“I wondered how many times you could get a laugh from a prim and proper character suddenly dropping the f-bomb. For me the novelty wore off very quickly,, and the main pleasure I got out of it was from doing that thing: what’s he/she been in?”
Category: Film Reviews
Anatomy of a Fall is both a gripping courtroom drama and an absorbing psychological one, which manages to hold our interest for all of its 150 minutes. It deservedly won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year, and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at the recent Academy Awards.
American Fiction is a terrific satire on academia, literary fashion, racial identity politics and the cult of celebrity.
“My quibble with Bradley Cooper’s work is that Maestro is more a showcase of his ability to do a good Leonard Bernstein impression than it is a serious biopic about this towering figure of 20th century music.”
“Kingsley Ben Adir…absolutely nails Marley’s charisma, his physical gestures, his stage moves and of course that charming accent for which I am a total sucker.”
‘I have a low tolerance for narrative cliché, but the storyline of The Holdovers is not as predictable as it sounds. I also have low tolerance for sentimentality and mawkishness, but The Holdovers manages – only just – to push itself up to that threshold without toppling over it.’
“Poor Things has been described as a parable of female empowerment and self-knowledge. It would have us believe that an adult woman who enters the world as a blank slate without having absorbed normal social mores while growing up, would turn into a horny, free spirited sexual adventuress who prefers to take her physical pleasure without emotional attachment.”
Coup de Chance – ‘stroke of luck’ in French – is written and directed by Woody Allen. Critics, including our own venerable veteran David Stratton, have said it is could well be his last and best movie. Its themes – love, marriage, infidelity, the lives of wealthy sophisticates and above all the role played by luck in human affairs – are highly reminiscent of Match Point, a similar domestic crime thriller which has hitherto been my favourite. My jury is still out as to whether Coup de Chance is better.
Napoleon was a flawed character – a political and military genius who tended to confuse his personal ambition with the overall interests of France. His was a glorious rise to power and achievement followed by a downfall due to his inability to know his own limitations. Scott’s Napoleon flattens this grand trajectory. But if you don’t give us the highs, you miss the drama and the tragedy of the lows. Napoleon should have been a more moving and thrilling movie than it was.
Asteroid City breaks the third wall, the fourth wall – every wall that’s ever been thought up by human showfolk to enable comprehension and clarity. It breaks down the barriers of performance and drowns the lot in an incoherent soup of stylish surrealism and quirkiness for its own sake.