The Matchmaker (Review) – Portrait of a British jihadist
Emma Duffy
4th February 2023
FILM AND TV
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Review) – funny, exciting, dazzling, genuinely smart and compelling
Calum Cooper
2nd February 2023
Dear Edward (First Look) – a compelling, addictive and emotional story of love, loss and hope
Neil Baker
2nd February 2023
Retreat (Review) – a claustrophobic and visually stunning exploration of survival and fear
Neil Baker
28th January 2023
January (Review) – an enticing, enthralling, yet confused winter parable
Agnes Sajti
26th January 2023
Lockwood & Co (First Look) – who ya gonna call?
Neil Baker
25th January 2023
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Neil Baker
2nd December 2022
Emma Duffy
3rd November 2022
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17th October 2022
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26th August 2022
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FILM AND TV
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The Matchmaker (Review) – Portrait of a British jihadist
The Matchmaker is showing at From Venice to London Film Festival on Saturday, 4th February, 6pm at Curzon Soho. The Matchmaker of Benedetta Argentieri’s competition entry at Venice is Tooba Gondal. Born in Paris to Pakistani parents before moving to London, as a young woman, she became a prolific online propagandist for Islamic State. She subsequently left the UK in 2015 to join IS in occupied Syria. The film consists largely of interviews conducted with Gondal in 2019 at a detention camp in north-east Syria, where she was being held along with other female ISIS members and their young children.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Review) – funny, exciting, dazzling, genuinely smart and compelling
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish arrives in UK cinemas on February 3rd. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a thrilling and surprisingly heartfelt new animation from Dreamworks. The sequel to 2011’s Puss in Boots, a spin-off of the Shrek franchise, sat in development hell for a number of years before finally arriving
Dear Edward (First Look) – a compelling, addictive and emotional story of love, loss and hope
Sometimes the pilot episode of a TV show is so heartbreaking and impactful that the rest of the show spends all its time trying to catch up. The new Apple TV+ drama Dear Edward is one of those shows. Based on the novel by Ann Napolitano and adapted by Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights), Dear
Retreat (Review) – a claustrophobic and visually stunning exploration of survival and fear
Retreat is currently awaiting a UK release date. Sometimes the power of a film is held in its moments of silence. Leon Schwitter’s delicate and stunning deconstruction of a father and son relationship, Retreat (Réduit), is one of those films. Shot among the majestic beauty of the Swiss Alps, Retreat
January (Review) – an enticing, enthralling, yet confused winter parable
January arrives in cinemas and on digital January 27th. Andrey Paounov is mainly known for his documentaries about political and social transitions in post-1989 Bulgaria – Georgi and the Butterflies (2004), The Mosquito Problems and Other Stories (2007) and The Boy Who Was a King (2011). With his first fictional feature, January, Paounov offers us an existential chamber piece
Lockwood & Co (First Look) – who ya gonna call?
Lockwood & Co is available to stream on Netflix on 27th January 2023. If there’s something weird, and it don’t look good, who ya gonna call? Back in 1984, the answer was simple, Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Winston Zeddemore. But in a dystopian version of our current world,
The Fabelmans (Review) – a testament to the power of cinema, family and art from one of the world’s greatest directors
The Fabelmans is released in cinemas nationwide on 27th January. When Steven Spielberg was fifteen, he met the legendary filmmaker John Ford. Enthralled by movies, Spielberg sought advice. Ford pointed to some paintings and asked him, “where’s the horizon”? He then explained that if the horizon is near the top
M3GAN (review) – it doesn’t want to scare you – but it does want to crack you up and creep you out
M3GAN is now playing in cinemas nationwide. It seems the world of horror has a new favourite pint-sized psychopath. From unnerving stares at baseball games to cliques of clones dancing at various premieres, the marketing for M3GAN has been laser-focused, creating viral moment after moment in an impressive streak. The expected explosion
Babylon (Review) – captivating and quintessentially Chazelle
Babylon arrives in cinemas nationwide on January 20th. The word Babylon has appeared throughout literature, but a common dictionary definition describes a place of great luxury but also of vice. That definition seems crystal clear when applied to Damien Chazelle’s film of the same name. Here we have a film
Till (Review) – combines its portrait of courage with a discussion on the journey that still lies ahead
Till is now showing in cinemas nationwide. On the 28th of August 1955, Emmett Till was brutally murdered in the State of Mississippi. Emmett was just fourteen-years-old; his light extinguished by a group of local men who beat him, disfigured him then threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. Emmett was
Women Talking (Review) – Sarah Polley crafts a unique and intense atmosphere
Women Talking arrives in UK cinemas on 10th February 2023. Women Talking asks a question I have been asking myself for a while now – “How do we get out of this room?” What should we, as women, do about the endemic culture of rape, sexual abuse and sexual harassment that
Your Christmas or Mine? – a feel-good festive rom-com that wears its heart on its sleeve
Your Christmas or Mine? is now streaming on Prime Video. During our teens, we find ourselves relentlessly embarrassed by our family, to the extent that we spend much of our time isolating ourselves as much as possible. For some of us, leaving home for University provides an escape and an
Slow Horses (Season Two) – the past and the present converge in a web of espionage and political intrigue
Slow Horses (Season Two) is streaming now on Apple TV+. Spoiler Free One of the greatest challenges in TV is following a highly praised first season with a second outing that manages to live up to expectations and build on the characters introduced the first time around. Over the years,
Boys Feels: Stand By Me (NQV Media)
Boys Feels: Stand By Me is now available to rent, stream or buy on Prime Video, Vimeo or Peccadillo Pod. NQV Media’s Boys Feels series has brought us some of the most interesting, diverse and extraordinary short films exploring the male teenage experience. Now it’s back with Boys Feels: Stand
Godland (review) – a tale as cold and harsh as the rock underfoot
Godland is currently awaiting release. Monumental, barren landscapes, the quest to find a silent, seemingly unfeeling God only to find that hell is other people: all are powerful yet almost cliche concepts in European cinema. These concepts were all fundamental to the careers of Bergman and Béla Tarr, the two
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – more geopolitical thriller than bombastic superhero adventure
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now showing in cinemas nationwide. In the follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2018 hit Black Panther, Ryan Coogler finds himself grappling with many difficult questions. Not only must he find a way forward after the passing of the imitable Chadwick Boseman, but the landscape of Marvel’s cinematic
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – enough twists and turns to satisfy fans of the classic whodunnit
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery arrives in cinemas for one week only on November 23rd and on Netflix on December 23rd. Spoiler Free I was pretty late to the Knives Out party the first time around, and I must confess, when I did see the film after putting some distance between
The Blaze (review) – the evaporating security of a burning world
The Blaze (En Plein Feu) is currently awaiting a release date. Over the long deadly summer of 2022, France would record the largest number of wildfires in its history, with over 62,000 hectares burnt to the ground as around 10,000 residents fleed their homes. With The Blaze (En Plein Feu),
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (review) – a delightful magical mystery tour of weirdness
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is now streaming on The Roku Channel. The American musician and comedian Al Yankovic has spent his career changing the words of famous songs to provide us with something far more entertaining. Who could forget his parody of Michael Jackson’s Beat It called Eat It,
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (review) – a high-spirited and cathartic romp
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical arrives in UK cinemas on November 25th. The only thing longer than Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical’s unwieldy title is the shadow that it stands in. Danny DeVito’s 1996 adaptation of Dahl’s novel made the risky but worthwhile choice of setting the story in the US. He
Bones and All (review) – a cinematic banquet of bone-chilling horror, love and loss
Bones and All arrives in cinemas on November 25th. Bones And All may well hold moments of gutwrenching horror, but at its core, it is a coming-of-age road trip romance that transforms the cannibal horror into something new. Based on the young adult bestseller by Camille DeAngelis, the macabre themes
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (review) – anything can happen in the woods
Lady Chatterley’s Lover arrives in selected cinemas and on Netflix this December. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. (L to R) Emma Corrin as Lady Chatterley, Jack O’Connell as Oliver Mellors in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022 I’m not one for keeping up on English literature discourse, but I
Klokkenluider (review) – a claustrophobic pressure cooker of comedy gold
Klokkenluider is awaiting a UK release date. Neil Maskell has worked with more than a handful of Britain’s independent film directors over the last two decades, from Ben Wheatley to Paul Andrew Williams, Steve McQueen, Nick Love and Marc Munden, to name a few. So it’s safe to say he’s
Triangle of Sadness (review) – a vicious satire that harbours dark observations on society
Triangle of Sadness arrives in UK cinemas on October 28. Triangle of Sadness, the latest feature from Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ӧstlund, deals with a question that has been on the minds of many as of late – how do you solve a problem like the rich? Truthfully, the problem goes
Brother (review): a hauntingly beautiful cinematic triumph
Brother is awaiting a UK release date. “Once he showed me his place in the sky. That hydro pole in a parking lot all weed-broke and abandoned. Looking up you’d see the dangers of the climb. The feeder lines on insulators, the wired bucket called a pole-pig, the foot-holds rusted
What About China? (review) – ruminations on the fluid nature of Chinese culture
What About China? is screening at BFI London Film Festival on October 13. What about China? currently forms part of the Whitney Biennial – a prestigious exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. On that basis, it is perhaps best understood as an art piece.
Moshari (Short Film)
Moshari (2022), Director Nuhash Humayun. Bangladesh. Death is omnipresent in Moshari, but rather than being a wispy spectre transcending the planes of existence, it’s right there in your face. We open on a bovine carcass writhing with flies. Teenager Apu (Sunerah Binte Kamal) waits impatiently while her younger sister Ayra (Nairah
I Love My Dad (Review) – Morosini’s movie is far more than just a cringe comedy
I Love My Dad arrives on digital platforms on January 23rd 2023. Reviewed October 7th 2022. James Morosini’s I Love My Dad dovetails classic cringe comedy with a deeper look at a father/son relationship on the rocks. Here Morosini could have opted for straight-up cringe comedy, and while there is plenty
Beast – Elba goes toe-to-toe with the King of the Jungle
Beast is now available to rent. Since the beginning of cinema, the spectacle of man vs nature has always been fascinating. From 1920s travelogues to creature features of the 1950s and Jurassic Park, Jaws and Crawl, there will always be an appetite for simple ideas drenched in Hollywood spectacle. In the last 20
Sidney – an ambitious but all too short exploration of Poitier’s life and career
Sidney is now showing on Apple TV+. The Apple TV+ documentary Sidney is an ambitious attempt to summarise the extraordinary life, career and accomplishments of the legendary actor/filmmaker Sidney Poitier in less than two hours. Exploring Poitier’s journey from a premature baby born into a family of six children to his childhood
Don’t Worry Darling – bold, brash and at times enthralling
Don’t Worry Darling is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Whether you’re a film fan, barely go to the movies, or don’t even like cinema, you have probably heard of Don’t Worry Darling. The months leading up to its release and the alleged behind-the-scenes drama have snowballed into an unintentional (but perhaps radically
Dig – never finds its voice among all the soil, spit and shovelling
Dig is available on digital platforms from September 26th. Director K. Asher Levin’s Dig opens as a headstrong dad, Scott Brennan (Thomas Jane), storms into a high school party to take home his 16-year-old daughter Jane (Harlow Jane) before getting into an argument at a gas station that leads to the death
Amor Bandido – just enough spice, shocks and steam to keep its head above water
Amor Bandido (also known as Bandit Love and Wicked Love) is awaiting a UK release date. Daniel Andres Werner’s feature-length directorial debut, Amor Bandido, starts as a steamy forbidden romance centred on manipulation and control before transitioning to a shocking and, at times, uncomfortable thriller. While interesting, the transition in
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