Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter is an atmospheric horror movie based on a chapter from Bram Stoker’s 1897 classic novel Dracula. It concerns the terrifying story of the merchant ship Demeter, chartered to carry private cargo – 50 unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) has already decided this will…
The consummate stylist of the American cinema is back and in top form. Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is another excellent entry in the director’s canon and is probably his most accessible work since Rushmore. As I’ve said in these (digital) pages before, Anderson is a love-him-or-hate-him proposition. If you’re in the “hate-him” camp, you can…
Twenty-five years ago Kazunori Yamauchi created the world’s most accurate car racing simulation game: Gran Turismo. He and his team had spent five years perfecting it. Video gamers quickly became obsessed. Then UK marketing executive for Nissan, Danny Moore had a crazy, but revolutionary idea. In Neill Blomkamp’s movie Gran Turismo, Moore (Orlando Bloom), convinces…
This tale of redemption is based on the writings of French travel writer and adventurer Sylvain Tesson, who was the central focus of the 2022 documentary The Velvet Queen, which depicted his search for the elusive Tibetan snow leopard. In 2014 Tesson fell from a balcony after a night of heavy drinking and was severely…
The historical drama Chevalier pulls no punches. Director Stephen Williams sets out to push buttons – and push buttons he does. Set in France, it is the story of Joseph Bologne, who was born in 1745 on the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. He was the son of 16-year-old Sengalese slave Nanon and a…
The sophomore feature from Spanish filmmaker Carla Simon (Summer 1993) Alcarras is a lyrical, leisurely paced, beautifully observed slice-of-life drama. The plot concerns a family of peach farmers whose livelihood is under threat from developers. The film was Spain’s official submission for the Best International Film at the 2023 Oscars. The film is set in…
Loosely inspired by Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, this melodrama updates the timeless story to a more contemporary setting along the US/Mexican border. The film centres around Carmen (Melissa Barrera) who is on the run from a ruthless Mexican cartel that killed her mother. While attempting to cross the border into the US Carmen is caught…
Bloodlust features prominently in Sisu, an anarchic actioner, set towards the end of WWII. It is 1944. Finland has signed an armistice with the Soviet Union and the Germans are in full retreat. However, the Nazis have adopted a scorched-Earth policy, destroying everything in their wake. A legendary Finnish warrior – Aatami (Jorma Tommila) –…
Christopher Nolan has never shied away from the audacious. From his breakthrough in Memento (2000) to the time-travel twists of Tenet (2020), he embraces the challenge of doing the impossible and making it seem easy. His most notable work to date – Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar – has been in the sci-fi arena….
The hype has been enormous, but does Barbie, the movie, live up to expectations? Well, some elements do and others not so much. The film is populated by the Barbies and Kens of Barbieland, where women rule the roost and men trail in their wake. The chief Ken (bleach blonde Ryan Gosling, with a six-pack…
