10 h. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We decide if we should keep our distance from body horror 'Together'

Icky effects mix with cutting barbs for an uncomfortable exploration of a troubled relationship.

Events

41 h. ago A House of Dynamite review: The most exciting movie at Venice Film Festival could lead to Kathryn Bigelow's second Best Director Oscar, writes BRIAN VINER

How might the United States respond in the event of a nuclear attack, with less than 20 minutes before an incoming missile lands on Chicago? 

Culture

65 h. ago Bruised Rudy Giuliani pictured in body brace as he gives health update after horror car crash

The former New York City mayor sounded upbeat as he joked about his harness-like brace, but admitted he was still in pain and remains 'injured pretty badly.'

Events

3 d. ago Football’s Financial Shame: The Story of the V11 review – so moving you’ll pity these poor footballers

This gripping documentary follows early Premier League footballers who lost it all following investment advice that went wrong. It perfectly captures the melancholy of being an ex-proSympathy for the financial plight of former Premier League footballers, you say? No, wait, hear us out. You might be surprised by this previously untold story. Richard Milway’s documentary, Football’s Financial Shame: The Story of the V11, is a gripping, moving and human enough tale to inspire more than a little fellow feeling.The V11 may sound like a fictional spy ring from a shonky airport novel but they’re actually a group of retired footballers whose careers spanned the 90s and early 00s. This era-specificity is crucial. They are members of the Premier League’s in-between generation. They’re mid-rankers: household names but it depends on the household. Danny Murphy. Rod Wallace. Brian Deane. Tommy Johnson. Michael Thomas. Craig Short. If you know, you know. And they played at a time when wages were ...

Politics

3 d. ago A House of Dynamite, Venice review – The most entertaining movie about mass destruction since Dr Strangelove

Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris and Tracy Letts are among the many recognisable names adding gravitas to this punchy Netflix thriller

Politics

3 d. ago Above the Knee review – man struggles with body integrity dysmorphia in gory amputation horror

A man grapples with an overwhelming desire to remove his leg in a lingering psychological interrogation from Norwegian film-maker Viljar BøeNorwegian director Viljar Bøe has been hacking out an interesting niche for himself in the horror genre, specialising in a variety grounded more in psychology than supernatural jiggery pokery. For example, Good Boy from 2022 revolved around a man and his “dog” (who is obviously a guy in a dog costume) acting like a mutt at all times. Similarly, his new feature features a character called Amir (Freddy Singh) with a psychological fixation that’s so unusual he feels he must keep it a secret from his girlfriend and all acquaintances: he has body integrity dysphoria (BID), which in his case means he has an overwhelming desire to amputate his left leg even though there’s nothing physically wrong with it.Amir lives with his super-nice, cheerful girlfriend Kim (Julie Abrahamsen) in hyper-tolerant, Scandi-socialist quasi-utopia Norway, so when he drunken...

Events

7 d. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We see if it's worth getting to know thriller 'The Stranger in My Home'

Camp, cheap, dated thriller hampered by strange acting and directing choices.

Politics

8 d. ago Jay Kelly, Venice review – George Clooney is raw and revealing as an ageing movie star

A star-studded cast – including Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Greta Gerwig – surround Clooney’s egotistical A-lister in Noah Baumbach’s new Netflix film

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1 week ago MOVIE REVIEW: We cheat death one again with Netflix sequel 'The Old Guard 2'

Mediocre plot and production issues hamper likeable leading crew.

Events

1 week ago Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing review – candy

A garbled story of metaverse musicians based on a mobile game leaves its audience little to grasp hold ofEven by the standards of franchise anime that caters to the faithful and drops newcomers in blind, this is particularly incomprehensible. Based on the mobile game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, it features a barely characterised blur of wannabe musicians and actors who ascribe Manhattan Project importance to writing syrupy J-pop. As they interact with virtual counterparts in metaverses called “Sekai” created from users’ emotions, the film is like The Matrix if Neo had huffed a nitrous oxide canister before having every edition of Pop Idol downloaded into his cranium.One of the virtual pop stars, a rogue version of Hatsune Miku (voiced by Saki Fuijta), keeps invading high-school kids’ mobile phones and flatscreens, begging for help. Apparently issuing from a Sekai created by the emo angst of everyone about to give up on their creative ambitions, she is hoping to connect with these...

Politics

2 w. ago Eenie Meanie review – middling comedy thriller has its moments

Ready or Not’s Samara Weaving is a getaway driver tasked with saving her dirtbag ex in a slick yet inconsequential caperBack in the 2000s or early 2010s, a film like Eenie Meanie would have been a late summer theatrical play, a mid-budget star vehicle with enough genre elements to hopefully lure back the blockbuster crowd. There are car chases and shootouts with absurdly attractive people in the middle of them and recognisable “that guy from” faces surrounding. But even back then it would have been a gamble without an A-lister attached, the film probably going the way of the many non-Fast & Furious car flops like Driven, Speed Racer, Drive Angry and Need for Speed.Now, it’s a much more obvious, and far safer, fit for streaming, with Disney wisely nudging this one to a Hulu/Disney+ premiere. Eenie Meanie still has the feel of something that was once on a bigger screen, though, with a reported $50m budget edging it above many of the season’s multiplex offerings (more than say Weap...

Politics

2 w. ago The Thursday Murder Club review – Netflix’s Richard Osman adaptation is so flimsy and digestible, it barely exists

Richard Osman’s bestselling ‘cosy crime’ novel gets a film adaptation that fails to make the most of its all-star cast

Events

2 w. ago The Map That Leads to You review – sugary Amazon romance works best as travelogue

Rising star Madelyn Cline is a charming lead in an unusually glossy streaming weepie that leads to overfamiliar territoryA book-loving American woman in her 20s decides to spend time in Europe before she settles into the safety of a finance job in New York City, but she ends up falling for a man who is harbouring a tragic secret about his future. She’s played by an in-house Netflix star, he’s played by a non-American actor known for his role in a hit TV show. The film is based on a novel and is premiering on a streaming platform this month. While this might not be dramatically similar enough to become a Dante’s Peak/Volcano situation, it’s hard not to watch Amazon’s The Map That Leads to You, out this week, and frequently think about Netflix’s loosely similar My Oxford Year, released at the start of August.What immediately separates the two, and often separates Netflix and Amazon movies in general, is the aesthetic. My Oxford Year is every bit a TV movie while The Map That Leads to ...

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2 w. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We take a dark, intense trip with horror 'Bring Her Back'

Sally Hawkins is a true revelation in film that deals with loss and the lengths people will go to towards reuniting with a loved one.

Events

2 w. ago Christy review – outstanding actors and Cork landmarks shine in a moving and funny Irish drama

Diarmuid Noyes and Danny Power play two brothers finding their feet after time in care in a social-realist film with heart and humourHere is a terrifically warm and involving Irish movie about two brothers from Cork’s northside; it is moving and funny, with plenty of affectionate shots of the iconic Knocknaheeny water tower looming futuristically over the skyline like a 70s spaceship or one of eastern Europe’s Soviet-era war memorials. Screenwriter Alan O’Gorman and first-time director and story co-creator Brendan Canty deliver a social-realist film with heart, featuring outstanding performances of sympathy and strength, developed from Canty’s 2019 short film of the same name. It’s tough, but capable of delicacy and succeeds in conveying something very difficult to achieve without sentimentality: love of your home town. You can come for the drama and stay for the cheeky hip-hop sequence over the closing credits, a final stretch of sweetness and fun that the movie has more than earne...

Events

2 w. ago Imagine review – profound conversations meet trippy visuals in one

Taika Waititi, Yael Stone and Ian Thorpe are among the big names lending voices to this ‘chaotically strange’ animation drawing on Indigenous perspectivesGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailI’ve never seen a film quite like this chaotically strange animation from writer-directors Tyson Yunkaporta and Jack Manning Bancroft, who fill it with slap-happy pleasures and plotlines that bounce around like pinballs.Attempting to explain the narrative is a fool’s errand, like trying to tickle yourself. I can say with confidence – assuming I didn’t unknowingly consume magic mushrooms beforehand and hallucinate the entire thing – that the story follows a teenager, Kim (voice of Yolande Brown), who gets pulled into a surreal alternate universe that they explore with their new pal Jeff (Yunkaporta), a bright-green alien dog. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Concessions review – moviegoer melancholy for Michael Madsen’s final film

Madsen cameos as a stuntman visiting a smalltown movie theatre on its last day before closing down in this amiable, bittersweet story for cinephilesThe late Michael Madsen makes his final, posthumous appearance as a boozy stuntman called Rex Fuel in this laidback ensemble film from feature first-timer Mas Bouzidi, a piece of moviegoing melancholy developed from the director’s short of the same title. Bouzidi gives us the time-honoured scenario of a smalltown movie theatre’s last day before closing down, resonantly named the Royal Alamo and showing for its last stand a couple of films on 35mm. The place has been stricken, of course, by the prevalence of digital streaming, although the wistful mood doesn’t seem too different from Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show from 1971, when Netflix wasn’t a problem.The Royal Alamo is now a bittersweet place of memories whose spirit is perhaps epitomised by the two guys listlessly working at the concessions stand, and bickering amusingly like Ke...

Culture

3 w. ago ‘We’re in a healthy relationship!’ Alison Brie and Dave Franco on gruesome body horror Together

Best known for comic roles, the couple talk about how they parlayed their marriage into a sweaty nightmare of a film – and what it’s like to share their love in publicDave Franco is showing me his wounds: a bloody finger, a grazed foot, a palm full of blisters. On his phone, the actor zooms in on the photo collage he has compiled of the worst injuries he sustained on the set of Together, the romance-horror he stars in alongside his wife, Alison Brie. She is not to be outdone. In one scene, Brie’s character is propelled against a glass door by a mysterious force. During filming, it seemed as if her stunt double was walking up to the door “very slowly. I felt like it was not landing the beat,” says the actor. “I said: ‘Let me just do it.’ And that’s what’s in the movie, me running and slamming into the glass. Then, of course, I had a little bruise on my nose that we had to cover with makeup.”Franco and Brie were clearly willing to throw themselves – literally – into the hugely en...

Events

3 w. ago Materialists review – Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in a movie that can’t decide if it’s a romcom, a farce, or a dark drama

Celine Song’s follow-up to ‘Past Lives’ has divided audiences in the US, but its wavering tone might also be the point

Politics

3 w. ago Fixed review – Netflix’s raunchy horny dog comedy wears thin

A filthy animated comedy about a dog preparing to be neutered offers some ribald humor but not much elseDogs dry humping humans, and whatever else they can get between their legs, is always good for a laugh – at least when we’re looking down on these adorable house pets, as they satisfy their base instincts, from above. Fixed, the filthy animated comedy unleashed on Netflix with a content warning that should apply to this review as much as the movie, both indulges in and tests our limits when it comes to that humour, largely by getting down (on all fours) and dirty with its hand-drawn canines.Here’s a movie with talking pets that rarely rises above a bull terrier’s vantage point. Humans remain mostly out of frame. We see their legs – a regular scene of the crime – but never their faces. In the opening minutes, we’re right there with Bull (voiced by Pitch Perfect’s Adam DeVine), the movie’s pudgy un-neutered protagonist, as he works hard to bust a nut on his household’s nana. Continu...

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