19 h. ago In A Minecraft Movie, Jack Black is like a desperate clown at an underattended children’s party

Jason Momoa also stars in this underwhelming adaptation of the hit video game

Society

52 h. ago Sylvanian Families: The Movie review – bunny goes looking for gift in danger

Set in the bucolically bland world of the toy franchise, the adventures of Freya the rabbit stay well away from any kind of jeopardyIn the very first scene of this film, a woman (well, a female bunny rabbit), broom in hand, sings happily as she sweeps the kitchen floor. Welcome to the wholesome 1950s nostalgia of the Sylvanian Families brand. And while other adaptations of toy franchises whack the audience over the head with irony, skateboards and smart alec gags, this film based on the fuzzy woodland creatures stays firmly on-message. It’s very sweet, slightly dull, and such a throwback that if you stumbled across it on a streaming platform you’d be forgiven for thinking it was made in the 1970s.It’s set in the bucolically blissful land of Sylvania (though one character pronounces it “Syl-van-ia” so perhaps we’ve all been saying it wrong for years), where bunny Freya is on a mission. It’s her mum’s birthday and Freya wants to give her the perfect present. Each of the film’s chapter...

Politics

3 d. ago Sikandar Movie Review & Release Live update: Salman Khan's London fans dance in the theatre

Sikandar Movie Review & Release Live update: Salman Khan's London fans dance in the theatre  TOI Etimes

Culture

6 d. ago The Life List review – overly neat Netflix weepie leaves dry eyes

Carry-On’s Sofia Carson is a young woman whose mother sends her messages beyond the grave in a mushy PS I Love You-esque dramaThere are big, all-consuming emotions contained within the cosy Netflix weepie The Life List, a film about grief, family, love, dreams, heartbreak and the courage to strive for the life you truly want rather than the one you’ve settled for. Based on the bestselling novel by Lori Nelson Spielman, it’s a proudly heart-over-head confection and given how the platform has become a reliable provider of movies and shows aimed at younger women who have been underserved elsewhere, it’ll probably find its audience.But writer-director Adam Brooks, who knows this world better than most, having been involved in sturdy star-led studio films such as Definitely, Maybe; Wimbledon; and the hugely underrated Meg Ryan romcom French Kiss, can’t quite squeeze the tears or cheers out of material that so desperately wants them. It’s a film about experiences many of us should be able...

Politics

6 d. ago The End is a chilling climate apocalypse story stretched over the bones of an MGM musical

Acclaimed documentarian behind ‘The Act of Killing’ Joshua Oppenheimer turns his hand to fiction for this socially charged musical

Science

8 d. ago Misericordia review – waking dream of a movie is one of the strangest films of the year

A man moves in with his employer’s widow in this playful but dreamlike and inscrutable drama from Alain Guiraudie, the director of Stranger By the LakeWriter-director Alain Guiraudie must surely now be said to match Quentin Dupieux for the weirdest sense of humour in French cinema. But is comedy exactly what is happening here? Because this has to be one of the strangest films of the year – or the most deadpan of deadpan in-jokes. At one point, I thought I saw the performer playing a police officer almost laugh, but perhaps every single actor here was on the verge of cracking up throughout the shoot. It could be that every time Guiraudie yelled “Cut” everyone burst out laughing.You could also call Misericordia queer cinema, with the word “queer” also working in its non-sexual sense. Guiraudie made his international breakthrough with his 2013 film Stranger By the Lake, but it’s now clear that the seriousness and vehemence of that psychosexual drama are atypical of the director’s real ...

Culture

1 week ago MOVIE REVIEW: We see through the eyes of a ghost in supernatural tale 'Presence'

More family drama than scary shocks in director Steven Soderbergh's latest outing.

Politics

1 week ago Santosh review – terrifically tense cop movie digs into sexism and caste prejudice in India

Sunita Rajwar and Shahana Goswami lead a sinewy crime drama as a cynical veteran and a wide-eyed rookie who has inherited her late husband’s jobWriter-director Sandhya Suri has made a tense, violent and politically savvy crime procedural set in India: a film about sexism, caste bigotry and Islamophobia that doubles as a study in the complex relationship between two female cops, a cynical veteran and a wide-eyed rookie. They are terrifically played by Sunita Rajwar and Shahana Goswami in what is almost a gender-switched Indian version of Training Day.Suri is a film-maker who 20 years ago gave us a tremendous personal essay movie I for India, and this is her fiction-feature debut, which reportedly started as a documentary project inspired by public demonstrations about the gang-rape and murder of Jyoti Singh. It centres on the Indian convention of “compassionate appointment”: the dependent widow of a public official can apply for the same job. Goswami plays Santosh, whose cop husband ...

Events

2 w. ago The Alto Knights review – double De Niro makes for a laborious true

The actor plays Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, two warring mob bosses in 1950s New York, in a caper that lacks the richness of its writer’s earlier Goodfellas‘They’re the same – he’s marrying himself!” The speaker is an aghast Bobbie Costello, played by Debra Messing, addressing her shruggingly detached mob boss husband, Frank Costello, played by Robert De Niro. They are guests at the wedding of mercurial club owner Anna (Kathrine Narducci) to Frank’s hot-tempered mafia associate Vito Genovese. And Vito is played by Robert De Niro.This film is a laborious true-crime account of Frank and Vito’s homicidal falling out in 1950s New York, directed by Barry Levinson and written by Nicholas Pileggi, though with little of the perspective, light and shade and narrative richness of Pileggi’s earlier scripts. As Vito, De Niro is gloweringly resentful, taciturn, bad-tempered and wears glasses and a hat. As Frank, De Niro is gloweringly resentful, taciturn, slightly less bad-tempered and does...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Will Freya find a lovely birthday gift for mummy?’: why the Sylvanian Families movie is the anti

The trailer for the new film about the dainty woodland creatures will wash over your brain like a warm 70-second bath. Does every toy movie need to be an Oscar-worthy social commentary?This Easter, a new movie based on Sylvanian Families will be released into cinemas. If you’ve been keeping up with films based on toys for the last decade or so, then you’ll be forgiven for feeling a modicum of dread upon hearing this news. Because ever since Barbie took a billion dollars and found itself nominated for a bunch of Oscars, a toy movie isn’t allowed to be a toy movie any more. It has to be an auteur-driven toy movie; one that also functions as a commentary about the capitalist machinations that drive the toy industry.It’s everywhere. In 2022, Emily V Gordon and Jon M Chu announced that they were making a Play-Doh movie that would be about “creativity, imagination, and the purpose of art”. JJ Abrams is making a film based on Hot Wheels that he describes as “emotional and grounded and grit...

Politics

2 w. ago MOVIE REVIEW: Our senses get shaken by Shudder horror flick 'They Live in the Grey'

Not-so-friendly ghosts cause havoc in spirited supernatural scares.

Events

3 w. ago Friendship review – Tim Robinson spirals in a darkly hilarious comedy

SXSW film festival: The star of I Think You Should Leave brings a similar brand of comedy to this strange and genuinely funny film about a friendship breakupFew adult experiences sting as much as a friendship breakup, a rejection in some ways more personal, hurtful and confusing than that of a romantic partner. And few actors are better equipped to mine the weird vulnerabilities, fixations and feelings of a platonic split like the cult comedy king Tim Robinson, co-creator and star of the Netflix sketch show I Think You Should Leave (ITYSL). Over three seasons, Robinson has built up a devoted in-the-know following for his situational comedy, generationally playing unrepentant characters with no impulse control or allegiance to social scripts, people whose untidy feelings derail otherwise normal situations into absurd tangles.In other words, not the type of people to take rejection well. With Robinson as the unfortunate half of a buddy dump, Friendship, writer-director Andrew DeYoung’...

Politics

3 w. ago Holland on Prime Video review: Forget Babygirl, this is the Nicole Kidman movie to watch

This horror rom-com will have you squealing, howling, and clenching your butt

Politics

3 w. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We discover if love is in the air during horror 'Companion'

Go in as blind as possible and enjoy the surprising twists and turns.

Events

3 w. ago One of Them Days review – SZA and Keke Palmer spar and sparkle in raucous LA buddy movie

The US singer makes a terrific screen debut opposite Palmer in this tale of two roommates working out how to not get evictedA race against time to stave off imminent eviction, with added peril due to a misunderstanding over a rare pair of Nike Air Jordan trainers, One of Them Days walks a relatively familiar buddy movie path. Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) are best friends and roommates in a cheap and cheerful apartment in LA’s Baldwin Village. But then Alyssa’s feckless boyfriend spends the rent money and the women have until the end of the day to raise the cash.With its zingy colour palette and effervescent, unapologetically uneven storytelling, the film has a buoyant, almost cartoonish quality (albeit one laced with lip-smacking, sexually explicit dialogue). What elevates this raucous romp by music video director Lawrence Lamont is the crackling energy between Palmer (Nope) and singer SZA, making her acting debut here. Dreux also gets a love interest, in the shape of a myst...

Politics

3 w. ago Picture This review – Bridgerton star can’t save tinny romcom

Simone Ashley tries her best in Amazon’s gimmicky romantic comedy but it’s too flimsy and forgettable to demand our attentionI am generally wary of streaming platform originals, so often do they feel like the fast fashion of the film world: cheap, disposable, chasing ephemeral interests and brittle with repeat use. But I will give Netflix, Amazon and co props for this: for nearing a decade now, they have attempted to fill a void left by the theatrical box office, whose hollowed-out market rarely supports the mid-budget adult films – particularly romcoms and erotic thrillers – that routinely entertained non-franchise audiences in decades past. Only occasionally do they succeed, as in the case of Netflix’s Do Revenge or Players, but the mission remains worthwhile.Picture This, a new romcom from Amazon Prime Video, has promising elements suggesting it could be one of the better entries. Namely: the presence of Simone Ashley, the always luminous breakout star of the Netflix confection t...

Politics