), it was a groundbreaking…
