Author Carmen Paddock

At the end of the decade, media seems to be moving further away from the noughties’ nihilism. Perhaps audiences need a break from the relentless inhumanity highlighted in 24/7 news cycles. Perhaps a...

Nothing quite like Cats has been attempted on the big screen – and one hopes nothing like it is attempted again. From the first trailer, Cats has been defined by the bafflement around its digital fur...

Much can be said about the cinema of the 2010s, from Oscars drama and the legacy of #MeToo to the dominance of Disney and emergence of streaming platforms in film distribution. The films driving and reacting...

A pop feminist, blingy advert for girl power could have been a fun, if fluffy, night at the cinema, but unfortunately the new Charlie’s Angels is let down by a script that neither serves the predictable plot...

Almost forty years after Stanley Kubrick brought the Overlook Hotel to horrifying life, Mike Flanagan brings viewers right back into his world with his take on Stephen King’s sequel. By virtue of its source...

Marielle Heller returns with another unconventional biopic that is more interested in the humanity of its relationships than in worshipful recreations of historical events. That said, the love and care poured...

A period drama not focused on the landed gentry is a welcome change. Fanny Lye Deliver’d focuses on its titular protagonist’s life in 1657 rural Shropshire; after the English Civil War, she lives...

The most striking element of Mirrah Foulkes’ feminist reimaging of the quintessential, quaint British seaside entertainment – this time focusing on the humans behind the puppets – is its unevenness of...

Despite its flippant title, For the Birds is a difficult watch. The documentary centres on Kathy Murphy, a rural New Yorker whose decades-long, all-consuming hobby of raising barnyard fowl has raised...

The fictionalised cinematic memoir is an inherently self-indulgent genre, yet actor-turned-writer Shia LaBeouf and director Alma Har’el use this intense introspection to capture the interpersonal and...

Nick Rowland’s feature debut, based on a short story, starts with explosive, explicit violence that immediately and effectively establishes the world: unforgiving, honour-bound, and never without the threat...

Billie Piper’s audacious directorial debut follows imperfect – sometimes downright unpleasant – people. Mandy (Piper) makes do in an office full of not-so-passive aggressions, and her seven-year-old...

Like this autumn’s Marriage Story, Premature follows a relationship between two artists whose personal lives blend into their creative endeavours – but in this film the beginning, end, and a possible path...

Thank the cinematic gods a studio gave Taika Waititi the money to make what is – on paper – a disaster waiting to happen. Yet in his hands, a comedy about a Hitler Youth misfit and his imaginary friend...

The stories we tell ourselves and to others define the way we understand the world, and The Last Black Man in San Francisco uses this ever-changing mythos to expertly evoke an ever-changing city. Based on the...