“Tennis is a relationship,” says Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) in director Luca Guadagnino’s new film Challengers. However, this relationship is not simply between the game and the player. Rather the heart of tennis, and perhaps of all competition, is a three-way relationship between two contestants and a third person. Their presence, and observation, is what gives… Continue reading Challengers: Luca Guadagnino’s tennis film reviewed by an expert in the psychology of competition
In a cinematic landscape often dominated by grim superheroes and CGI-laden extravaganzas, director David Leitch’s latest creation, “The Fall Guy,” emerges as a refreshing throwback to the heyday of action comedy. Drawing inspiration from the cult 80s television series, this film promises audiences a rollicking adventure filled with old-school stunts and comedic charm. At its… Continue reading The Fall Guy: A Retro Blast of Action Comedy in Modern Cinema
Horror fans will know that any slasher film post 1990’s is trying to be Scream or Halloween, and those are tough acts to follow. When The Strangers hit the screen in 2008, it felt like somewhat of a fresh take on the slasher genre, and although it wasn’t universally loved, critics have since gone on to… Continue reading The Strangers: Chapter 1 – A genuine horror or a feeble attempt to revamp a cult classic?
Fresh from All of Us Strangers(2023), Andrew Scott plays the title role in Netflix’s new series Ripley, a miniseries based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. News publisher Out claimed Scott’s Ripley for gayness. However, Scott’s own aspirations are more ambiguous, saying “he’s a queer character, in the sense that he’s very… Continue reading Is Andrew Scott’s Ripley mesmerising or charmless – exactly as Patricia Highsmith wrote him
The filmmakers behind Love Lies Bleeding (director Rose Glass and her co-writer Weronika Tofilska) are, as Glass describes “obviously … both film nerds”. The film has a broad archive of references ranging from the works of influential queer filmmaker John Waters to The Incredible Hulk (2008). A neo-noir, queer crime thriller, Love Lies Bleeding also… Continue reading Love Lies Bleeding Review: this vengeful queer romance is a visceral cinematic experience
The film, directed by Mark Mylod, known for producing and directing the acclaimed series Succession, satirises the culture of high-end dining. From the perspective of our combined expertise in food and literary studies and sexuality studies, we’re interested in how the film asks us to consider what’s left when even the most fundamental bodily pleasures are turned into… Continue reading The Menu review: delve into foodie snobbery when you’re dying for a cheeseburger
Every genre film is engaged – as self-aware genre pastiches like the Scary Movie (2000) and Scream (1996) franchises cannily acknowledge – in a conversation with its predecessors. The western, the longest-lived of all major genres, has been commenting on and reworking its own traditions since the silent era. Director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar’s new… Continue reading Strange Way of Life review: Pedro Almodóvar’s 30-minute queer western is a tender miniature
Never one to downplay the power of film, Stanley Kubrick once said that “almost every novel could be successfully adapted”. He carried this confidence into his own filmmaking, working not from original screenplays, but from adaptations of novels as different as William Makepeace Thackeray’s historical romp Barry Lyndon (1844) and Vladimir Nabokov’s erotic fantasy Lolita (1955). Even Kubrick, however, allowed for the possibility… Continue reading White Noise review: director Noah Baumbach skilfully captures Don Delillo’s ‘unadaptable’ novel
Nothing about The Green Knight, the new film from director David Lowery, is comfortable. From its opening scene, where Gawain (Dev Patel) sits in an empty throne room, a crown menacingly hovering above his head as flames suddenly engulf him, this film is wonderfully unsettling. The Green Knight is a reimagining of the Middle English… Continue reading The Green Knight review: a wonderfully unsettling cinematic reimagining of the medieval story of Sir Gawain
Director Rachel Lambert’s sweet and sedate film Sometimes I Think About Dying frames suicidal thoughts as a strategy for survival. In the film, introverted office worker Fran (Daisy Ridley) takes solace in increasingly elaborate, surreal and aesthetic fantasies of her own death, including hanging from a crane, lying dead in the woods and being attacked… Continue reading Sometimes I Think About Dying Review: finally, a film about women’s mental health without the cliches
