What am I saying – who could eat a rabbit! (Though I’d love to know if after the first film, sales went stratospheric or completely collapsed. What do we Brits love more, animals or pies?) The first Peter Rabbit film was fine – I even liked James Corden as the titular bunny – though, like… Peter Rabbit 2: teaser trailer, and with Bea and Thomas married will there soon be a bunny in the oven? Read More
Zombieland 4 stars
A contaminated burger infected with mad cow disease has turned into mad person disease which has turned into mad zombie disease, and the United States of America is now the United States of Zombieland. Yet despite the millions of fast-running, virus-ridden, blood-drooling zombies, a few uninfected are managing to scythe out a space for the… Zombieland Read More
JoJo Rabbit (London Film Festival 2019) 4 stars
A young boy in Hitler’s army finds out his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home. JoJo Rabbit works nearly all of the time, which for a comedy about the friendship between a small boy in the Hitler Youth and a Jewish girl, and with a buffoonish Hitler as an imaginary father figure, is… JoJo Rabbit (London Film Festival 2019) Read More
Little Monsters (London Film Festival 2019) 3 stars
Little Monsters is a great advert for teacher excellence, if not much of a recruiting tool – as multi-talented kindergarten teacher Miss Caroline has to save her class of small charges as they face down an attempted zombie apocalypse. I say attempted; it does feel a little half-hearted, as the world’s slowest undead hordes stagger round… Little Monsters (London Film Festival 2019) Read More
Shaun The Sheep: Farmageddon 3.5 stars
The joy when writing about Shaun the Sheep movies partly comes from not having to spend time afterwards trying to decipher key quotes that I’ve written down in the dark. No one actually speaks, except to utter the occasional “arghhh!” and “ugh”, and though I’ve often scribbled those exact words in response to other, lesser films,… Shaun The Sheep: Farmageddon Read More
Abominable 4 stars
This is the third family film about mythical apes in a year, after Smallfoot and the sadly underseen Missing Link. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing though – even the most cynical child (they do exist, I used to be one) will be delighted by Everest the yeti, who when rolled up resembles a giant fluffy snowball…. Abominable Read More
Harpoon 4 stars
*** Read my interview with director Rob Grant *** The behaviour of all three characters in Harpoon veer from edgy and fearful to calculated and self-preserving. “Is he edible?” asks rich boy Richie of his friend Jonah, whose arm is going septic as they bob around on a drifting boat, after Richie’s girlfriend Sasha has tried… Harpoon Read More
Judy 3.5 stars
Despite Judy Garland’s far-too-early death at the age of 47, there’s a sense in Judy that by then her life had come full circle, and not in a good way. Interweaving her five-week engagement at the Talk Of The Town club in London a few months before her death with her teenage years in Hollywood,… Judy Read More
Peanut Butter Falcon (London Film Festival 2019) 5 stars
Zak runs away from his care home to make his dream of becoming a wrestler come true. The Peanut Butter Falcon infuses its message of autonomy and risk-taking with a sense of magic – as Zak, a young man with Down Syndrome, escapes his dreary, constricting care home for freedom and adventure. As Zak (Zack Gottsagen)… Peanut Butter Falcon (London Film Festival 2019) Read More
Joker 4 stars
Gritty and grubby, garish and loud, violent and depressing, Joker is a blunt instrument of a movie – though it is a good movie. Joaquin Phoenix, as Batman’s future nemesis, is superb, his downward spiral inverted into an ascent to antihero status as Gotham seethes and then explodes. Joker has already got its own discourse…. Joker Read More
Don’t Let Go 2.5 stars
I’m sure most of us would like to alter our past to improve on our present. If I could, you’d be reading this in The Guardian, a paper that would no longer, once I’d gone back far enough with my red pen, be susceptible to typos. That’s assuming it all went to plan and my… Don’t Let Go Read More
Local Hero 4.5 stars
A Scottish fishing village. An American oil company. Bullied locals vs thoughtless big business. Local Hero looks as if it’s going to be a story about heavy-handed billionaires forcing idiosyncratic Northern villagers in chunky sweaters out of their birthright. Or it probably did in 1983, when it came out. Now the film has become part… Local Hero Read More
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