The latest installment in the Disney Villains spin-offs is a reprise of Maleficent – a twisted view of the Sleeping Beauty fable. Picking up where the original left off, Aurora (Elle Fanning) has been crowned Queen of the Moors and is living in the idyllic woods with her godmother Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), sidekick Diaval (Sam…
The word gritty doesn’t do justice to Galveston. This hard-boiled, downbeat crime drama features a host of questionable characters and some bravura acting. Ben Foster never fails to impress and is perfectly cast as a 40-year-old debt collector with a major health issue. Elle Fanning adds to an already impressive resume as prostitute Rocky, who’s…
As many of you will know, Mary Shelley was the author of Frankenstein, arguably the first modern horror story. But this film isn’t about Dr Frankenstein or his monster. Rather director Haifaa Al-Mansour focuses on the author herself. But like many recent biopics, it’s pretty stodgy fare. Al-Mansour, the first recognised female filmmaker from Saudi…
The outsider looking in is one of Sofia Coppola’s directorial trademarks. From Scarlett Johansson’s bewildered American in Tokyo in Lost in Translation to the teenagers breaking into millionaires’ homes in The Bling Ring, she seems to have an affinity for the “other”. In The Beguiled however, she takes the concept in a very different direction….
A melancholic coming-of-age drama, there is much to enjoy from 20th Century Women. The film is set in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1979. Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right) is a determined single mother in her mid-50s, raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann), at a time of cultural…
At the start of The Neon Demon, 16-year-old aspiring model Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to Los Angeles and finds herself staying at a sleazy motel overseen by an equally sleazy, repulsive and ill- mannered manager (Keanu Reeves). A young man has taken a few photos of Jesse, which she presents to a prestigious modeling agency…
