Film Reviews
Alex Lines reports on his time during 2018 The Golden Koala Chinese Film Festival, held in Australia, and the films he was able to see: Interval and Fist & Faith.
Life of the Party may be one of the weaker comedies to come from Melissa McCarthy in a leading role, but it’s entertaining, pleasant and harmless enough to warrant your attendance if you’ve been taken by McCarthy’s previous work with Ben Falcone.
Overboard takes the basic structure of the original film and gives it a modern update, with Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris both giving enjoyable and endearing performances while not losing all the screwball charm of the original.
It may sound like exploitative torture porn, but Revenge introduces director Coralie Fargeat as a filmmaker worth your attention – taking problematic genre tropes and subverting them into a vital, exhilarating feminist film.
Compared to other teen classics that have covered the same ground before, The Kissing Booth comes across as amateurish – and a tiny bit problematic.
On Cannes days 5 & 6, Gus Edgar saw a variety of films, including Gaspar Noe’s Climax, Mandy, and Spike Lee’s latest BlacKKKlansman.
Much like Neil Breen’s current filmography, the horribly-titled The Trough definitely has cult movie potential if it ever hits the underground festival circuit.
Orbiter 9 recalls independently minded sci-fi films such as Sunshine and Moon – but lives in the shadow of its very obvious inspirations.
With a severe lack of thrills and a shortchanged main character, Breaking In fails in nearly every regard.
Inspired by Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Terminal is visually and thematically strong, despite its over-simple script and occasional over-acting – all in all a promising directorial debut for Vaughn Stein.
Beast is a gritty psychological-mystery with a brilliantly dark, pulsating and atmospheric heart, with an exceptional lead performance from Jessie Buckley. Michael Pearce delivers a brilliantly assured and confident feature-length directorial debut.
Reporting from Cannes Film Festival, Gus Edgar reviews Eva Husson’s Girls of the Sun, Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book, and more.
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival featured two biopics of artists who thrived in the 1960s and 1970s before dying much too soon in the 1980s: Mapplethorpe and Nico, 1988.
Kristy Strouse reviews her final batch of films from Tribeca Film Festival, including Zoe, In a Relationship, and Woman Walks Ahead.
Gus Edgar reports from Cannes Film Festival and shares some of his first two days in the French Riviera. He reviews Kenyan LGBT film Rafiki, Paul Dano’s directorial debut Wildlife, Colombian film Birds of Passage, and more.