Nightmare Alley – Review Carmen Paddock January 23, 2022 Reviews As Stanton Carlisle leaves an unidentified body and his family home going up in flames, Guillermo del Toro establishes that his latest noir is far from a straight adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946...
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot – Review Joni Blyth October 28, 2018 Reviews This film was previously reviewed on 25/02/2018 as part of the Berlin Film Festival. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot is a surprisingly ordinary biopic given the esoteric creative forces behind it....
Mary Magdalene – Review David Brake March 16, 2018 Reviews It is a greater crime for a film to be boring than bad, for at least the latter elicits an emotion. Their flaws shine out like diamonds in a mine and burn themselves into your mind. A pseudo-reward for your...
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot – Berlinale 2018 Review Joni Blyth February 25, 2018 Reviews Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot is a surprisingly ordinary biopic given the esoteric creative forces behind it. Gus Van Sant, Joaquin Phoenix and John Callahan all made a name for themselves standing...
Una – Review Rachel Brook September 3, 2017 Reviews The best aspect of Una is its scrambled chronology. Flashbacks break up what could otherwise be a rather repetitive two-hander, albeit one made up of fine performances from both Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn....
A Ghost Story – Review L D August 11, 2017 Reviews After the success of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), David Lowery reunites Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara in a time-travelling, existential yarn about the dislocation of grief. Questioning why we become...
Song to Song – EIFF 2017 Review L D June 25, 2017 Reviews Song to Song is both very similar and very different to Terrence Malick’s small but precious early filmography. Touring musicians BV (Ryan Gosling) and Faye (Rooney Mara) are identifiable as Bill and...
The Secret Scripture – Review Tom Bond May 19, 2017 Reviews Director Jim Sheridan attracts an enviable cast in this intense period drama, set in 1940s Ireland, and he doesn’t waste a drop of their talent. The marquee name is Dame Vanessa Redgrave, offering proof, if...
The Discovery – Review Bertie Archer April 4, 2017 Reviews The question of life after death is one of the deepest imaginable, and an answer would have profound consequences on humanity. Despite some flickers of philosophy, The Discovery is neither deep nor profound...
Lion – Review Joni Blyth January 22, 2017 Reviews Lion, at first glance, has a cracking set of credentials. A blockbuster cast of newcomers and screen veterans? An unbelievable true story that spans decades and continents? A nifty use of the internet and...
Kubo and the Two Strings – Review Calum Baker September 10, 2016 Reviews As always, Laika Entertainment (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls) have released one of the most beautifully and intricately designed films of the year, this time offering a mythical quest narrative in a...
Top 20 Films of 2015: 5. Carol J B Queree December 27, 2015 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Carol is a glimpse of a faded memory; a divine reverie conjured from the depths of your gut by a familiar smell, a lilting melody, or a pensive silence. What other films may struggle to say with extended...
Carol – Review Tom Bond November 29, 2015 Reviews Every now and then a film makes you fall in love with cinema all over again. Often it’s hard to explain why. Maybe it’s the glimmering, burnished beauty of the cinematography. Maybe it’s the guiding...
ORWAV’s Best of the London Film Festival 2015 Tom Bond October 21, 2015 Analysis, Features, One Off At the start of the 2015 London Film Festival, festival director Clare Stewart announced it was "the year of the strong women". Our summary of the best of the festival suggests that she just might have been...
Trash – Review Daniel Orton February 4, 2015 Reviews 1 Comment On the face of it, Trash is essentially Five Go on the Run in Rio: an adventure mystery with plucky street teenagers, priests, coded messages, murderous villains, and buried treasure. At its heart though...