★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII. The post Film Review: Firebrand appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped. The post Film Review: About Dry Grasses appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border. The post Film Review: Green Border appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★★★☆ Tales of lone assassins and guns for hire are all based on urban myths. That’s the fact gleefully revealed in Richard Linklater’s latest crime comedy Hit Man, premiering at Venice this week. “Think about it,” asks the film’s protagonist Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), “is someone really going to risk the death penalty for a few thousand bucks.” It’s a good point. The post Film Review: Hit Man appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino's terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller. The post Film Review: Challengers appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back. The post Film Review: Jeanne du Barry appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★★★☆ Following Agnieszka Holland’s land-bound refugee tale Green Border earlier this week, Matteo Garrone’s new film Io Capitano departs geographically further south and takes its characters on an epic journey which involves land and sea. But its direction and terrain are not the only difference here. The post Film Review: Io Capitano appeared first on CineVue ..read more

★★★★☆ Once, when talking about Stanley Kubrick's seminal Barry Lyndon, Martin Scorsese referred to the film’s "almost Japanese sense of time". If one was to be cynical, one could snipe that it’s just a fancy way of saying a film is boring, but it goes to the point of how cinema makes the relativity of time visible and tangible to the audience. The post Film Review: Evil Does Not Exist appeared first on CineVue ..read more

The 77th Cannes Film Festival concluded with a shift to the new generation. Notable awards went to Sean Baker's Anora and Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof The Seed of the Sacred Fig. The post Cannes 2024: Sean Baker’s Anora wins Palme d’Or appeared first on CineVue ..read more

Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's "Abigail" mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit. The post Film Review: Abigail appeared first on CineVue ..read more