Ghost in the Shell – Review Kambole Campbell March 29, 2017 Reviews Even ignoring the anime adaptation, Rupert Sanders’ take on Ghost in the Shell feels like well-trodden ground. Many (or all) of the film's stylistic cues feel borrowed, whether it’s the gratuitous...
Beauty and the Beast – Review Christopher Preston March 3, 2017 Reviews Love is blind. It’s a notion as old as time, a song as old as rhyme, and the beating heart at the centre of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. Bill Condon’s adoration for Disney’s 1991 classic is as...
Sweet Dreams – Review Marcus Beard February 25, 2017 Reviews There's something so Italian about big, wholesome families with a lot of extra love to give. In Sweet Dreams, an Italian film from director Marco Bellocchio, we watch the life of a man struggling to cope with...
P.S. Jerusalem – Review Calum Baker February 19, 2017 Reviews Danae Elon has a remarkably relatable habit of both admitting her own failings and failing to admit them. P.S. Jerusalem, narrated intermittently by its director-cinematographer, is a fascinating, frustrating...
The Founder – Review Calum Baker February 17, 2017 Reviews The creation, and expansion, of McDonald’s in the 1950s is one of Western culture’s most important benchmarks. Its ramifications on the global economy have been staggering. The influence it continues to...
O.J.: Made in America – Review Christopher Preston February 3, 2017 Reviews Between black and white are over 500 shades of grey. This is the argument of Ezra Edelman’s exhaustive cinematic thesis on O.J. Simpson; a comprehensive documentary that shows that in order to understand...
Cameraperson – Review Phil W. Bayles January 29, 2017 Reviews It’s often said that the act of observing something affects the behaviour of the thing that’s being observed, but it’s equally true that it changes the person doing the observing. In Cameraperson,...
Denial – Review Rachel Brook January 29, 2017 Reviews Denial is bold in crafting a fictionalised Deborah Lipstadt who isn’t always easy to like; Weisz is fierce and prickly and at times almost unrecognisable. It’s a far cry from the tedious tear-jerking of...
The Bye Bye Man – Review Alex Flood January 17, 2017 Reviews What is it with scary movies and Friday the 13th? Every year a glut of cheaply-made trash is dumped onto our screens in an attempt to cash in on the 'unluckiest day'. Take 2015's zombie flick Condemned....
Live By Night – Review Christopher Preston January 12, 2017 Reviews What makes a “bad film”? Does the whole shebang have to be rotten? Or is it just aspects - the director, the cast, the story, the idea? It might be these questions, and probably a few more, that will...
Top 20 Films of 2016: 6. The Neon Demon Christopher Preston December 26, 2016 Analysis, Features, Top 10 “Beauty isn’t everything. It's the only thing.” 2016 has been the year of the troll. Since ORWAV's last Top Ten, Britain has wrenched herself out of the European Union, Donald Trump has gone from...
Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny – Review David Brake November 2, 2016 Reviews As you watch Linklater, moving around his beautiful land deep in his native Austin, Texas, you notice he ticks all the boxes. Relaxed, amiable, informed, and understated; that's Linklater all right. And to...
Don’t Blink – LFF 2016 Review Stephanie Watts September 27, 2016 Reviews 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...
The Infiltrator – Review Marcus Beard September 18, 2016 Reviews Drug money and cartel blood get spilled, then cleaned up, in this tense true-to-life crime drama. Based on the autobiography of US Customs special agent Robert Mazur, we see Bryan Cranston go undercover to...
Hunt For The Wilderpeople – Review Kambole Campbell September 17, 2016 Reviews When protagonist Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) points out "it's just like Lord of the Rings," as he and his grumpy "uncle" Hec (Sam Neill) hide from the disproportionate amount of armed troops hunting them,...