After the heavy lifting that The Force Awakens did to re-establish the cinematic Star Wars universe in 2015, much of the pressure was off of Rogue One. (more…)
Ben Mendelsohn
Review: SLOW WEST Is An Outsider’s View Of A Brutal American West
Writer-director John Maclean’s Slow West is like a mash up of the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson, filtered through a wry European sensibility. (more…)
Review: BLACK SEA is a 21st-Century Moby Dick with B-Movie Thrills
“I’m not going home poor!” shouts a sailor in Black Sea as he risks life and limb in the pursuit of gold. There’s an interesting subtext (that’s eventually brought to the fore) in this submarine/heist/action film about desperate men taking desperate measures to secure their futures in these times of austerity and financial uncertainty. (more…)
Starred Up Review
Starred Up (2014)
Dir: David Mackenzie
Prison’s long been a ripe setting for drama and The Prison Movie is a storied genre with many stellar entries. The past few years have seen some standouts from Europe, including the surreal Bronson from Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, and the Godfather-esque Un prophète from French visionary Jacques Audiard. You can now add the incendiary Starred Up to that list, as it’s a first rate masterpiece of the genre that delivers a cracking blow to staid senses.
Jack O’Connell gives a star-making performance as the 19 year old inmate Eric Love who’s been prematurely transferred to adult prison (“starred up” in UK slang) after a string of mostly unnamed offenses. The inhumanity of the intake system of prison is laid out in deliberate detail in the opening scenes as you begin to (more…)
Glen On Film 