I Love Boosters
I LOVE BOOSTERS is a disorienting rip through numerous ideas, but if recent years have shown anything, it’s that we have to drink from the fire hose and do our best to take action now. Now is not the time for nuance.
Category Archives: Festival Coverage
How to Get Filthy Rich with Gary Stevenson
HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH is an engaging and original look at the decline in living standards and the beginnings of working out what to do about it.
Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day
Based on the 1919 book, Tina Gharavi’s film adds entertaining anachronisms and dramatic storylines to suit its new medium; some of these choices land, others are not given the time to warrant their daring.
To Dance is to Resist
Director Julian Lautenbacher [shows] bravery in choosing queer identity and dance as his documentary’s expression of resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Departures
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.
California Schemin’
CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN’ has hints of greatness throughout its script but ultimately lands as a safe debut for James McAvoy that doesn’t dare to tread very far outside the formula for music biopic cinema.
The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford
THE FALL OF SIR DOUGLAS WEATHERFORD is the story of a tour guide in a small Borders town, driven mad by the intrusion of a television crew filming a prestige fantasy series, balancing a light comedy tone with unexpected poignancy, even if some of its more impactful ideas are underdeveloped.
Sukkwan Island (My Father’s Island)
SUKKWAN ISLAND (also known as MY FATHER’S ISLAND) is a slow devastation. The conclusion seems inevitable from the outset but, like the young man in the film, we are dragged along for the experience.
Effi o Blaenau
EFFI O BLAENAU is a terrific, timely picture of very modern, very preventable tragedies. That said, it is in no way tied to its era and milieu: as long as people think with hearts and not heads, and as long as we live in a world where blind chance can have the same impact as thoughtful choices, Effi will face these trials.
Rebuilding
REBUILDING is a compassionate look at a community rocked by disaster with a wonderfully judged performance by O’Connor, though unfortunately it goes no deeper. Considering these natural events will become more and more common, and stronger, as the climate crisis intensifies, the film occupies a strange place between call to action and resignation to fate.