Apparently it’s WWII month for the stay-at-home films. While last week’s “The Courier” showcased a well-cast but bland approach to familiar tropes, “Six Minutes to Midnight” is exactly the opposite. Eddie Izzard is a witty comedian, colorful voice actor and often a decent eccentric antagonist in films like “Victoria & Abdul” (where she originally co-starred […]
Before it premiered, there were hopes that Francis Lee’s new film would put Kate Winslet in the race for next year’s best actress Oscar. Hopes were dashed though after the reviews from this year’s virtual Toronto Film Festival, labeling it as dry, mute, and bleak. The fan fiction element of the story tries to balance facts
Another film that came and went from at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival that is finding its way to a wider audience thanks to the pandemic is “Hope Gap”. Based on writer/director William Nicholson’s own experience (and adapted from his play), watching his parents go through a divorce late in life. “Hope Gap” is
I can’t recall a film where I just as fascinated by the “Emergency Exit, Alarm Will Sound” sign on the door below the screen as I was by what was on screen. Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir,” based on a difficult relationship she had in film school during the 1980s is an infuriating sit. She cast
For “The Lord of the Rings” fans, Dome Karukoski’s “Tolkien” might work as a way of celebrating the brilliant author and fantasy creator in which popular franchises “Harry Potter” and “Game of Thrones” have both been inspired from. The script assumes the audience’s familiarity with ‘Rings,’ expecting you to pick up on which people and
There are so many ways this spy drama could have gone, but the television turned movie director Trevor Nunn seems at odds with how to navigate through the backstory. “Red Joan” uses the same framework as “The Wife,” going back and forth between the present and the past. Oscar-winner Dame Judi Dench (her performance is
Is 76-year-old Mike Leigh’s latest film “Peterloo” the most mundane film you will see this year? Probably. Which explains why it didn’t sell at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and is only now hitting theaters seven months later. Leigh’s argument that the events of “Peterloo” are more relevant today than ever before is quite correct.
Like most true stories, Fighting With My Family, cherry picks the highlights from WWE Wrestler Paige’s journey from small town in England to the worlds biggest televised wrestling stage. Writer, director and actor Stephen Merchant (you saw him most recently in Logan) contorts this story into your run of the mill sports movie, only using
The book Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart by John Guy makes a lot of assumptions that one can only wonder if they are true or just wishful thinking. If you are able to set aside its historical inaccuracy, “Mary, Queen of Scots,” will prove a more enjoyable, diverse experience for modern audiences. For
Despite internationally acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos not penning the script this time, “The Favourite” is still very much one of his films. The severe divisiveness among critics caused by “The Lobster” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” is lessened in “The Favourite,” which started garnering Oscar buzz the moment it debuted at the Venice Film Festival. It’s