Hindsight, they say, is 20-20. But the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia can distort the lens. In Belfast, director Kenneth Branagh delivers a love letter to his childhood hometown. But I couldn’t shake the feeling his memory might have taken the hard edges off a tumultuous time in Northern Ireland. That’s understandable – after all, the…
Artificial Intelligence turns on its creator in Moonfall. The stakes for Earth and its inhabitants, not to mention the Moon, couldn’t be higher. It starts with an incident in space in 2011. Three astronauts – Jo Fowler (Halle Berry), Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) and Alan Marcus (Frank Fiola) – are in space on a satellite…
A geriatric Mean Girls? The likeable romantic comedy Queen Bees is set in a retirement home is a moderately entertaining crowd-pleaser that will appeal to older audiences. Helen (played by Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn) is an independent 80 something widow living alone in the house that she and her husband built. But she is becoming…
When vastly different publishing firms merge, sparks fly between two key employees. Insults fly. It’s six-shooters at 20 paces in the romantic comedy The Hating Game. The pair – Lucy Hutton (Lucy Hale) and Joshua Templeman (Austin Stowell) – sit opposite one another. He’s neat, cold and ambitious. She’s a people-pleaser. He calls her “shortcake”…
The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a cheesy melodrama that plots the rise and fall of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Jim (Andrew Garfield), with the help of loyal supporter Tammy (Jessica Chastain), created a 24/7 TV Ministry that was beamed to 20 million people in 56 countries. Jim also siphoned huge monetary pledges…
Director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Penélope Cruz are a match made in heaven. The pair have been mainstays of Spanish cinema for decades, and their collaborations stretch back to Live Flesh (1997). Along the way, they’ve given audiences classics like All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006) and Broken Embraces (2009). The latest Almodóvar film…
A survival story, Gold is set in an inhospitable desert in a not-too-distant dystopian future. This dark and visceral tale of greed, obsession, murder and madness comes from Anthony Hayes, an actor who has experience in directing films with dramas such as Ten Empty to his credit. Hayes co-wrote the sparse and stripped back script…
If any setting was just made for Guillermo del Toro, it’s got to be the circus. Colour, spectacle, carnies, creepy clowns, “freaks” – it positively screams for treatment from the modern master of smart horror. But del Toro is mercurial. Just as he turned his hand to big-budget action in Pacific Rim, he pivots in…
I found it hell to watch a tortured Princess Diana splitting apart in Spencer, the latest film from Pablo Larraín (Jackie). Spencer is a fairy tale. It re-imagines three days over Christmas as the royal family gathers at Sandringham to celebrate the festive season, a decade after Diana (Kristen Stewart) was first invited there. Now…
Writer-director Ben Sharrock draws on his own experiences of living in Syria and working with refugees in Algeria to shape Limbo. This bittersweet drama explores the loss of identity and self often felt by refugees waiting in limbo for their situation to change. The film centres around Omar (Egyptian actor Amir el Masry), a Syrian…
