The theatre impresario was so stung by the dismal film that he became a dog lover – but he mustn’t let this give him any ideasNow that the dust is starting to settle, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Cats caused Covid. Think about it. All the …
Mass: the movie that dares to explore the unimaginable pain of school shootings
The devastating drama, by writer-director Fran Kranz, bridges the depressing familiarity and unthinkable grief of mass shootings in the US by focusing on the personalIt’s understandable if your first question of the movie Mass, set six years in the aft…
Why on earth is Angelina Jolie in Marvel’s Eternals?
No one is more suited to playing a godlike otherworldly creature. Yet no one, surely, needs this kind of movie less. Unless…There is something going on with Eternals, Oscar winner Chloé Zhao’s debut dip into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps it’s …
Quick on the draw: Jeymes Samuel on remaking the western
Even Covid couldn’t stop the British film-maker reimagining the American genre – with one of the starriest Black casts imaginableIf you want to know who’s hot in Hollywood, have a look at the lineup for righteous and rowdy new western The Harder They F…
Fever Dream review – a beautiful and bonkers future cult classic
Director Claudia Llosa returns to form with a woozy work about a cosy domesticity in rural Argentina shattered by uncanny intrudersAfter making high-arthouse awards-magnet The Milk of Sorrow in her native Peru in 2009, director Claudia Llosa stumbled i…
I made a film that’s designed to be lost – and that’s not so different from Netflix | Charlie Shackleton
The Afterlight is a collage of fragments with a single 35mm print – but it has more in common with digital media than the illusion of instant access suggestsFor as long as there have been films, there have been lost films. Tens if not hundreds of thous…
Courage in a crisis: how everyday citizens coped with Covid across the world
In a new Netflix documentary, the stories of activists and volunteers who stepped up to help during an impossible time are celebratedThe film-makers behind Convergence: Courage in a Crisis set out to make a documentary on the pandemic, not politics. Bu…
Father of the Cyborgs review – the Indiana Jones of neuroscience
This film exploring the ideas of Dr Phil Kennedy, who had an electrode implanted in his brain, throws up interesting prospects for the human futureDr Phil Kennedy is regarded by many as the Indiana Jones of neuroscience: a Limerick-born doctor who beca…
The Harder They Fall review – Idris Elba rides into trouble in garishly violent western
Jeymes Samuel’s gonzo revenge western, with a cast including Elba, Regina King, and Zazie Beetz is enjoyable, if face-splatteringly brutalThe London film festival saddles up for a gonzo revenge western which aims to reclaim the often erased African Ame…
‘People of colour were less than human’: how The Harder They Fall redefines the western
Directed by London-born Jeymes Samuel, the movie with an all-black cast and strong female characters was always going to be unique, but the experience was also shaped by CovidFrom John Wayne’s toe-to-heel walk to Clint Eastwood’s trademark squint, the …