Freelance film critic for Little White Lies, Total Film, The Guardian, Den of Geek and of course ORWAV. When I'm not watching films I'm making TV. @tom_bond
Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and the world had forgotten The Beatles. If you were an aspiring musician at the end of their tether you couldn’t wish for a better gift. This is the genius concept of...
In 1967, The Beatles were the most famous band in the world. Maybe they were even the most famous people in the world. Just a year earlier John Lennon had claimed they were “bigger than Jesus”, and it was...
Nina Wu comes at a perfect moment, hot on the heels of the #MeToo movement which finally challenged longstanding abusive practices in the film industry. Its tale of power, control, and the male gaze is a...
Xavier Dolan's had a tough few years. The Canadian wunderkind's last two efforts It's Only the End of the World and The Death and Life of John F. Donovan have bombed hard, but in Matthias & Maxime he...
In a sane world, Ice on Fire wouldn't exist. Mass global audiences would've been woken up by the comprehensive climate change warnings of An Inconvenient Truth back in 2006, rather than simply stirring in...
Any film not made for mass audiences is always at risk of sliding into a montage of first world problems, such is the class barrier that remains in the film industry. Frankie is a great example of this...
What would you give to go back and experience any point in history however you wished? Time travel may be impossible, but considering the relentless march of technology and filmmaking it’s not inconceivable...
A film about a Muslim teenager’s radicalisation directed by two white men was always going to be controversial, no matter that those men are the legendary Dardennes brothers. The worry was that they would...
There’s a lesser version of this film full of simple, signposted twists, broad, caricatured performances, and crude, obvious metaphors. Apart from a brief sequence early in the first act, Bong Joon-ho’s...
Portraying someone in a work of art inevitably means gathering intimate details about their life. The way they blush when they're angry, the way they bite their lip when they're embarrassed, and the way they...
A great man once said that football isn’t a matter of life and death; it’s much more important than that. Asif Kapadia’s intense Diego doc adds religion to the list, focusing on the brief few years when...
Try to work out what kind of filmmaker Bruno Dumont is and he’s bound to frustrate you. He first made his name with serious, provocative arthouse films, but recent projects have seen him indulge in more...
There’s a stereotype of a Terrence Malick film, if you’re feeling mean. Beautiful, sure; but also a glorified perfume ad, full of twirling girls and little substance. His most recent efforts – To the...
Codes and communication are vital parts of any crime film. After all, it's much easier to double-cross your enemies if they don't speak the same language as you. The Whistlers takes that idea to absurd levels...
Don’t even talk to me about getting a mortgage. In this economy? May as well resign yourself to renting forever and raising your own Chernobyl of a nuclear family from a cupboard under the stairs. Vivarium...