Author Jack Blackwell

Anthony McCarten has, in recent years, made his name as one of the premier screenwriters of mass appeal but mediocre historical films like Darkest Hour and Bohemian Rhapsody. His latest, The Two Popes, teams...

‘Gravity, but Victorian’, is an intriguing pitch and, visually, The Aeronauts delivers on this strange, exciting promise. As Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne journey through the skies in a giant hot air...

It is hard to explain exactly what Luce is. Initially a serious look at the pressure put on high-achieving black students in US schools, it shifts so many times – even into trashy thriller territory – that...

Every year, you get at least one film clearly designed purely for the purpose of nabbing an Oscar for its star. In 2019, Judy is that film. Renée Zellweger’s heartfelt take on Judy Garland immediately...

It’s impossible to go into Joker without the heavy fog of its insufferable, endless online discourse clouding your view. The ridiculous moral panics and equally silly impassioned defences have already made...

If one were to list off the common pitfalls of biopics, ‘formulaic’ would likely be near the top. Yet, Just Mercy proves that sticking rigidly to an expected formula need not necessarily be a bad thing as...

Both in its premise and its marketing, Harriet looks like a straightforward Oscar-season piece of prestige biopic, telling an inspiring true story and hunting for acting trophies. In practice, though, Kasi...

One of the most tiresome habits of modern film marketing and discourse is the obsession with timeliness. Every "serious" release has to be related to Trump or Brexit or MeToo, even if the connection is...

Opening with a blood-freezing look at a death row execution, Clemency starts heavily and only rarely lets you up to breathe from there. Chinonye Chukwu’s Sundance-conquering look at the barbaric inhumanity...

Just as Bertand Bonello’s last film, Nocturama, split its viewers down ideological lines, so too will Zombi Child divide audiences. Unfortunately, this time out, the difference will be between the people who...

Melding a teen drama with the hypnotic jungle trip of Apocalypse Now, Monos is a film both easy to pigeonhole and hard to fully get a handle on. It defies expectations, from the strange, shifting story to its...

As the most inhospitable, difficult to reach, and mysterious place that humans have ever explored, the depths of space have long held a great fascination for filmmakers. Whether it’s in the fantasy context...

We’ve had quite a few terrible blockbusters so far in 2019 – hello Dark Phoenix, Hellboy, and Godzilla – but, none of them have left as little an impression as Men in Black: International, a forgettable...

It’d be understandable to be dubious about the ‘Charlize Theron falls for Seth Rogen’ premise of Long Shot. How many more elegant woman with schlubby dude romances do we need? Yet, Long Shot is so warm,...

A cacophonously loud and violently hateful mess, 2019’s Hellboy reboot is clearly the result of a deeply troubled production (and with so many major superhero movies surrounding it, the reasoning behind...