The Pyramid Texts (2015)
★★★★☆
An old boxer returns to the ring one last time to record a video message to his son. It’s an award-winning,moving monologue from veteran star James Cosmo in the Shammasian Brothers’ The Pyramid Texts.
festivals
Their Finest (2016)
★★★★☆
Danish director Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest is a very British romcom.
The Cannes Film Festival 2017
★★★★☆
The world’s biggest film event, the Cannes Film Festival, takes place this year from 17-28 May 2017, its 70th anniversary. The Official Selection contains over 80 films (and some TV programmes), of which 12 are directed by women. Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is the President of the Jury.
Clash (2016)
★★★☆☆
In Clash director Mohamed Diab creates an intensely moving microcosm of Egyptian society in the confined space of a police van as riots erupt outside.
The Handmaiden (2016)
★★★★☆
A sumptuous new adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden is a dazzling tale of duplicity and deception.
Letters from Baghdad (2016)
★★★★☆
Clever use of previously unseen archive footage and original letters brings to life the extraordinary story of a forgotten female Lawrence of Arabia in fascinating biopic Letters from Baghdad.
A Quiet Passion (2016)
★★★★☆
A portrait of the poet as a young revolutionary, Terence Davies’ Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet Passion sees a fiercely independent woman martyred.
Neruda (2016)
★★★★☆
Free Fire (2016)
★★★★☆
Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire is a Tarantino-esque splatterfest of bullets and bad jokes.
Aquarius (2016)
★★★★☆
Aquarius is Kleber Mendonça Filho’s unhurried portrait of a fascinatingly complicated woman, meticulously characterised in a career-best performance by Sonia Braga.
The Eyes of My Mother (2016)
★★★★☆
Nicolas Pesce’s black and white feature debut The Eyes of My Mother is a stylishly shot American Gothic horror with nightmarish scenes that stay imprinted on the mind’s eye.
Get Out (2017)
★★★★☆
Get Out is actor and comedian Jordan Peele’s original horror-satire take on white liberal racism in the US.
Personal Shopper (2016)
★★★★☆
A charismatic, nuanced turn by Kristen Stewart holds together an improbable yet strangely compelling mixture of fashion and supernatural horror in Oliver Assayas’s Personal Shopper.
The Salesman (2016)
★★★★☆
Asghar Farhardi’s The Salesman illuminates universal moral arguments about masculinity by presenting them in parallel with a production of Arthur Miller’s stage play in contemporary Iran.