Foxtrot – Review Jack Blackwell March 2, 2019 Reviews This review was originally published as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage on 03/09/2017. In 2009, Israeli writer-director and former tank gunner Samuel Maoz blew away the competition at the Venice...
The House by the Sea – Review Jack Blackwell January 12, 2019 Reviews This review was originally published as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage on 03/09/2017. Self-indulgent, glacially slow, and painfully boring, Robert Guédiguian’s The House by the Sea is...
Zama – Review Jack Blackwell May 27, 2018 Reviews This film was previously reviewed 30/08/17 on as part of Venice Film Festival. "White guys go crazy in the South American jungle" is a well-worn genre at this point. From Werner Herzog’s one-two of...
Human Flow – Review Jack Blackwell December 10, 2017 Reviews This was originally reviewed on 01/09/17 as part of Venice Film Festival. Mass migration is one of the biggest international crises of the last decade, with more people displaced now than at any point...
Victoria and Abdul – Review Jack Blackwell September 16, 2017 Reviews Other than its central true story’s premise, one that is remarkable yet unfamiliar, there is almost nothing to surprise in Stephen Frears’ Victoria and Abdul. An awards season period piece, it plays out...
Mother! – Review Jack Blackwell September 15, 2017 Reviews Both booed and applauded at the end of its first screening at Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! is a raucous, vicious horror-thriller that also happens to be utter nonsense. It hangs together...
Jim & Andy – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 5, 2017 Reviews As hinted by its nicely simple title, Jim & Andy is a documentary exploring the brilliant but difficult comedy minds of Jim Carrey and the late Andy Kaufman, centring on how those minds became one on the...
The Third Murder – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 5, 2017 Reviews A rare foray into more genre-style filmmaking for master of small family dramas Hirokazu Koreeda, The Third Murder is a slow-burning, twisty mystery that is ultimately too convoluted to really satisfy as a...
Una Famiglia – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 4, 2017 Reviews Deliberately opaque for its first 20 minutes, it’s hard to see exactly what film Sebastiano Riso’s Una Famiglia actually is for a good while after it starts. Come the end, you’ll wish it never revealed...
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 4, 2017 Reviews A sensationally funny and affecting dark comedy, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri arrived at Venice just as the festival was hitting a slump, and has reinvigorated it with a fiery passion. Martin...
Woodshock – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 4, 2017 Reviews The highlight of any season of the FX anthology American Horror Story is always the creepy and evocative opening titles based on whatever that year’s theme is. At 90 seconds long, they’re perfect snapshots...
The Leisure Seeker – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 3, 2017 Reviews Paolo Virzi’s The Leisure Seeker wastes no time getting started. No sooner are we introduced to its world than we are listening to a phone call of a son screaming at his sister that their sickly old parents...
The House by the Sea – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 3, 2017 Reviews Self-indulgent, glacially slow, and painfully boring, Robert Guédiguian’s The House by the Sea is atrocious. It’s baffling that it made it through the screening process to play in Competition at Venice,...
Suburbicon – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 3, 2017 Reviews With mystery films, it’s often said that trailers should be avoided, and that going in blind is the best way to watch them. Suburbicon is an exception to this rule, as the final product bears very little...
Foxtrot – Venice 2017 Review Jack Blackwell September 3, 2017 Reviews In 2009, Israeli writer-director and former tank gunner Samuel Maoz blew away the competition at the Venice Film Festival with his searing, Golden Lion-winning debut, Lebanon. Eight years on, Maoz returns to...