LFF 2015: The Club
It’s no secret that the world’s wealthiest, tax-free organisation aka the Vatican preserves the sacrament of priesthood like it’s the Holy Grail, sending so-called disgraced priests into faraway homes in…
LFF 2015: Mountains May Depart
There’s no stopping Jia Zhangke. After his gloriously vindictive A Touch of Sin, China’s foremost filmmaker pounces back into the festival scene not with blood splatter but with fountains of…
Macbeth (2015)
Arguably Shakespeare’s most morally fucked-up play, Macbeth has enamoured some of cinema’s greatest filmmakers, from Akira Kurosawa to Orson Welles and Roman Polanski, each to their own producing dark visions of…
The Martian (2015)
We all should really know by now that, at least in Hollywood’s own mental frame of reference, if you’re stranded somewhere (whether on Earth’s terra firma or on another planet deep in…
Pan (2015)
Ten-year olds would love Joe Wright’s Pan. It makes for a perfect Saturday matinée show in a cinema swarmed with barely tempered kiddywinks, their saucer-wide eyes lapping up the giddy visual…
A Girl At My Door (2015)
Thank goodness South Korea continues to blaze world cinema by making thoughtful, engaging and complex dramas like this. Refreshingly anti-Manichean and morally ambiguous, July Jung’s debut feature A Girl At…
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
You know you’re courting controversy when your film opens with a fifteen-year old teenage girl enthusiastically exclaiming “I just had sex today. Holy shit!” like it’s a middle-finger gesture to all…
The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2015)
The first few beautifully drawn frames of The Tale of Princess Kaguya foretell that no other animation house on Earth could have crafted this work of art other than Studio…
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Dear Hollywood, at this point of your existence, you better pack your clutter away as George Miller has just rendered your inebriated action filmmaking obsolete with Mad Max: Fury Road…
The Young and Prodigious Xavier Dolan
Unless you’ve been recently binge-watching all of the hot messes involved in Hollywood’s Annual Grand Carnival of Self-Congratulatory Wankery aka the Oscars, subsequently rendering you incapable of seeing real cinematic…
White God (2015)
Just when you thought that dogs are the most infinitely lovable and devoted creatures you think they are, Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó punches through a poetic yet blistering slice of…
Inherent Vice (2015)
One of the more unforgivably brusque gripes I’ve overheard on a post-Inherent Vice screening is from someone who dares to contest Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest cinematic work. “What’s the point…
DVD: The Circle (2015)
Gay cinema never runs out of oppressive histories to tell, and Stefan Haupt’s The Circle proves this statement with clarity and eloquence. It seems ridiculous that it took so long…
Win ‘The Circle’ on DVD
If you’re sick of the awards season and would fancy yourself watching a socio-politically relevant docudrama, then watch the Swiss film The Circle by entering into this competition, which –…
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Since all your James Bonds and Jason Bournes have deprecated the spy genre into super-serious, po-faced undercover killing affairs, and the likes of Johnny English, Alex Rider, Cody Banks and those goddamned Spy…
The Moviejerk’s Best of Cinema 2014
No year is complete without a supervillain. And no, I’m not talking about Scott Rudin or North Korea. In this annus mirabilis in cinema, no one else has royally fucked-up…
A Teaser to the Best of Cinema 2014
It’s nearly the end of the year, and everyone from Sight & Sound to John Waters are each coming up with their own best films list. Hardly anyone has the…
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
As if I haven’t grumbled enough about how preposterously needless Peter Jackson’s undertaking of The Hobbit book into three gratuitously commercialised long-arse movies, the third and final instalment of the franchise The Battle…
Fulfil your golden dream of winning ‘The Golden Dream’ on DVD
Today, the 10th November, sees the release of Diego Quemada-Diez’s tough, startling and uncompromisingly realistic debut feature The Golden Dream on disc – a new addition to a long line of…
Leviathan (2014)
In a just and perfect world, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Russian opus Leviathan would sweep any imaginable award in the planet. Sure, London Film Festival has managed to distinguish its sterling cinematic…