Best Buys For the Best Films of the 2010s Tom Bond March 24, 2020 Shop With the 2010s in the rearview mirror we took the chance to look back at our favourite films of the decade and rank them. You can see where we ended up here, and I hope you'll agree it's a great...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2019: #6 – If Beale Street Could Talk Sophie Maxwell December 30, 2019 Analysis, Features, Top 10 ‘Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street, born in the black neighbourhood of some American city, whether in Jackson, Mississippi, or in Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy. This...
ORWAV’s Top 100 Films of the 2010s: #20-1 Calum Baker December 18, 2019 Analysis, Features, One Off, Top 10 In criticism, time-distance is everything: time to let a film sink in, time to give it more thought and more watches, and time to see what impact it has on the culture. Time also, often, for the artists...
High Flying Bird – Review Calum Baker February 9, 2019 Reviews NBA agency drama High Flying Bird is talky – fast-talky. It was written by a man trained as a playwright, and it details the back-end business side of a major corporatised sport. Even if you already know...
If Beale Street Could Talk – Review Rhys Handley February 8, 2019 Reviews This review was originally published as part of our London Film Festival coverage on 21/10/2018. New York in Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk is pulsating, alive and wholly authentic – populated...
If Beale Street Could Talk – LFF 2018 review Rhys Handley October 21, 2018 Reviews New York in Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk is pulsating, alive and wholly authentic – populated with little fanfare by people of all shades. Following up Moonlight – a watershed achievement...
Top 20 Films of 2017: #2 – Moonlight Rhys Handley December 30, 2017 Analysis, Features, Top 10 In 2017, differences of perspective mutated into an aggressive disruption of common truth. Facts are no longer sacred in societal discourse, meaning philosophical debate is now often a battle over the...
Top 10 Performances by First Time Actors Jack Blackwell November 7, 2017 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Finding the right actors for a film is often a gruelling process, even when using the most conventional channels. To abandon these mainstream techniques in the name of authenticity can sometimes seem like...
Top 10 Movie Moments of 2017… So Far Tom Bond June 28, 2017 Analysis, Features, Top 10 It’s the end of June, so that means it’s time for our favourite ORWAV tradition: the listing of our top 10 movie moments of the year so far, spoilers and all. You’ll get lists thrown at you ad...
ORWAV Oscars 2017 – The Results Tom Bond February 26, 2017 Analysis, Features, One Off Here at ORWAV we're nothing if not cynical trouble-makers, keen to upset some applecarts, rock some boats, and start a revolution. By which we mean that for the ORWAV Oscars 2017, votes have been counted by...
ORWAV’s Oscars Predictions 2017 Calum Baker February 26, 2017 Analysis, Features, One Off Here it is, folks: the night we spend all year preparing for. The nominations for the 89th Academy Awards represent a wonderful mix of styles, voices and perspectives, which is exactly what a good film awards...
ORWAV Oscars 2017 – The Nominations Tom Bond February 21, 2017 Analysis, Features, One Off Just like the real Oscars are more useful as a barometer of Hollywood’s taste than as a marker of quality, the ORWAV Oscars 2017 are a fascinating insight into what makes us tick. Most interestingly of...
Team Talk – Moonlight Louise Burrell February 19, 2017 Reviews With 8 Oscar nominations under its belt, Moonlight has quickly become a real competitor against the likes of La La Land. Offering a look at the complexities of modern day masculinity in situations of high...
Moonlight And The Performativity Of Masculinity Stephanie Watts February 17, 2017 Analysis, Close-Up, Features Barry Jenkins' Moonlight explores the life of Chiron - a black gay man in a rough Miami neighbourhood - across three periods in his life. He's taken in by a well-meaning couple (played by Mahershala Ali and...
Moonlight – Review Tom Bond February 17, 2017 Reviews Moonlight is a strange mixture of the old and the new, offering plenty that we’ve seen before while pushing boundaries that too often remain rigid in mainstream films. Director Barry Jenkins begins in the...