Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood (2019)

Thank you Quentin Tarantino. Thank you for not making ‘The Sharon Tate Story’. I’m going to err on the side of benevolence and assume that it was Tarantino himself who realised that it was not a good idea to go there. Instead, he has taken those events as a starting point, weaving fictional (but believable) …

L’amant double

Exactly one year ago, I was in Paris (to watch tennis) and tempted to go see L'amant double which had just opened in cinemas there, barely a couple of weeks after being screened at Cannes. In the end I didn't get time to go, but the fact that we've just had Cannes, and that tennis …

Aquarius

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." A woman of later years (Sonia Braga), independent and strong-minded, refuses to be forced out of her apartment so that a property company can build a new development on the site. I love this woman. No matter what life throws at her, she knows her own mind and …

Tom of Finland (2017)

The images created by Tom of Finland may very well be familiar even if, like me, you know nothing about the artist himself. His drawings have influenced modern culture in many recognisable ways since the middle of the last century, but there is even more to the man that this film seeks to reveal. In true …

Ah-ga-ssi – The Handmaiden

I wasn't expecting to laugh as much as I did in this tale of grifters, oppression and eroticism. Director Chan-wook Park has reframed this story from Victorian England to 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, and it looks gorgeous. It's clever in the way it uses flashbacks and replays scenes from different viewpoints, gradually letting the audience in …

Arrebato – Rapture

I've just about picked my jaw up off the floor. I was not expecting anything like that! That's what happens when you book tickets weeks in advance, then don't check up on what you're going to see. In the pre-screening introduction, I learned that Arrebato was a movie which had immense difficulties in filming, had …

Elle

It took me almost 24 hours to work out my response to this film. I kept swaying between "very very good" and "very very annoying" and so walked away from writing about it as nothing I put down made any sense to me. Having now figured out what the main issue for me was, it's …

The Neon Demon – and Q&A with Nicolas Winding Refn

This was a special preview screening just a couple of weeks after the film premiered at Cannes - the UK release is not for another month - so well done to HOME for securing not just the preview, but also the presence of director Nicolas Winding Refn for the post-screening chat. Firstly, to the film. During …

The Hateful Eight

This is one of the first Tarantino films I have liked in a very long time. I'm not generally a fan, and I went to see this not because I really wanted to but because I felt I ought to, I found it very entertaining, though not without flaws. With the exception of the odd snowy …

Legend

If you're looking for a gritty, dirty tale of the exploits of two out and out criminals from the east end of London, then this isn't it. The clue is in the title; the story of the Kray twins is the stuff of legend (at least in the UK - I wonder if their story is as …