Tag: Cinema
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Bridge of Spies.
Mark Rylance and Tom Hanks both star in Bridge of Spies, the latest from Steven Spielberg. Inspired by a true story, the film takes place during the cold war. The opening scene captures almost everything that’s great about good spy movies. A phone rings and the spy, Rudolph Abel, answers it. He paints landscapes on…
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Grandma.
Grandma opens with an end. We witness the middle and conclusion of an argument between a couple, resulting in their break up. A bad start to a very long day for Elle – a liberal, a feminist a poet and an academic – she’s also a Grandmother. As one chaotic personal problem exits, another enters. Her…
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Sunset Song.
It’s been four years since the work of Terence Davies last graced our screens, in the form of the exquisite The Deep Blue Sea. Now he returns with Sunset Song, an adaptation of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel of the same name. I first fell in love with Davies’ work when I saw a double…
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The Good Dinosaur.
Whether it’s to parents, to Andy’s bedroom or to the headquarters of Riley’s consciousness. Pixar movies, more often than not, revolve around physical journeys. Whether these be metaphorical journeys into adulthood or simply into change and new life experiences, we are familiar with following Pixar protagonists as they try to return to the safety and…
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Carol.
Deeply romantic and tantalizingly erotic, Carol is the latest from film maker Todd Haynes. Here, the director brings the same period-specific aesthetics that he created in his stunning television adaptation of Mildred Pierce. Haynes is no stranger to capturing particular times and places on screen. His most prestigious film to date being Far From Heaven,…
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Black Mass.
Telling the story of the criminal rise of Boston kingpin James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, Black Mass struggles to ever really rise off of the ground. Following his movements and progressions within the South Boston underworld, we spend two decades with Bulger and the rest of the Winter Hill Gang. Everything is loosely told through the recollections of…
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Steve Jobs.
Have you ever been told an honest or depressing story you wish you could “un-hear”? That’s what it feels like to watch Steve Jobs. Divided up into three dramatic acts, Steve Jobs takes place in the final minutes before three different product launches. In each sequence we meet technology mogul Steve Jobs at different points in…
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What Our Fathers Did: My Nazi Legacy.
Human Rights Lawyer Philippe Sands spends his days fighting for justice in courts of law. Directed by David Evans, What Our Fathers Did documents his journey across Europe to different places which hold historical significance for their roles in the extermination of 6 million Jews during The Holocaust and World War Two. Philippe lost all…
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He Named Me Malala.
I recall one of my university lecturers (who specialised in film, spirituality and religion), talking about Malala Yousafzai in 2012. At the time she was in intensive care in Birmingham hospital. I vividly remember her claiming that if this young girl were to survive it’d be one of the most powerful, game-changing things to ever…
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Heaven Knows What.
Ben and Josh Safdie’s Heaven Knows What was initially supposed to be an entirely different being – but after meeting Arielle Holmes during their initial research they convinced her to write a book about her life, her drug addiction and her experience of living rough. The book, Mad Love in New York City, was then adapted…
Hannah McHaffie 