Genuinely really lovely, warm, uplifting film. I’m not a sports fan, a football fan, a cycling fan. So you might not expect me to go in for a film about football fans cycling to Germany to see Scotland play in the Euros. I wouldn’t expect it from myself, but this film just transcends all of…
This is a horror movie. Long Day’s Journey Into Night is based on the Eugene O’Neill play, and it very much feels like a filmed play, with everything taking place in one location, the family home, over the course of a day. The film begins cheerily enough, with a mother, father and their two sons…
This is just a bad day for everyone across the board. Tornado is set almost entirely over one day in which things go wrong very fast, then just keep getting worse. At one point a character slips, goes down and breaks their arm, and instead of it seeming contrived, you just think, “Yup. It’s that…
That was so much fun. Set in 1989, Kristen Stewart plays Lou, a mean butch who runs a gym and chain-smokes constantly. Into her life comes Jackie, a muscle babe bodybuilder disaster bi. True to form, they move in together after their first night in bed, and love is in air. Things would be great…
Closing Gala this year is Polite Society, a film about sisterhood and flying kicks. Ria is a young lassie who dreams of growing up to be a stuntwoman. The only person who encourages her in this is her big sister, Lena. Lena is an artist but has recently dropped out of art school to lie…
From the director of powerful and nuanced short film Expensive Shit, comes Adura Onashile’s first feature film, Girl. An emotional portrait of a young girl and her mother, living in a Glasgow high-rise. Firstly, beautiful. Stunning cinematography, you know when a shot can only be described as delicious? Secondly, powerful performances. This isn’t a film…
Murina is the story of Julia, a teenage girl under the thumb of her controlling, abusive father. They live on this idyllic Croatian island, across the sea from Italy. Everything looks like paradise, but for Julia, it’s a gilded cage. At the start of the movie, Julia goes along with her father’s commands, but her…
A stylish noir locked room drama. Taking place entirely inside a tailor shop in 1950s Chicago, it follows Leonard, played by the excellent Mark Rylance, as he tries to survive the night. The Boyle Crew are at war with the La Fontaines, and are paranoid about a rat in their midst. Leonard and his receptionist…
Spring Blossom is a film about a 16-year-old schoolgirl’s first love. It’s written, directed and starred in by Suzanne Lindon, so this is obviously her vision of a youthful romantic fantasy. Trouble is, the object of her affection is a much older man. I guess in France there are different sensibilities about these things. Young…
Pleasant story of friendship on the frontier. Cookie teams up with King-Lu and they try to make a living out in Oregon in the 1820s. King-Lu is an ideas man and an entrepreneur, and Cookie is, well, a cook and a baker. When the rich English dandy in charge of the territory brings the first…