Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents
Director: Don Hardy Jr. Starring: The Residents, Matt Groening, Les Claypool, Pen Gillette The Residents, for the uninitiated, are that band your weirdo friend tried to impress on you at…
Straight Outta Compton
Biopics aren’t really independent works of art. They’re inherently revisionist in nature, in that the constraints of scriptwriting and running time and the pressure to produce something with commercial appeal…
Southpaw
Director: Antoine Fuqua Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, 50 Cent, Forest Whittaker Admittedly, I was excited for Southpaw. Jake Gyllenhaal transformed himself drastically for the role, and the last time…
Wings Over Hollywood
What do Battleship, Star Trek IV (the whale one), Birth of a Nation and Karate Kid II all have in common? They were all filmed with the assistance of the…
Amy
Director: Asif Kapadia Starring: Amy Winehouse Winehouse obsessive Asif Kapadia’s documentary hits cinemas four years after the star’s early death. What felt in equal parts shocking, mysterious and inevitable in…
Inside Out
Director: Pete Doctor and Ronaldo Del Carmen Starring: Amy Poehler, Mindy Kaling, Bill Hader, Phyllis Smith Inside Out sees the return of Up director Pete Doctor, and it’s Pixar’s most…
Gemma Bovery
Director: Anne Fontaine Starring: Gemma Arterton, Jason Flemyng, Fabrice Luchini, Niels Schneider Gemma Bovery, the latest film from Anne Fontaine, is a tragicomedy based on Posy Simmond’s graphic novel re-imagination…
Jurassic World
Director: Colin Trevorrow Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, dinosaurs! You know your franchise reboot is in trouble when its best moments are explicit references to the much, much better…
Personal and Political
This year has seen the release of two of the most valorised political films in recent years in Ava Duvernay’s Selma, disturbingly relevant in the America of Mike Brown and…
Into the Woods
Director: Rob Marshall Starring: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods first debuted on Broadway in 1987, predating the recent…