The Salvation – LFF Review Tom Bond October 18, 2014 Reviews The Salvation launches into action with a tense and life-changing encounter for Jon (Mikkelsen) and his family. Unfortunately, from there the plot becomes increasingly ludicrous and lightweight. The...
Mommy – LFF Review Tom Bond October 18, 2014 Reviews 2 Comments Most filmmakers can only dream of having made five features and winning the Jury Prize at Cannes by the age of 25. Most filmmakers aren’t Xavier Dolan. With Mommy he shows off his frighteningly assured...
A Love Letter To… Being John Malkovich Conor Morgan October 18, 2014 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Continuing the recent trend of articles about Spike Jonze on One Room With A View, here's a Love Letter dedicated to Being John Malkovich and why it's a work of genius that should be adored by everyone....
Whiplash – LFF Review Tom Bond October 17, 2014 Reviews At the heart of Whiplash lies an uncomfortable truth, relentlessly hammered home with the force of a thousand drumbeats. To be truly great at anything you need to work till you bleed, work until you hate...
Hungry Hearts – LFF Review Tom Bond October 17, 2014 Reviews Is it possible to love not too little but too well? This is the question posed by Saverio Costanzo’s incisive and inquisitive script that follows the battle of wills as Jude (Driver) and Mina (Rohrwacher)...
The Immortalists – LFF Review Tom Bond October 17, 2014 Reviews It’s ironic that a film about living forever is so insufferable it makes you want to kill yourself. Sussberg and Alvarado openly laugh at the deluded follies of the oddball scientists trying to cure aging...
Leviathan – LFF Review Tom Bond October 16, 2014 Reviews Zvyagintsev’s direction builds small character moments into a powerful story of corruption, betrayal and despair. This is Russia, and it’s not pretty. Farcical comedy clashes with the downtrodden hopes...
Phoenix – LFF Review Tom Bond October 15, 2014 Reviews If you’ve got the cheek to basically rehash Vertigo in post-war Germany then the result better be good. This isn’t. Criminally devoid of drama or character developments, Petzold and Farocki’s script...
War Book – LFF Review Tom Bond October 14, 2014 Reviews 1 Comment You face a decision. You will kill millions. Or, you will watch the world burn around you. Sick to your guts you feel the cold dread of a desperately uncertain future. It’s time to decide. The premise...
Goodbye to Language (3D) – LFF Review Tom Bond October 13, 2014 Reviews 1 Comment Reviewing Goodbye to Language is like watching it. Very confusing. All that really matters is the ground-breaking moment where Godard rips up the 3D rulebook and redefines the format. The image splits. One...
Pasolini – LFF Review Tom Bond October 10, 2014 Reviews A love letter from one provocauteur to another, written in dried blood and tired philosophy. Dafoe is assured as the controversial director, both in his tentative physicality and his soaring creative...
Listen Up Philip – LFF Review Tom Bond October 9, 2014 Reviews Philip (Schwartzman) is the man you'll love to hate. Ike (Pryce) is the man he could become. They are both tortured, selfish literary geniuses and Moss, Ritter and de La Baume are the women who suffer for...
Shrew’s Nest – LFF Review Tom Bond October 9, 2014 Reviews Shrew’s Nest is a shrieking bloody mess of a film that just about clings onto enough sanity to tell a compelling and sinister story. Montse (Gómez) is too afraid to leave her house and when an injured...
Dancing Arabs – LFF Review Tom Bond October 8, 2014 Reviews Dancing Arabs’s greatest strength is the way it recognises and respects the painfully irreconcilable divide between opposing cultures – in this case Israel and Palestine. There is kindness and humanity...
Spring – LFF Review Tom Bond October 6, 2014 Reviews 1 Comment Death leads to dubious love in this endlessly inventive delight that pays no regard to traditional genre boundaries. Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead send bereaved lead Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) on...