If the global pandemic has got you down, and the thought of Hollywood Heavyweight Russell Crowe using a flip phone and minivan to terrorise a young divorcee and her son puts a smile on your face, then have I got a film for you. From the writer of 2005’s Red Eye, Carl Ellsworth, comes a…

Dave and his German Shepherd Tilly are taking a walk together one rainy English day when they cross paths with Fern and her little terrier Henry. Fern scolds Dave for not having Tilly on a lead despite his dog posing no threat. Problem is he doesn’t have a lead. That’s their first walk. They meet…

When a seriously ill teenager falls for a small-time drug dealer, her parents disapprove. However, she soon finds a new lust for life from her blossoming romance. OK, so this is a premise we’ve seen many times at the movies, but there is something so real about the way Babyteeth unfolds and answers any prickly…

Don’t come here looking for an Ocean’s 11 style heist action comedy – instead luxuriate in the slow burn of this slinky “Hitchcock-eque” thriller that sees tremendous performances play out in a to-die-for location. Mick Jagger plays a small but pivotal role in The Burnt Orange Heresy as Joseph Cassidy, a wealthy art collector who…

  Cate Blanchett is a force to be reckoned with under any circumstances. Put her in a film based on a best-selling novel helmed by Oscar nominated director Richard Linklater and you’d think you were onto a winner. But according to Rotten Tomatoes, this film misses the mark, and while I agree it does stumble…

All I know about Pete Davidson is that “he was briefly engaged to Ariana Grande for 5 months” and “featured on Saturday Night Live”. So, in his semi-autobiographical film The King of Staten Island, which he co-wrote, and also stars in as Scott Carlin, it’s hard to know what is fact and what is fiction….

Touted as the “most controversial film of the year that nobody’s seen”, The Hunt has faced numerous obstacles to finding an audience. Firstly, this violent black horror comedy about 12 strangers who wake up in a field to discover they are the targets of a group of “liberal elites” hunting them for sport, was pulled…

You might know Shia LaBeouf from his 3 Transformers films between 2007 and 2011 or his subsequent 2017 arrest for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and obstruction. Zac, his brilliant co-Star in The Peanut Butter Falcon which was filming at the time told him to pull his head in, and, while on a 10 week court…

Mel Gibson and Sean Penn are multiple Oscar winners, so you’d back their ability to spot a premium project when they see one. The Professor and the Madman has all the hallmarks of an Oscar-worthy production, in an incredible true story about the difficult birth of the Oxford Dictionary based on the 1998 book by…

Imagine waking up to find to a pistol crudely bolted to each of your hands. Makes using a phone, toilet or doorknob pretty tricky. This is the challenge faced by Daniel Radcliffe’s character Miles in the video game worshipping schlock film Guns Akimbo from Kiwi writer/director Jason Lei Howden. In this, the follow up to…

At school I found studying Jane Austen too difficult. Her use of language was impenetrable to me and sadly I was deprived of enjoying the fabulous narrative of her famous prose. I’m fortunate to have a 12-year-old daughter with whom I sat through 2020’s Emma.  A cautionary tale against behaving badly that’s just as relevant…

Clint Eastwood experienced the second lowest ever opening of his career when Richard Jewell released in the US against Jumanji: The Next Level in mid-December 2019. It is shame because, despite a rough first hour or so where the veteran director seems to be working overtime to make this true story seem entirely unbelievable, Richard…