BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER rarely fails to be entertaining, with the visuals and performances taking the film a long way. However, they are fleeting thrills in the service of an unmemorable story. Edward Berger’s film looks like a high roller, but it’s playing with buttons and matchsticks.
Though at first THE END seems like a strange direction for Joshua Oppenheimer, the themes of repression, denial, and delusion soon make a clear connection between this and his documentary work.
Marc Nelson discusses THE SOUVENIR after its EIFF 2019 showings, where director Joanna Hogg casts her critical-yet-compassionate eye toward a stand-in for her younger self.
THE DEAD DON’T DIE is not groundbreaking, but Jim Jarmusch manages to breathe some new life into the (un)dead genre. Joe McLauchlan reviews from Cannes 2019.
Tilda Swinton is a joy to hate but Bong Joon-Ho’s editing lets down the weird and wonderful SNOWPIERCER, screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Another year, another Terry Gilliam slice of imaginative dystopian hell: THE ZERO THEOREM still feels a bit humdrum for a director who is a visionary at his best.