It was the hideously old-fashioned bedside lamp in Betty’s spare room that first brought me up sharp. No way would Betty, a widow who favours silk and satin and wears an elegant dove-grey overcoat, and who collapses when new boyfriend Roy suggests a holiday on the Costa del Sol, buy that monstrosity – especially in… The Good Liar Read More
JoJo Rabbit (London Film Festival 2019) 4 stars
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 pretty good going. Writer-director Taika Waititi runs a tight ship when it comes to tonal changes, the switches… JoJo Rabbit (London Film Festival 2019) Read More
The Aftermath – 1 minute video review Includes Video 2.5 stars
READ MY FULL REVIEW OF THE AFTERMATH
The Aftermath 2.5 stars
How much can be rebuilt after it has been smashed to pieces? That’s the big question in The Aftermath – a postwar love story that attempts to to examine the realities of reconciliation, whether between people or countries. The film is about rebuilding broken relationships as much as broken cities, with the ambiguities of war… The Aftermath Read More
Das Boot (Director’s Cut) 5 stars
*** Check out my submarine movies section *** “They are drinking at the bar, celebrating our sinking! Not yet my friends, not yet!” shouts U-96’s captain with delight, as they practically bounce up onto the surface of the narrow Straits of Gibraltar, which they’ve been marooned at the bottom of for 15 hours. He’s not a lover… Das Boot (Director’s Cut) Read More
The King’s Choice 4 stars
The actual German invasion is swift, though not entirely unexpected. A battleship sails into the Straits of Norway, the home forces attack, and a huge ship burns orange against an inky blue night sky. It’s an impressive initial volley, and also a heartbreaking last stand, as more German warships follow it into Norwegian waters. A… The King’s Choice Read More
The Darkest Hour Trailer May Be My Darkest Hour…
*** My Darkest Hour review is now live *** …as I used up all my Churchillian superlatives for Brian Cox’s Winston in the recent movie – and Gary Oldman looks like he’s going to be incredible in this. WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO. Oh and thanks to this and the “other” Churchill I found out I’ve… The Darkest Hour Trailer May Be My Darkest Hour… Read More
Dead Snow 4 stars
“If you have your intestines in your hands, what do you do then?” and this sadly un-rhetorical question, posed by a Menacing Local to the kids-in-the-isolated-cabin, haunted me until about two-thirds of the way through Norwegian Nazi zombie mash up Dead Snow when it was overtaken by this thought: “if you are hanging off a cliff holding onto a Nazi zombie’s… Dead Snow Read More
Anthropoid 4 stars
As Czech resistance fighters Josef and Jan try to locate their contact from the raggle-taggle remnants of the Czech Resistance, the constant low level terror at being found out or betrayed to the Gestapo is palpable. Nervousness skitters through every meeting as they all try to work out who can or cannot be trusted. Everyone is a… Anthropoid Read More