Film
Tricky, and slightly sicky
The Big Sick is a rom-com that’s smarter than most rom-coms, which isn’t saying much, admittedly. It stars a Muslim…
Ivory towers
Great novels rarely make great movies, but for half a century one director has been showing all the others how…
Visual, visceral, confusing
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has already been described as ‘a masterpiece’ and ‘a glorious, breathtakingly vivid triumph’, but we need to…
Do not be afraid
It Comes at Night is a horror film and I can’t say horror is my favourite genre. In fact, as…
Match made in heaven
Tennis is best played with a wooden racket on a shady lawn somewhere close to Dorking. There is no need…
Spellbound
A blushing James Woodall is riveted by Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Phaedra(s)
Punchlines and punches
Regular filmgoers must be losing count of the Rabelaisian revelries they’ve been invited to of late. You may recognise the…
Junk Bond
After six decades, it’s time we were done with 007
Jane Austen on speed
Love & Friendship is based on the little-known Jane Austen epistolary novella, Lady Susan, which was not published until after…
High life
New York Let’s face it, sleaze is to professional party-givers what jail is to a burglar, an occupational hazard. I’ve…
Memories, dreams, reflections
Heart of a Dog is a film by Laurie Anderson and it’s a meditative, free-associating rumination on life, loss, love…
The male gaze
Everybody Wants Some!! is a comedy written and directed by Richard Linklater, which is the good news, but it’s set…
Deluded divas
Were Florence Foster Jenkins and her fellow culprits touchingly heroic, cynically fraudulent or just plain bonkers? Rupert Christiansen reports
Striking the wrong note
Before we turn our attention to Florence Foster Jenkins — but if you can’t wait, it’s so-so — I feel…
Less than Marvellous
Captain America: Civil War is the 897th instalment — or something like it — in the Marvel comic franchise. This…
The future is here
With the release of Oculus Rift – virtual reality you can buy from a shop – cinema will never be the same again, says Peter Hoskin
Slow burn
The big hitter this week is, of course, Batman v Superman, but if you want to learn something new, and…
Building block
High-Rise is Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel, and it is deeply unpleasant, if not deeply, deeply unpleasant. (Ideally,…
The human factor
Anomalisa is an animated film written by Charlie Kaufman, and while the temptation is to label it a midlife crisis…
Ticket to ride
The latest film from the Coen brothers is a comedy set during the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood and in some…
Bottom Gere
The Benefactor is both a bad film and a thoroughly inexplicable one. It’s one of those what-were-they-thinking projects that wastes…
Brothers grim
What is a serious film festival doing opening with Ethan and Joel Coens’ turkey Hail, Caesar!? James Woodall reports from Berlin
Touching the void
Scholarly filmgoers may recall a movement that sprouted from Danish soil called Dogme 95. It worked to a Spartan set…
Fashion faux pas
‘I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking,’ said a pouty Derek Zoolander…
It’s doomed!
The TV sitcom Dad’s Army ran on the BBC from 1968 to 1977 (nine series, 80 episodes) with repeats still…
