Love Letter

The faults of Mamma Mia! are well known; the singing is bad, the choreography is simple, and the plot is weak. Its strengths, on the other hand, are barely mentioned – strange for a film that made...

Thracian gladiators. Highland knights. Petulant teenagers. These are the kinds of people who are born to lead revolutions. Courageous defiance comes with the territory of being a sword bearing, bow-wielding...

Behind its fanciful premise; its lush, heightened production design; and a thick, swirling cloud of ambient Sigur Rós atmospherics, Matt Ross’ Captain Fantastic is an incredibly frank film. Its musings...

War films generally have a hero. They pay lip service to the received wisdom that war is hell and people shouldn’t have to get caught up in it, but for the most part there are still clear ethical boundaries...

Apologies to all whose have continued singing “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” in their heads – or out loud – upon reading the title. The 2010s have been a relatively strong decade for Disney...

"And in case I don't see you: good afternoon, good evening and good night!" It's one of the most memorable Jim Carrey lines, up there with "aaalrighty then" and "somebody stop me!" It's also from the film...

This Friday will deliver Tully, a drama about motherhood from the stunning team of director Jason Reitman, writer Diablo Cody and actress Charlize Theron. Reitman and Cody, of course, first worked together on...

A cast that boasts the likes of John Travolta, Michelle Pfiefer, Christopher Walken and Queen Latifah is what movie dreams are made of – and John Water’s 2007 reboot of Hairspray doesn’t disappoint. A...

Let’s get something out of the way: high school is hell, and if you enjoyed it then you probably made it miserable for those who didn’t. Adult appreciation of the high school film is more complex than mere...

To younger audiences, Todd Haynes is probably better known for his Bob Dylan experimental tribute, I’m Not There (2007) and exquisite romantic melodrama, Carol (2015). In the early years of the new...

In 2016, aged just 27, Anton Yelchin was at the top of his game.  Deftly navigating between multimillion dollar blockbusters and smaller independent fare, Yelchin was building an enviable career working with...

A concrete estate in London, a gang of teenagers roaming the streets, and…aliens from outer space? Yes, it’s the surprising sci-fi comedy Attack The Block, in which a group of inner city kids must defend...

The release of Black Panther this week need not only be marked on the calendars of Marvel super-fans. It’s good news for fans of director Ryan Coogler’s previous output, and not just because he’s brought...

Alexander Payne, the great satirist of Middle American mores, returns this weekend with his latest ditty of wry social commentary, Downsizing. Often when a filmmaker establishes such a distinctive formula as...

The title of The Greatest Showman, out this week, refers to the 19th-century circus entrepreneur P.T. Barnum, though it could just as well refer to the movie’s star. Hugh Jackman has proved again and again...