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Gloria Bell – Review

2017's A Fantastic Woman, Chilean director Sebastián Lelio's fifth film, was celebrated as a critical darling for a multitude of well-earned reasons – not least being Lelio's rich characterisation of Marina...
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The Farewell – Sundance London Review

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cringe at awkward speeches – The Farewell is like any good family wedding, or any good funeral come to think of it. In her sophomore feature, writer-director Lulu Wang...
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X-Men: Dark Phoenix – Review

Critiquing an X-Men film is now all relative, given how increasingly hit and miss the series has become – but after the nadir of 2016's Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix proves a pleasant surprise. While not hitting...
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Ma – Review

There's no prerequisite suggesting that a film must have something to say for it to be good. There are plenty of brilliant movies with the density of styrofoam. The realm of the genre flick, however –...
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Godzilla: King of the Monsters – Review

Despite the vacuous content we've come to expect from blockbuster films, they do conform to one ubiquitous truth: they're big, they're loud, and they're fun. Well, almost ubiquitous. In the case of Godzilla:...
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Nina Wu – Cannes 2019 Review

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...
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Matthias & Maxime – Cannes 2019 Review

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...
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Booksmart – Review

Booksmart takes the essentials of a rowdy, raunchy high school comedy and flips them, though it would be a disservice to suggest this is simply by putting girls in the driver’s seat. It’s much more nuanced...
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Ice on Fire – Cannes 2019 Review

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...
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Aladdin – Review

Shining, shimmering... but not so splendid. Aladdin’s first 30 minutes almost condemn it as the worst Disney live action remake (and there’s plenty of competition!). Terrible pace and a garbled storyline...
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La Belle Époque – Cannes 2019 Review

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...
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Young Ahmed – Cannes 2019 Review

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...