BLUE HERON is a gentle demonstration of cinema’s power, and Romvari’s ability to create a tangible, shared experience of something difficult to put into words. The film is one of fuzzy memories & half-truths, but the impression it leaves is firm & enduring.
BACKROOMS is an eerily realised creative vision, but it’s difficult to escape the idea that it takes a suboptimal turn away from the technical strengths that give this adaptation such a firm footing.
MICHAEL will inevitably attract ire with its depiction of Jackson’s life, or, more accurately, what it seems to omit. However, MICHAEL is also an inexplicably boring film which is bland at best and cowardly at worst.
If cinema is to survive as a community experience, we need to value and protect places like the Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford, now in the middle of a campaign to secure its long-term future.
OMAHA might not employ the most thoroughly crafted methods by grabbing the heartstrings in its fist, but the cast’s performances capture an honest empathy that is difficult to put aside. And maybe you shouldn’t.
EXIT 8 leans a little too heavily on [the ‘liminal space’] aesthetic to remain fully engrossing for even the succinct 95-minute runtime, but the film finds its way much faster than The Lost Man did.
A dose of Polonium-210 already begins to feel inviting a mere half hour into the prolonged 136-minute runtime of THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN.
Even if DEPARTURES leans heavily on its influences before it establishes what it wants to say, there are enough novel angles and flourishes that its bolshy Mancunian voice is clearly heard and worth listening to.
THE DRAMA renders philosophical thought experiments as tangible personal relationships. The film is both fiendishly juvenile and thought-provoking, with Kristoffer Borgli’s black comedy approach harmonising these two qualities.
The story of Shelley’s Frankenstein is, in part, about unchecked ambition and “filthy creation”. In pursuing greatness for himself, Victor brought misery upon a creature of which he lost control. Maybe THE BRIDE! is a good adaptation of her work in spirit, if not in practice.
