Review: SAINT MAUD (2020)
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
3y ago
By some miracle, not wholly unrelated to a global pandemic and the possibility that my email somehow ended up on a PR company’s mailing list, I was actually offered a screener! Finally, the day has come! And not only that, I was very happy to see that it was Rose Glass’s debut film Saint Maud. As an always-reforming former Catholic, the horror borne of religious fervour is always irresistible to explore. It feels like a lifetime ago that I spied the trailer within the recesses of Twitter, but ever since I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to see it. Though I would have preferred to see it ..read more
Visit website
Review: EIGHTH GRADE (2019) [Hebden Bridge Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
There are many things I would like to tell my 13 year-old self now. One of them would be to watch this film if it had been released in 2005. I was probably listening to Green Day (still do sometimes, who are we kidding?) and watching Almost Famous (2000), thinking it was the best film ever made, to be honest. Of course a teenager in 2005 didn’t have half the amount of pressures that must teens have these days. 14 years ago I was living through the MySpace and MSN era, where you could still remain relatively anonymous and the most dramatic thing that ever happened was that someone dropped y ..read more
Visit website
Review: WILD ROSE (2019) [Hebden Bridge Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
With all the fuss that surrounded A Star is Born (2018) about the revival of the movie musical, I hope Wild Rose, a sentimental but pleasing redemptive tale of one woman’s love of country (not “and western”) music and her ambition to make it in Nashville, gets remembered in years to come. Screenwriter Nicole Taylor’s own addiction to country music is evident, not just through the soundtrack choices (a great cover of Primal Scream’s Country Girl kick-starts the film), but in depicting how the most national of musical cultures can cross oceans and find devotees around the world, in this instan ..read more
Visit website
Review: BEING FRANK: THE CHRIS SIEVEY STORY (2019) [Hebden Bridge Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
Just a few miles from the documentary’s setting, Hebden Bridge Film Festival 2019 was a great setting to view Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story. Many of the film’s Kickstarter donors were in attendance to see the final version and hear more at a Q&A with Steve Sullivan about the epic archival study that lay before him to create this film. For scores of his fans, if the long list of Kickstarter contributors that close this film are anything to go by, Frank Sidebottom is a comedy genius deserving of a true memorial on film. An icon of slapstick weirdness that influenced northern culture ..read more
Visit website
Review: US (2019)
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
It’s safe to say that the world is currently a bit of a nightmare. Luckily we now have the works of Jordan Peele to help us fully realise the hidden horrors of today’s climate. We haven’t had to wait long for his follow-up to his polemic on the hypocrisies of America’s so-called classless society in Get Out (2017). Less ground-breaking than his debut film, which steadily rose from word-of-mouth mania to awards darling, his follow-up Us, and not as precise in exactly what it is trying to convey, is no less disturbing. Peele sets the scene menacingly. Full opening credits are a rarity the ..read more
Visit website
Review: THE FIGHT (2019) [Hebden Bridge Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
The Fight (2019) was the closing night film of the first ever Hebden Bridge Festival at the Hebden Bridge Picture House and its director, writer and star, Jessica Hynes was interviewed by the festival director Louise Wadley following the screening. Like many, the prospect of a Jessica Hynes project fills me with glee. From Spaced to the increasingly prescient Up the Women, Hynes has cultivated a career of much-loved performances and creations that have embedded her in a core comedy clan that has dominated the most popular British telly. Hynes’ journey from The Royale Family to Twenty Twel ..read more
Visit website
Review: CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019)
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
Oh captain, my captain! If you remember my Black Panther (2018) review this time last year, I was bemoaning the Marvel malaise we seemed to be experiencing – hinting that both Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok (2017) were examples of the MCU’s power-that-be making bolder choices to resurrect a thudding, great giant of a franchise. Thankfully, this year’s Captain Marvel (2019) is a continuation of that new direction, with two indie film director-writers helming the project, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Their notable effort, Half Nelson (2006), though not loved by me, sealed their reputation ..read more
Visit website
Review: GIRL (2018) [Leeds International Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
Viewed as part of Leeds International Film Festival and showing at the UK’s leading celebration of LGBTQ+ films, BFI Flare in March is Girl, a film which I have thought about often since first seeing it late last year. Gathering acclaim at Cannes Film Festival and picking up awards along the way, it was a must-see, especially for those desperate to see more queer stories told on screen. The critical success of another cis director’s output, Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman (2017) was seen as a chance to usher in more trans stories, and did much for the cause of casting trans actors in t ..read more
Visit website
Review: ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (2018) [Leeds International Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
It takes a lot for me to get excited about zombie films. As a fledging horror fan that’s a bit picky, the genre of the undead has yet to take hold of me with its teeth bared. Once you’ve seen George A. Romero’s iconic zombie apocalyse movies, especially Night of the Living Dead (1968), many fail to seem like a rehash or another off-colour resurrection, with occasional exceptions (see The Girl With All the Gifts (2016) on Amazon Prime!) over the years. Shin’ichirô Ueda, the writer-director of Japan’s seventh highest grossing film of 2017, One Cut of the Dead, with its knowing nod to Romero’s ..read more
Visit website
Review: BEAUTIFUL BOY (2019) [Leeds International Film Festival]
Film Reviews
by Evangeline Spachis
4y ago
The latest Timothée Chalamet film was always going to be a big draw on the festival circuit, particularly at the Leeds International Film Festival, where Call Me By Your Name (2017) on the previous year’s programme, became a quick fan favourite. A sold-out audience for Beautiful Boy (2018) at the Vue at The Light might have been disappointed to not see another Steve Carell comedy (viewers of the haunting Foxcatcher in 2014 will know Carell can do much more than feel-good and gross-out), but instead got a well-meaning, but ultimately mediocre family drama. Beautiful Boy, directed by Felix Van ..read more
Visit website

Follow Film Reviews on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR