Director: Frances O’Connor Starring: Emma Mackey, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Fionn Whitehead, Alexandra Dowling Running Time: 130 minutes The short life and enduring works of Emily Brontë make her an understandable target for biopic fare. Work backwards from Wuthering Heights and you can build the story as it suits, about women, about the authorship and ownership of…
Director: Robert Manson Starring: Connor Madden, Jeanne Nicole Ní Áinle, Dermot Murphy Running Time: 89 minutes When a film presents itself as more abstract and ambiguous, it could be considered a matter of good faith and good manners not to blithely assume that the interpretation you land on as a viewer is obviously and entirely…
Director: Martin McDonagh Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan Running Time: 114 minutes The McDonagh brothers have always been hopeless miserabilists, and it’s proven to be a lucrative lot in life for them on stage and screen alike. Martin the Younger has drawn many plaudits for his ability to draw from the…
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood Starring: Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu, Sheila Atim, John Boyega Running Time: 135 minutes Learning that the Dora Milaje in Marvel’s Black Panther were inspired by real women warriors, the Agojie of the West African kingdom of Dahomey, was one motivation for director Gina Prince-Bythewood to work on The Woman King.…
Director: Olivia Wilde Starring: Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, Harry Styles, Gemma Chan, Olivia Wilde, Kiki Layne Time: 121 minutes It’s such a head f*ck trying to evaluate art with a female protagonist, starring one of our most talented young stars, and to now have that performance completely overshadowed and undermined by the media circus surrounding…
Director: Tom George Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Sam Rockwell, Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, David Oyewolo, Charlie Cooper, Harris Dickinson Running Time: 98 minutes The Mousetrap is an institution of the West End, an Agatha Christie murder mystery play that ran in London non-stop from the 1950s until a Covid-enforced pause. Murder mysteries can prompt curious contradictions…
Director: Michael Flatley Starring: Michael Flatley, Ian Beattie, Eric Roberts, Nicole Evans Riverdancing time: 90 minutes It was over four years ago now that word first went around about Blackbird, the spy thriller written by, directed by and starring Michael Flatley. Though he had no prior experience in filmmaking before this first feature, the Riverdance…
Nope encourages audiences to question the dynamics behind spectacle.
Director: David Leitch Starring: Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Joey King, Andrew Koji Running Time: 126 minutes We must stop wacky neon action movies until we can figure out what’s going on. John Wick may have hundreds of broken and brutalised bodies left in his wake, but the greatest crime he and his…
In fact as in fiction, when bad things happen to women, unfortunately many reactions disproportionately focus on the actions or choices made by the victim. Alex Garland’s Men refreshingly and definitively pushes that focus back onto the perpetrators and enablers of violence and intimidation.
