Author Phil W. Bayles

With Turning Red, Pixar continues its recent trend of allowing diverse voices within the studio to tell new (and clearly very personal) stories. Directed by Domee Shi, who also made the delightful short Bao,...

The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is steeped in ambiguity - we don’t even know the name of its original author - and countless writers have attempted to make sense of it over the years (including...

After giving us all an existential crisis with Soul, the folks at Pixar have taken things down a few notches with Luca. It’s a charming story about two boys - Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan...

Adapted by Florian Zeller from his stage play of the same name, The Father is a film about the ravages of time in the vein of Michael Haneke’s Amour. But while Haneke presented his subjects with clinical...

The first 20 minutes of Army of the Dead are an absolute joy to watch. After an efficient, no-nonsense explanation of how the zombie apocalypse came to pass, we’re treated to a bombastic montage showing the...

This film was previously reviewed in April 2021 for its digital release. Early on in Sound of Metal, a group of deaf addicts sign a prayer that’s common in 12-step programmes: “God grant us the serenity...

Even if you didn’t already know that The Mitchells vs. The Machines - originally titled Connected - was produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, you’d probably guess it within five minutes. It bears...

Tangled - Disney’s 50th animated feature, and the film that kick-started the studio’s ‘Revival’ period - turns 10 years old this month. In the decade since its release the studio has gone from strength...

Radioactive should have been a slam dunk. The life of Marie Curie is ripe for cinematic adaptation, and this one is directed by Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian filmmaker behind the autobiographical...

It’s easy to see why The Hunt was shelved last year following a spate of mass shootings in the US. Not because it’s violent – it is, but not emphatically more so than many other films released since –...

There’s a curious paradox at the heart of And Then We Danced. The traditional dancing practised at the Georgian National Ensemble in Tbilisi is built on discipline and hyper-masculinity. “There is no room...

It seems oddly fitting that The Invisible Man should be released mere days after the conviction of sex offender Harvey Weinstein. Once part of the ill-fated ‘Dark Universe’, now in the hands of director...

Sam Mendes’ 1917 has picked up a slew of nominations this awards season, including nine for the BAFTAs and 10 for the Oscars, and it’s not hard to see why. This is a war movie that manages to feel both...

Rian Johnson is a man who loves breaking rules. He broke just about every rule in the book when he was given the reins to Star Wars, and some of the most unpleasant people on the internet are still giving him...

Frozen II can’t quite recapture the lightning its predecessor managed to bottle, but it’s still an entertaining ride that goes to some interesting places.