The Review at the End of the Universe
Robert Zemeckis brings us Allied; part World War II espionage thriller and part romance when a couple on a deep cover mission fall in love and decide to start a family once they accomplish their task. There’s something very old fashioned about this film and I mean this in a good way. Brad Pitt’s Max…
Amma Asante tells the true life story of the marriage between Englishwoman Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and the Prince of Bechuanaland in Africa in A United Kingdom. As with many films that tell a true story this one tries to be so many things at once without really focusing on anything. There is a lot…
The Harry Potter franchise expands with Datvid Yates’ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is the author of a textbook featured in previous Harry Potter adventures so his story is really good fodder for a prequel/spin-off explaining how he came about that knowledge and detailing the experiences he had gathering…
Aliens come to Earth for mysterious reasons that an elite team have to get to the bottom of in Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. Every now and again a sci-fi film comes along that does everything that I feel science fiction exists for. Namely to frame real world issues in a fantastical context that allows for subtle…
Roger Spottiswood’s A Street Cat Named Bob tells the true story of a homeless drug addict who turned his life around with the help of a stray cat that came into his life. I was unaware of the true story going in but it’s interesting that at least some of this really happened. I have…
A lighthouse keeper and his wife raise a baby rescued from a drifting rowing boat until the child’s birth mother comes into the picture in Derek Cianfrance’ The Light Between Oceans. This is definitely a film of two halves and, as you might expect, one half is better than the other. I haven’t read the…
Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals explores the loneliness of a gallery owner feeling insecure about her life choices when she reads her ex-husband’s manuscript. Susan (Amy Adams) is immediately establlished as a successful career woman who owns an art gallery and is married to someone equally successful (Armie Hammer) so she is a woman that many…
Scotland Loves Anime is a fantastic festival, and it returned to Edinburgh and Glasgow this October with an exceptionally impressive programme. One of the undoubted jewels in the crown of this year’s programming was Makoto Shinkai’s latest offering Your Name. Best known for 5 Centimeters Per Second and The Garden of Words, Shinkai seems to have…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe takes a stroll into the mystical with Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange and offers some new rules for us to apply to this universe. Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a gifted and respected neurosurgeon who definitely believes the hype that surrounds his talents. He takes on cases that will win him…
Ben Affleck plays an an autistic accountant who moonlights as an action hero. Or is it an action hero who moonlights as an accountant in Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant? Whatever side of the fence you think Affleck’s mathematical savant Christian Wolff falls on, the commonality is that he’s autistic and that fact underpins so much…
