Sometimes a movie comes along and meets its moment, transcending its innate flaws to feel more important, more powerful than it may have been perceived otherwise. In The Heights, the long-awaited film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton Tony Award-winner, initially had a Summer 2020 release date, but now lands at a time where we’ve suffered... Continue Reading →
Based on his semi-autobiographical and groundbreaking play, filmmaker Rodrigo Bellott’s Tu Me Manques became Bolivia’s official International Feature Film Oscar entry. Roughly translating to “I miss you in me”, the film tells the story of Jorge (Oscar Martínez), who travels to New York following his gay son Gabriel’s suicide to atone for how he treated... Continue Reading →
Guy Ritchie's latest, Wrath of Man, based on the 2004 French thriller Le convoyeur, stars action man Jason Statham as H ("like the bomb, or Jesus H") a new employee at an armoured truck company, Fortico, that transports millions of dollars in cash around Los Angeles each day. He joins the firm two months after... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Nikole Beckwith's Together Together, which world premiered at Sundance where it was in the running for the festival's Grand Jury Prize, refreshes the rom-com genre by placing a mellow and touching odd couple platonic friendship at its centre (a plat-com). As the film opens we meet twenty-something Anna (Patti Harrison), a coffee shop barista... Continue Reading →
As writer-director Oliver Hermanus' Moffie opens in Apartheid South Africa in 1981, Nicholas (Kai Luke Brümmer) has just turned 16 making him, along with all other white men of his age, eligible for mandatory military service at a time when the country is engaged in a military operation at the border with Soviet-backed Angola in... Continue Reading →
As someone who has lived in Manhattan throughout the pandemic, the black and white shots of the vacant city streets and landmarks which open David Wexler's Disintegration Loops—world premiering at SXSW Online 2021—struck me as one of the most evocative works I've seen so far that captures a sense of what being here was like... Continue Reading →
Some filmmakers start out small and dream of hitting the big time with a major studio contract. Once they’ve reached that pinnacle, which would no doubt have included great compromise and a whittling away of their authentic voices, some dream of scaling back and making a little indie. Take the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony,... Continue Reading →
Often films with a message are so busy driving that message home that they become one-note. Rūrangi, which plays this month's virtual 35th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, doesn’t fall into that trap. By placing this transgender homecoming tale into a broader, intersectional context of identity—gender, sexual, cultural—it rises above them to become a... Continue Reading →
Tunde Johnson is a normal 17 year old boy. He’s Black; he’s gay; he loves his parents; and he’s been sleeping with the hottest guy in school, even though he’s dating Tunde’s best friend. Oh, and, no matter what he does, every night Tunde is murdered by the Los Angeles Police Department. And then he... Continue Reading →
Anna Kerrigan’s contemporary western Cowboys, which won two jury awards at last year's Tribeca, with Steve Zahn taking best actor and Kerrigan winning for her screenplay and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest for newcomer Sasha Knight, is part of the virtual 35th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival March 17-28th... Continue Reading →
