This Spanish/Argentinian co-production stars Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas and was one of the hits at the recent Spanish Film Festival. There have been many films that have explored the filmmaking process, from Singin’ In the Rain through to The Player (Robert Altman’s star-studded two-finger salute to Hollywood) and the Coen brothers’ recent Hail, Caesar….
Any film based on a book usually has to sacrifice certain elements to get all the plot points in place. Otherwise, there’s just no way to put several hundred pages of story into a 90 – 120 minute screen work. But aficionados of Delia Owens’s enormously popular book, Where the Crawdads Sing, seem to agree…
Denver 1978. 13-year-old Finney (Mason Thames) is a school kid who is a decent baseball pitcher. It looks like he is about to strike out big hitter Bruce (Tristan Pravong), but after two strikes Bruce goes all the way. Clearly happy with himself, while riding his bike home a black van looms ominously and Bruce…
This generic globe-trotting action thriller comes across like James Bond on steroids. The Gray Man is based on the 2009 thriller written by Mark Greaney, who was a frequent collaborator with the late Tom Clancy and is credited with writing some of the recent Jack Ryan novels. The Gray Man introduces us to Court Gentry…
This star-studded French comedy, which was a hit at the recent Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, is largely set within a retirement village. The Villa (aka Maison de retraite in some markets) is another example of those increasingly popular “grey power” films along the lines of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its ilk which…
I tend to agree with Mark Twain when he (supposedly) described golf as “a good walk ruined”. While the quote is likely apocryphal, the sentiment is understandable – the world seems to be split into golf lovers and golf haters, with few in the middle. But whatever its shortcomings, golf provides the perfect setting for…
Mexican writer-director Michel Franco’s slow-moving existential drama Sundown stars Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Roth plays Neil Bennett, who is spending a relaxing holiday in an exclusive resort in Acapulco with his sister Alice (Gainsbourg) and her two teenage children Colin (Samuel Bottomley) and Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan). Neil is the scion of a family…
In Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6, the journey counts, not the destination. The film opens in Moscow in 1996. Laura (Seide Haarla) is a Finnish archaeology student in her 30s staying with Irina (Dinara Drukarova) in a beautiful flat. The pair are also lovers. Irina has forged a good life, full of friends, parties, laughter…
The ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe (or the MCU to fans) spirals a little farther out with Taika Waititi’s second film in the Thor franchise, Thor: Love and Thunder. As much as this rather manic adventure-comedy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it still asks some big questions. And unlike many films of this genre,…
The French tend to make fine films about food, family and fashion. While Haute Couture is set against the backdrop of the high-end fashion industry it primarily deals with complex mother/daughter relationships and class issues in contemporary France. Ester (Cesar winning actress Nathalie Baye) is the head seamstress at Dior Avenue Montaigne workshop in Paris,…
