9 d. ago The Librarians review – the heroic women battling against book bans and censorship

Kim A Snyder’s documentary highlights the defenders of young readers’ rights to see their lives in print facing rightwing attacksThere is real and genuine fear about young people’s use of pornography; usually, that conversation is about exposure to porn online, not in libraries. But this excellent culture wars documentary tells the story of book-banning in red states such as Florida and Texas, where religious rightwingers are crusading to protect children from “obscene” books. Usually that means titles about LGBTQ+ issues or race, and books about girls getting their period aren’t safe either. In Tennessee, a school board banned Maus, the graphic novel memoir of the Holocaust by Art Spiegelman, for mouse nudity. The utter nonsense of it would be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing.The most recent purge began in 2021 with a list of 850 books circulated by Texas state representative Matt Krause (over 60% were books with LGBTQ+ themes). Rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis piled in, fol...

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1 week ago Demon Slayer – Infinity Castle: The anime film that’s smashing box office records

It has become not only the highest-grossing anime film ever worldwide, but also the biggest Japanese film of all time

Politics

2 w. ago One Battle After Another review – Paul Thomas Anderson’s thrillingly helter

Anderson updates Thomas Pynchon for the era of Ice roundups, pitting shaggy revolutionary Leonardo DiCaprio against cartoonish forces of reactionOne of the great creative bromances has flowered again: Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon. Having adapted Pynchon’s Inherent Vice for the screen in 2015, Anderson has now taken a freer rein with his 1990 novel Vineland, creating a bizarre action thriller driven by pulpy comic-book energy and transformed political indignation, keeping his pedal at all times welded to the metal.It’s a riff on the now recognisable Anderson-Pynchonian idea of counterculture and counter-revolution, absorbing the paranoid style of American politics into a screwball farcical resistance, with a jolting, jangling, nerve-shredding score by Jonny Greenwood. It’s partly a freaky-Freudian diagnosis of father-daughter dysfunction – juxtaposed with the separation of migrant children and parents at the US-Mexico border – and a very serious, relevant response to the U...

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2 w. ago One Battle After Another review – Leonardo DiCaprio clowns his way through a ferocious American masterpiece

Paul Thomas Anderson has directed a swaggering, funny and timely action epic, where momentum never lets up and supporting actors Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor steal the show

Events

2 w. ago One Battle After Another review: Leonardo DiCaprio romps through 2025's coolest film

Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio and many more are a riotous, chaotic blast in yet another Paul Thomas Anderson masterwork

Events

2 w. ago 'Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle' opens to $70M, biggest anime debut in North America

“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle” carved out a place in box office history this weekend, slicing straight to No_ 1 to outpace the horror sequel “The Conjuring: Last Rites.”

Politics

3 w. ago Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle review – battle anime brings the visual flair

In the first of a film trilogy, teenage Tanjiro seeks vengeance for his murdered family in what is a great taste of things to comeThe first part of a trilogy that will conclude the massively popular anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, this latest smash hit from Ufotable, directed by Haruo Sotozaki, is a spectacular treat. For those new to the franchise, the story is set during a mythical imagining of the Taisho era, where hordes of carnivorous demons descend on innocent civilians. Fighting in the name of his massacred family and a sister infected with demon blood, teenage protagonist Tanjiro Kamado joins the Demon Slayer Corps, determined to wipe these ruthless beasts off the Earth. The film picks up from a thrilling cliffhanger of the fourth season, where Tanjiro and his fellow comrades are thrust into the lair of the demon-in-chief, the cunning and all-powerful Muzan Kibutsuji.Much of the film is structured around various battles between the series regulars and their swor...

Events

4 w. ago Christy review – Sydney Sweeney fights a losing battle in cliched boxing biopic

Toronto film festival: The rising star makes for a convincing boxer inside the ring in David Michôd’s by-the-numbers drama but flounders when outsideEven before Sydney Sweeney became better known for being in the centre of an increasingly absurd culture war, the unavoidable campaign to make her Hollywood’s Next Big Thing was showing signs of fatigue. The Euphoria grad, who gave a resonant performance in Reality, scored a sleeper hit with glossed up romcom Anyone But You but audiences were more impressed than critics, including myself (I found her performance strangely stilted). There was little interest from either side in her nun horror Immaculate, and earlier this summer her incredulously plotted Apple movie Echo Valley went the way of many Apple movies (no one knows it exists).Post-thinkpieces, two of her festival duds (Eden and Americana) disappeared at the box office and she now arrives at Toronto in need of a win. And what better way to achieve that by going for an old-fashion...

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