Film

Going platinum: Daniel Craig as Joe Bang in Logan Lucky

Losing the plot

26 August 2017 9:00 am

Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky is a heist caper that, to be fair, does what it says on the can. There…

In praise of Netflix

5 August 2017 9:00 am

All this week I have been trying, with considerable success, to avoid being bludgeoned by TV programmes telling me in…

Tricky, and slightly sicky

29 July 2017 9:00 am

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

22 July 2017 9:00 am

Great novels rarely make great movies, but for half a century one director has been showing all the others how…

Visual, visceral, confusing

22 July 2017 9:00 am

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has already been described as ‘a masterpiece’ and ‘a glorious, breathtakingly vivid triumph’, but we need to…

If you go down to the woods: Kelvin Harrison Jnr as Travis in It Comes at Night

Do not be afraid

8 July 2017 9:00 am

It Comes at Night is a horror film and I can’t say horror is my favourite genre. In fact, as…

‘Tennis’, 1930, by Eric Ravilious

Match made in heaven

8 July 2017 9:00 am

Tennis is best played with a wooden racket on a shady lawn somewhere close to Dorking. There is no need…

Three hours of vomit, fellatio and menstruation: Isabelle Huppert on Phaedra(s)

4 June 2016 9:00 am

A blushing James Woodall is riveted by Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Phaedra(s)

A side order of extra Marmite comes in the considerable silhouette of Russell Crowe as Jackson Healy

Russell Crowe knows how to wear a pair of inverted commas: The Nice Guys reviewed

4 June 2016 9:00 am

Regular filmgoers must be losing count of the Rabelaisian revelries they’ve been invited to of late. You may recognise the…

It’s time to kill James Bond

28 May 2016 9:00 am

After six decades, it’s time we were done with 007

Why Deborah Ross wants to punch G.K. Chesterton in the head

28 May 2016 9:00 am

Love & Friendship is based on the little-known Jane Austen epistolary novella, Lady Susan, which was not published until after…

Cannes, exclusive? I’ve met classier crowds in brothels

28 May 2016 9:00 am

New York Let’s face it, sleaze is to professional party-givers what jail is to a burglar, an occupational hazard. I’ve…

Hound of love: Lolabelle gets old and Lolabelle goes blind and keyboards are laid out on the floor so that she can bash them with her paws, and enjoy the sounds

Weird, wise, thought-provoking and hypnotic: Heart of a Dog reviewed

21 May 2016 9:00 am

Heart of a Dog is a film by Laurie Anderson and it’s a meditative, free-associating rumination on life, loss, love…

Blake Jenner as Jake and Zoey Deutch as Beverly in ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’

I’m sure women spoke in 1980: Everybody Wants Some!! reviewed

14 May 2016 9:00 am

Everybody Wants Some!! is a comedy written and directed by Richard Linklater, which is the good news, but it’s set…

Florence Foster Jenkins entertains at home

When opera singers can’t sing

7 May 2016 9:00 am

Were Florence Foster Jenkins and her fellow culprits touchingly heroic, cynically fraudulent or just plain bonkers? Rupert Christiansen reports

Not a trip to the cinema you’ll bitterly resent – or hugely enjoy: Florence Foster Jenkins reviewed

7 May 2016 9:00 am

Before we turn our attention to Florence Foster Jenkins — but if you can’t wait, it’s so-so — I feel…

I swear this is the last Marvel film I see: Captain America reviewed

30 April 2016 9:00 am

Captain America: Civil War is the 897th instalment — or something like it — in the Marvel comic franchise. This…

With the release of Oculus Rift, cinema will never be the same again

2 April 2016 9:00 am

With the release of Oculus Rift – virtual reality you can buy from a shop – cinema will never be the same again, says Peter Hoskin

The public prosecutor, Geetanjali Kulkarni, in ‘Court’

A devastating critique of the Indian justice system: Court reviewed

26 March 2016 9:00 am

The big hitter this week is, of course, Batman v Superman, but if you want to learn something new, and…

Incoherent and misogynistic: High-Rise reviewed

19 March 2016 9:00 am

High-Rise is Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel, and it is deeply unpleasant, if not deeply, deeply unpleasant. (Ideally,…

Mirror, mirror: Michael Stone, as voiced by David Thewlis

Anomalisa makes me wish all my sex was puppet sex

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Anomalisa is an animated film written by Charlie Kaufman, and while the temptation is to label it a midlife crisis…

The thighs have it: George Clooney (Baird Whitlock) at his goofiest and most short-skirted

Are the Coen Brothers taking us for a ride? Hail, Caesar! reviewed

5 March 2016 9:00 am

The latest film from the Coen brothers is a comedy set during the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood and in some…

Richard Gere in The Benefactor

What were they thinking? The Benefactor reviewed

27 February 2016 9:00 am

The Benefactor is both a bad film and a thoroughly inexplicable one. It’s one of those what-were-they-thinking projects that wastes…

Scarlett Johansson as a mermaid? Bung her in

What is a serious film festival doing opening with Hail, Caesar!

20 February 2016 9:00 am

What is a serious film festival doing opening with Ethan and Joel Coens’ turkey Hail, Caesar!? James Woodall reports from Berlin

Tim Roth in ‘Chronic’, a morality tale about the care industry

Cinema needs films like Chronic – just not a lot of them

20 February 2016 9:00 am

Scholarly filmgoers may recall a movement that sprouted from Danish soil called Dogme 95. It worked to a Spartan set…