Wyatt Garfield/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Resurrection (2022)
At first glance, “Resurrection” looks to be a thriller about a woman confronting the reappearance of her former abuser. The film calls her sanity into question in a misogynistic manner, then boasts a conceited genre-shifting climax that is more noxious than clever. Following “Here Before,” “Encounter,” “False Positive” et al., this gaslighting-as-narrative-device trope is now a very troublesome trend.
Edu Grau/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Passing (2021)
The four main actors are some of the best-looking currently working, more importantly with the acting skill to render dialogue basically unnecessary, and yet “Passing” is a bore. It should have been a tense domestic horror, since the plot revolves around a life-threatening, decades-long lie. On a sweltering day in Irene (Tessa Thompson) escapes the New York City heat in a cool hotel lobby where she spots Claire (Ruth Negga), whom she hasn’t seen since high school. Claire brings her up to her room, where they order a teapot of whiskey – this is during Prohibition – and start chatting, until Claire’s husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) interrupts. Three things become immediately clear: Claire is living as a white woman, the proudly racist John has no idea that his wife is black, and while Irene doesn’t normally pass for white herself, she can should she so choose.
The Orchard
MOVIE REVIEW
The Dinner (2017)
The third film adaptation of Herman Koch's eponymous novel (following Menno Meyjes's 2013 "Het Diner" and Ivano De Matteo's 2014 "I nostri ragazzi"), Oren Moverman's "The Dinner" indeed plays out like a European art thriller — perhaps one by Thomas Vinterberg (despite that he's Danish and Mr. Koch is Dutch).
Joe Anderson/The Orchard
MOVIE REVIEW
Christine (2016)
As people were exiting the cinema after the London Film Festival showing, the chatter all seemed to agree that Christine Chubbuck had a mental illness of some kind. That without that mental illness she would not have done what she did. But we had just spent two hours watching a film in which the chain came together, link by link, that made her decision a small step – not a giant, unexplainable leap. Do we have to hide behind mental illness because this story from 1974 feels very close now? Or is the movie by Antonio Campos so bad that it’s easy to miss the point?
MOVIE REVIEW
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Zade Rosenthal/Marvel
At some point in any hero's journey, the past will come back to haunt him or her, and so it is with Tony Stark a k a Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). His past mistake is Aldrich Killian, a slithering Guy Pearce as an ambitious genetic engineer who wants to form a partnership with Stark. Of course Tony Stark snubs him, and the seeds are planted for revenge years later.
Into the picture steps a global uber-terrorist known only as the Mandarin, played with delicious delight by Sir Ben Kingsley, who is clearly enjoying himself in the role. Stark's world is quite literally torn apart, and he begins his road to redemption and his own revenge.
The Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival
Film culture is strong in Bristol. The largest city in the south west of England is home to Aardman Animation and several other long-established production houses, and was traditionally an engine of BBC production; John Boorman once headed the Corporation’s mighty Documentary Unit from here. But these are uncertain times. The BBC is retreating to cheaper points of the compass, Aardman are cutting staff numbers, and on the fringes of the Encounters Short Film Festival, Chris Hopewell of Bristol music video producers Collision Films was downbeat about his trade as a traditional starting point for aspiring film makers: “Don’t bother,” he said. “Music video as a tool for film making has fallen by the wayside under the onslaught of YouTube.” The Google Goliath was to be the subject of much debate as the festival progressed.
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