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Drive My Car – NYFF 2021 Review

Inspired by author Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same title, writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Cannes Best Screenplay winner Drive My Car is an avant-garde metatextual curation interweaving...
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In the Heights – Review

The hottest day of the summer in New York: in cinema, it can mean chaos, sex or, as here, celebration and joy. Jon M. Chu’s follow-up to Crazy Rich Asians is the film adaptation of In the Heights, the first...
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The Garden Left Behind – Review

The issues that The Garden Left Behind explores are pertinent and vital. We cannot achieve a moral or a just society without addressing them. That they are explored so heavy-handedly and with such a cruel...
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The Booksellers – Review

Jeff Bezos’ sinister, late-capitalist empire has long cast a shadow over the book industry, yet in a year when independent bookshops and trade fairs have been forced to shut, its shadow looms larger than...
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The King of Staten Island – Review

Judd Apatow’s reputation may have been forged around adolescent hijinks, but there has always been a more serious message lurking beneath the juvenile jokes. His comedy revolves around the idea that humour...
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If Beale Street Could Talk – Review

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...
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Good Time – Review

Not a jump down the rabbit hole as much as a squeeze through the other end of the telescope, Good Time is when the bass drops at 3am and you can’t remember your own name. Josh and Benny Safdie use every...
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Don’t Blink – LFF 2016 Review

Robert Frank’s photographs of mid-century America were hated when he first presented them in book form. Candid, grainy, and refusing to shy away from social problems that people were facing, the general...
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The Wolfpack – Review

The Wolfpack is a fascinating study of life lived on movies alone. They shape the Angulo family’s personalities, leading to some hilarious spot-on recreations, but the accompanying isolation breeds...
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The Cobbler – Review

As if it wasn't jarring enough to see Sandler and Buscemi play understated with nary a slippery footed Kevin James in sight. Writer/director Thomas McCarthy has created an uneasy mess; shifting its tone from...