Fruitvale Station – Sundance London Review Christopher Preston April 24, 2014 Reviews 2 Comments Shuddering footage extrapolated from a cellphone shows a group of black men sitting on a station floor. One is thrown down and a bang stings the air. Fruitvale Station begins with an ending. Michael B. Jordan...
The One I Love – Sundance London Review Christopher Preston April 23, 2014 Reviews The One I Love is a crumpled-up love letter being tumble-dried inside one of the drums of The Twilight Zone. Charlie McDowell manages to crack open a window and pump a fresh breeze into a genre bloated with...
Drunktown’s Finest – Sundance London Review Christopher Preston April 22, 2014 Reviews Drunktown’s Finest is Sydney Freeland’s directorial debut on a feature - and it shows. This film, which combines the increasingly interwoven stories of three young Native Americans, is never quite able to...
Calvary – Review Christopher Preston April 14, 2014 Reviews A darkness hangs over Calvary; as bleak and angry as a pregnant thundercloud. Those hoping for a thematic sequel to The Guard will quickly discover that they won’t find it here. Calvary isn’t perfect; the...
Tom at the Farm – Review Janz Anton-Iago April 3, 2014 Reviews Spectacularly prolific French-Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan returns to the scene with his fourth feature (note: he's just turned 25), a brooding, beguiling thriller set amid the Quebecois countryside where...
The Double – Review Christopher Preston April 3, 2014 Reviews 1 Comment The Double sees Jesse Eisenberg thumping his two favourite masks - milksop and scumbag - together as if they were a pair of cymbals. This doppelgänger nightmare is something we should want to digest...
Starred Up – Review Christopher Preston March 20, 2014 Reviews Starred Up serves its porridge with bits of broken glass. It grins as it spits teeth, just as likely to erupt into another volcanic episode of violence as it is to cough up a pearl of prison wisdom. Jack...
300: Rise of an Empire – Review Christopher Preston March 4, 2014 Reviews 2 Comments 300 was brawny entertainment back in 2006, pumped full of radioactive testosterone. But this feeble sort-of sequel exhibits a warrior well past its prime. Weak and saggy, the once-chiseled abs have melted into...
Need For Speed – Review Christopher Preston February 27, 2014 Reviews A song scabs over the penultimate scene of Need For Speed (or Braking Bad) before it hits you that it’s actually a truly dreadful cover of Dylan’s 'All Along The Watchtower'. This mangled arrangement...
Nymphomaniac: Volume II – Review Christopher Preston February 26, 2014 Reviews If Volume I was a euphoric one night stand, Volume II proves to be the sour regret of the morning after. Both of Nymphomaniac’s instalments run for 123 minutes, but this film feels as if it is taking...
Nymphomaniac: Volume I – Review Christopher Preston February 26, 2014 Reviews Sex! Naked bits! Shia LaBeouf! Now Lars von Trier has got your attention, allow him to present you with a bold, stylish, often hilarious and entirely gripping story of one woman and her sexual...
The Railway Man – Review Christopher Preston January 14, 2014 Reviews “War leaves a mark” is the overwhelming message of The Railway Man. Yet its subject doesn’t so much bear a scar as he does a festering psychological wound, which is pustulating into his civilian life and...
Nebraska – Review Christopher Preston December 11, 2013 Reviews 1 Comment Nebraska has a destination, but Alexander Payne is in no hurry to get us there. His new movie ambles along gently; clippity-clopping towards its pot of gold, while it gazes back into the past. Its strength...
Blue Jasmine – Review Cameron Ward October 16, 2013 Reviews 1 Comment In Woody Allen's latest cityscape, a listless San Francisco plays host to the ghosts of New York. What is perhaps most impressive about Blue Jasmine is its seamless integration of psyche and structure....