CarolineStafford
Spoiler Alert Review
Spoiler Alert: stories of good men dying young will always make you cry, but sometimes they can leave audiences looking for more. It feels oddly harsh to critique Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert as it is based on a true story of the same name, written by Michael Ausiello. It tells the story of how he lost his husband to cancer, and follows their relationship from its inception, through their gro...
TÁR Review
Cate Blanchett is note perfect as the lead in Todd Field’s much anticipated drama Tár, but is it a film that is too wrapped up in itself to appeal to the average Joe? Tár tells us the haunting story of titular Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), a conductor on the verge of her biggest achievement, and potentially her own undoing. The “Maestro” (Tár) is the severe and demanding conductor of the Berlin orc...
What’s Love Got to Do With It? Review
I’m not too sure about you, but it has been a very long time since I thoroughly enjoyed a modern rom-com, but What’s Love Got to Do with It? certainly broke that streak. What’s Love’s director Shekar Kapur takes a clichéd rom-com formula and many over-done tropes, that have historically centred on white characters, and attempts to reframe them for a modern multicultural audience. While at times au...
A Man Called Otto Review
You don’t need to have read the book (A Man Called Ove) or seen the original film adaptation in Swedish to be, frankly, underwhelmed by A Man Called Otto. This new adaptation had the same emotive storyline that tugs on the heartstrings, but the americanisation makes it a tad more… bland. It is based on the heartwarming story of an elderly widowed curmudgeon Ove (renamed ‘Otto’ and played by Tom Ha...
The Banshees of Inisherin Review
Welcome to a beautifully bizarre exploration of a souring male friendship brought to a comedic and melancholy end point – you’ve arrived at The Banshees of Insherin. Banshees is the latest offering from writer-director Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, 2018), who brings back the stars of his 2008 debut In Bruges, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, to create this deli...
Emily Review
My love for this movie “resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary”, to quote Emily Brontë’s most famous work Wuthering Heights. Emily, directed by Andrew Dominik, spins us a creative interpretation of the titular author’s short life and the deeply personal motivations behind her most famous work. Emily, portrayed by Emma Mackey (Maeve in Sex Education) ...
Bones and All Review
Definitely do not have meat for dinner if you’re going to see the new coming of age thriller Bones and All, directed by Luca Guadagnino. Set in the 1980s Midwest, it is an adaptation of a novel with the same name by Camille DeAngelis. It follows two beautiful and oddly relatable young cannibals as they seek out the secrets of their pasts that lay hidden across a myriad backroads of the Midwest, a...
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris Review
There are films that make you cry with happiness, some that make you cry with joy – but when seeing Mrs Harris Goes to Paris I cried from the rich visual beauty of an imagined look in to Dior’s 1950’s workroom. When it feels like every film nowadays is a reimagining of a superhero comic, dripping with rage and lashings of machine gun fire – Mrs Harris Goes to Paris feels a bit frivolous and out of...
Black Adam Review
Black Adam promised very little, but delivered surprisingly more than we bargained for. There was a lot of buzz surrounding Warner Bros’ new offering from the DC pantheon and most of it was sadly not very good. Despite a very patient die hard fandom aching for the film’s release, rumours rippled that the only things that viewers would actually enjoy were a banging soundtrack curated by Lorne Balfe...
Ticket to Paradise Review
Ticket to Paradise promises escapism, tropical paradise and a return to the Roberts/Clooney era of big blockbuster films. While upon first glance, it might look like a cliché tropical romance curated for the ‘mum’ crowd looking to while away two blissful hours imagining staring into George Clooney’s big brown eyes, (or hey, Julia Roberts’ too, its 2022), and well… it is. Our heroine Lilly (Kaitly...
Bodies Bodies Bodies Review
I’m not really too sure what I went in expecting from Bodies Bodies Bodies, the much anticipated new film from director Halina Reijn and A24 Films, but it wasn’t quite this. Billed as a horror-comedy, reviews ran that this painfully Gen-z slasher was going to herald a new wave of woke, self-reflective, gore filled romps; and while it is all of things, it leaves a lot to be desired. Beginning in a...
Where the Crawdads Sing Review
Based on the best selling 2019 novel of the same name, Where the Crawdads Sing, directed by Olivia Newman, is a magical and muddy modern fairytale of a beaten down woman triumphing over her oppressors in 1950s North Carolina. It weaves a captivating, although heavy handed at times, story of romance, coming of age and murder mystery that will leave you wistfully yearning for the lawless freedom of ...