London in the swinging 60s. A time of glamour. A place of dreams. An era of magic, cruelty and abuse. Wait, what? That’s right, Edgar Wright’s (the Cornetto Trilogy, “Baby Driver”) latest film, Last Night in Soho, largely eschews the lighthearted tone of his previous work, delivering a tale that is dark, gruesome and visceral,…
Within a few minutes of watching The Father, you may get the sense that this is a dialogue-intense film that seems to bear a resemblance to a stage play. This perception is enhanced by the closed space in which the action occurs — a suitable, lived-in apartment of an educated man with décor that includes…
Fighting With My Family is a film of weird elements: The city of Norwich, England; wrestling, with all its “fixed but not fake” performances, alternative names and larger than life personalities; a very human and indeed true story of both pursuing and losing out on a dream. Based on the story of Saraya Knight aka…
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose previous films have expressed a rather jaundiced view of humanity (“The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “The Lobster”), has found a most appropriate target for his cynicism in his “mainstream” comedy, The Favourite, the story of sickly 18th century British monarch Queen Anne (Olivia Colman, “Murder on the Orient Express”)…
Critically acclaimed filmmaker Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) makes his triumphant return in the form of the modern crime thriller Widows, a film that is as familiar to McQueen’s drama heavy filmography as it is opposing to the historically driven stories he’s become internationally recognized for. Carried by one of the more commanding female…
The term “Cold War,” especially in cinema, usually evokes images of espionage, militarism, geopolitics and stern men speaking tersely in jargon that is only comprehensible to those with a working knowledge of the genre. Pawel Pawlikowski (“The Woman in the Fifth”) defies such expectations with his film Cold War, a starkly beautiful romance that deftly…
The desire to transcend the environment in which you were raised and choose your own direction in life is central to Disobedience, a clash between religious orthodoxy and the desire for sexual freedom. Adapted from Naomi Alderman’s novel of the same name, it is the first English-language effort for Chilean director Sebastian Lelio whose critically…
