Jack Malik, unsuccessful at both singer-songwriting and love, is cycling home one night though his Suffolk hometown when the electricity fails across the world for 12 seconds and he’s hit by a bus. It’s a calamity for Jack (Himesh Patel), though it doesn’t seem to affect anyone else much, who see it as a jokey… Yesterday Read More
Anima (Short Film) Short Film 4 stars
Anima is a sometimes mesmerising experience – ironic when you consider both the soundtrack (it’s a film “best played loud”), and that it’s a denunciation of dystopian societies, whose messages to control their populations can be almost hypnotic. This is a film that moves between dreamlike and nightmarish, from realistic settings to the entirely stylised…. Anima (Short Film) Read More
Rocketman 4.5 stars
Several times during Rocketman young Reggie Dwight reappears in Elton John’s life, even as the singer-songwriter is trying to escape him, before he realises that little Reggie is the anchor for everything. Elton’s childhood was often bleak. Yet despite this film’s honest depictions of loneliness, addiction and despair, Rocketman is a joyous and boisterous fantasy grounded in… Rocketman Read More
The Perfection 3.5 stars
Considering its title, the symmetry in new Netflix thriller horror The Perfection – only fully revealed at the very end – is to be expected. The trailer (below, which I’m going to assume you’ve seen) positions this as a straight-up horror, and Charlotte (Allison Williams) as a demented stalker, wielding a kitchen machete and with… The Perfection Read More
Blinded By The Light trailer: Bruce lights the way in 80s Luton
The 80s were a crazy decade – awesome music, terrible politics. (Possibly the latter helped cause the former.) In Blinded By The Light it’s 1987 and Mrs Thatcher is in power, while record players and Walkmans hum with Wham! and Bananarama (when it comes to the 80s, if you never tried to wind a cassette… Blinded By The Light trailer: Bruce lights the way in 80s Luton Read More
Carmine Street Guitars 4 stars
There’s a funny moment in the documentary Carmine Street Guitars when there’s an attempt to set up the realtor selling the six million-dollar building next door as the bad guy, but it’s very brief. Properietor and legendary guitar maker Rick Kelly is frosty and monosyllabic with the salesman, but anyway is much more interested in whether… Carmine Street Guitars Read More
Her Smell 3.5 stars
For a film about music and musicians, the soundtrack to Her Smell is less the songs, and more the chanting, stomping fans out in front of the stage – in love with Becky Something, and furious with her at the same time. Becky (a riveting Elisabeth Moss), lead singer with punk rock band Something She, is… Her Smell Read More
Fisherman’s Friends 2.5 stars
“Emotions have no place in business” says hotshot London music executive Danny (Daniel Mays) and there’s your Britflick red flag right there. Fisherman’s Friends ticks so many boxes it makes me wonder if there’s a secret list of British film industry definites and nice-to-haves, with any funding dependent on a 75% hit rate. Based on… Fisherman’s Friends Read More
Burning Men 3 stars
There’s a great gag at the end of Burning Men that made me wonder if the writer thought it up then worked backwards creating a story leading up to it. And that’s partly what the film itself does, when what seems like a British horror movie turns out to be more a psychological foray into… Burning Men Read More
An American Piano (Short Film) Short Film 4 stars
Music, like war, is a great leveller. During World War Two, Youko (Leon Masuda), a little girl living in Japan with plans to train to be a concert pianist, sits at her grand piano playing Chopin. Across the way, an Allied prisoner of war listens and catches her eye. Based on a true story, An… An American Piano (Short Film) Read More
Hey dude! Watch the new trailer for Yesterday
*** Read my 3-star review of Yesterday *** What would you do if you woke up after a bike crash to discover that The Beatles never existed and you knew all their songs? You’d become the world’s greatest-ever singer-songwriter, that’s what. Aided and abetted by Ed Sheeran, of course. When I say aided and abetted,… Hey dude! Watch the new trailer for Yesterday Read More
A Star Is Born (2018) 4 stars
A Star Is Born isn’t a comedy but there are moments when hollow laughter is the only correct response. The downward-spiralling rock legend Jackson Maine, snorting coke before going on stage at a pharmacology industry event, is one such moment. We love stories in balance, so a simultaneous rags to riches / riches to rags… A Star Is Born (2018) Read More