Minari review - a Korean family searches for the American dream
Lee Isaac Chung's uplifting, autobiographical fourth feature is a winner
“David, don’t run,” is the refrain that runs through the first scenes of Lee Isaac Chung’s affecting, autobiographical Minari, acclaimed at Sundance, winner of a Golden Globe for best foreign language film (it’s mainly in Korean) and nominated for several Academy Awards.
Agustín Fernández Mallo: The Things We've Seen review - degrees of separation
The B-side of reality comes to the fore in this roving exploration of connection and isolation
Trilogies (it is noted, in the term’s Wikipedia entry) “are common in speculative fiction”. They are found in those works with elements “non-existent in reality”, which cover various themes “in the context of the supernatural, futuristic, and many other imaginative topics”. All of these apply in some sense to The Things We’ve Seen, the latest novel from Spanish writer Agustín Fernández Mallo.
Wander Darkly review - bold psychodrama falls short
Sienna Miller gives a strong performance but it’s a weak story and the tension is forced
Blu-ray: Marlene Dietrich at Universal 1940-1942
Four films that tested the star's durability with the American public
Her glory years as the muse of Josef von Sternberg long gone, Marlene Dietrich had been labelled “box-office poison” and was sulking on the French Riviera when the producer Joe Pasternak summoned her back to Hollywood to star opposite James Stewart in George Marshall's Destry Rides Again (1939).
Moxie review - likeable if confused high school comedy
Amy Poehler's sophomore directing effort is both winning and wayward
A teen comedy with a thematic difference, Moxie has enough memorable moments to firmly establish comedian Amy Poehler as a director worth reckoning with in what is her second film, following Wine Country in 2019.
Judas and the Black Messiah review - powerful biopic
Well crafted biopic brings another key episode in America's civil rights history into the light
One of the sadnesses of covid is that films like Judas and the Black Messiah have been held over for release in the hope that cinemas will reopen. Immersive, intense features like this deserve to be seen in a darkened theatre with no distractions. But as the pandemic drags on in the UK, distributors are forced to debut big films on the small screen and it’s a real shame in this instance.
To Olivia review - Keeley Hawes rises above brainless biopic
Syrupy take on a tempestuous marriage
Sure, Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but is that any excuse for a film quite so saccharine? He of all challenging and complex men, with a temperament to match, seems an odd subject for the sort of weightless, paint-by-numbers biopic that would be hard-pressed to muster much attention even as TV filler on a particularly dead night.
Music review - a few music videos cobbled together
Musician Sia’s film debut uses autism as a prop for shallow song and dance routines
What did Sia want to achieve with Music, her deeply confused first stumble into filmmaking? The reclusive Australian has enjoyed years of global fame for a successful music career. Was it never enough?
Patricia Lockwood: No One is Talking About This review - first novel goes beyond the internet
You have a new memory: escaping the pull of the portal
This is a novel, says Patricia Lockwood in her Twitter feed, about being very inside the internet and then being very outside of it. At first, I thought the title referred to aspects of the internet and its disappearing history, as in, “'MySpace was an entire life’, she nearly wept at a bookstore in Chicago… ‘And it is lost, lost, lost.’”