Hustlers – Review Carmen Paddock September 19, 2019 Reviews Comparisons to Scorsese are apt, but Hustlers’ sense of outrage and extraordinary female gaze feels like a fresh explosion of talent and perspective in a genre exhausted by Adam McKay. He is merely a...
Crawl – Review Carmen Paddock August 22, 2019 Reviews This Sam Raimi-produced natural disaster thriller wastes no time getting going and maintains a breakneck pace throughout its 87-minute run time. Artistry is not the aim of Crawl – the main plot points and...
Hobbs and Shaw – Review Carmen Paddock August 6, 2019 Reviews The first Fast and Furious franchise spinoff does exactly what it says on the tin: two fan-favourite characters team up to fight a cybernetically enhanced super-soldier intent on speeding human evolution by...
Animals – Review Carmen Paddock August 2, 2019 Reviews Reluctant adulthood is a current favourite on big and small screenings, and those missing Fleabag or Broad City will find welcome company in this adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s 2014 novel. Animals...
The Strong Female Character in 2019 Carmen Paddock July 26, 2019 Analysis, Features, Opinion “She’s not alone.” With this line, almost every female superhero that Marvel has in their roster was unleashed against Thanos and his cronies, kicking off the last act of Avengers: Endgame’s closing...
Scheme Birds – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 30, 2019 Reviews In Motherwell, Gemma tells us, you end up either ‘locked up or knocked up’. The steel capital of the world died at the hands of Thatcher in the 1980s, and Gemma recounts how the skies turned grey with dust...
Bittersweet Symphony – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews Rich people problems are one of cinema’s perennial favourites; when done well, the results are last year’s Crazy Rich Asians or Joanna Hogg’s upcoming The Souvenir. When done sloppily, self-indulgently,...
Skin – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews There is an argument to be made that white nationalist redemption narratives focus the pain and trauma on the aggressors rather than the communities they terrorise, making them at best valueless and at worst...
Firecrackers – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews What happens when youthful dreams crash into reality? In Firecrackers, writer and director Jasmin Mozaffari follows Lou and Chantal, two teenage Canadians who have saved every penny from their janitorial jobs...
Balance, Not Symmetry – Review Carmen Paddock June 29, 2019 Reviews This review was originally published as part of our Edinburgh Film Festival coverage on 29/06/2019. Grief hangs large over Jamie Adams’ new drama: it opens on a funeral of Scottish-American art student...
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Edinburgh Film Festival Review Carmen Paddock June 27, 2019 Reviews Based on Shirley Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle never leaves the perspective of 18 year old Merricat (Taissa Farmiga), who lives reclusively with her older sister Constance...
Love Type D – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 27, 2019 Reviews What if being dumped wasn't your fault? This is the belief that Frankie (Maeve Dermody) hangs onto after her ex-boyfriend’s precocious eleven-year-old (Rory Stroud) – who was also employed to dump her –...
The Flip Side – Edinburgh Film Festival 2019 Review Carmen Paddock June 27, 2019 Reviews At the opening of Marion Pilowsky’s new rom-com, Ronnie (Emily Taheny) and Henry (Eddie Izzard) are getting cosy on an Adelaide film set – she is the caterer and he is the star, and they are going to move...
Yesterday and Cinema’s Best Jukebox Musicals Carmen Paddock June 26, 2019 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Yesterday, which opens in the UK this week, imagines a world where Sergeant Pepper, Eleanor Rigby, and a yellow submarine live only in the mind of Jack Malik – a street musician whose life changes when he is...
Robert the Bruce – Edinburgh Film Festival Review Carmen Paddock June 25, 2019 Reviews The titular character has little to do in this new account, spearheaded by and starring Angus MacFadyen 24 years after his same portrayal in Braveheart. Set after he loses his wife, child, and army, the king...