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8/10
|
Notre Dame on Fire
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is historical tragedy and nail-biting cinema blended together. It is one of the best films that Annaud has ever directed.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
|
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8/10
|
The Poseidon Adventure
(1972)
|
Grant Watson
|
When reviewed, for the benefit of 21st century moviegoers, this is a rather silly but sweet disaster flick with a lot of camp appeal. When critiqued, to better understand cinema, this really is a mold-breaking master work.
Posted Mar 06, 2023
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7/10
|
Tora-san, Wish You Were Here
(2019)
|
Grant Watson
|
For new audiences Wish You Were Here is competent but not exceptional. For the fans it is something that feels genuinely unique, and tantalisingly leaves itself open for future visits to Shibamata.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
|
|
6/10
|
The Indian Fighter
(1955)
|
Grant Watson
|
As with most pre-1960s westerns, The Indian Fighter is charming but problematic. It does mark an evolution in how the genre handled America’s first peoples from the middle of the century, but there remains a long distance to go.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
|
|
5/10
|
Empire of Light
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Empire of Light looks great, sounds great, and – if you are willing to view it entirely on a superficial level – plays like an enjoyable simulacra of other much better films.
Posted Feb 27, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Something In The Dirt
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is honestly rare to find artists whose work hits so accurately every single time.
Posted Feb 24, 2023
|
|
7/10
|
The Odd-Job Men
(2021)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is not a comedy likely to make you laugh out loud, but rather one that invites warm smiles, and a comfortable recognition of certain kinds of people and behaviour.
Posted Feb 21, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Suburban Birds
(2018)
|
Grant Watson
|
As a debut work, it is sensational, and suggests Qiu Sheng is yet another new generation Chinese director on whom to keep an expectant eye.
Posted Feb 20, 2023
|
|
3/10
|
Gamera vs. Zigra
(1971)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is the end of an era, and it is ending on the proverbial whimper.
Posted Feb 19, 2023
|
|
5/10
|
Saddle the Wind
(1958)
|
Grant Watson
|
The first act in particular strains to summon much energy beyond Cassavettes, and the second and third acts feel a bit woolly – as if nobody quite knows what the film should ultimately be about
Posted Feb 17, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Kalev
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Ove Musting’s drama Kalev is a smart, well-paced blend of sports and political drama.
Posted Feb 16, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania
(2023)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is a winning progression for Ant-Man and a wonderfully enjoyable blockbuster.
Posted Feb 15, 2023
|
|
4/10
|
The Trail Beyond
(1934)
|
Grant Watson
|
Is it good? Absolutely not, but it is an education on both Wayne and the genre that made him famous.
Posted Feb 14, 2023
|
|
6/10
|
All Na Vibes
(2021)
|
Grant Watson
|
Despite a very low budget, All Na Vibes is well shot and visually interesting. It sparks with inventive shots and framings, and belies its modest scope by hinting at a much larger world just off-screen.
Posted Feb 08, 2023
|
|
7/10
|
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a good film, that much is certain. At the same time it fails to quite match the extraordinary impact of the original Black Panther.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
|
|
6/10
|
You People
(2023)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is that ultimate of frustrations: something reasonably good that should be great.
Posted Jan 30, 2023
|
|
7/10
|
Jung_E
(2023)
|
Grant Watson
|
A well-performed, attractive, and intelligent science fiction drama, and for serious SF enthusiasts those are often thin on the ground.
Posted Jan 28, 2023
|
|
2/10
|
Stephen King's Thinner
(1996)
|
Grant Watson
|
Thinner is jaw-droppingly bad: not only weirdly amateurish but regularly offensive.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
|
|
6/10
|
The Outwaters
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
I cannot in all honesty ever imagine sitting through The Outwaters again, but I am very glad to have sat through it once. It is a wonderful experiment, and the audience that does embrace it is clearly going to embrace it hard.
Posted Jan 23, 2023
|
|
3/10
|
Black Adam
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Maybe there was a coherent film being developed at some point, but those days are long gone.
Posted Jan 20, 2023
|
|
7/10
|
Censor
(2021)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is a sensational idea of Bailey-Bonds to base her horror film around British film censorship.
Posted Jan 17, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
The Pale Blue Eye
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
The direction, production aesthetic, and performances are all top-class and make The Pale Blue Eye a tremendously enjoyable dark thriller. Watch it for the mood, and for Harry Melling’s brilliant performance.
Posted Jan 16, 2023
|
|
7/10
|
M3GAN
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is honestly more enjoyable when seen with a like-minded crowd of viewers.
Posted Jan 14, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Everything Everywhere All at Once
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Rarely has a film’s title reflected its contents so well. While may not include everything all at once, it does boasts a range of genre approaches stacked on top of one another and blended into a variety of combinations.
Posted Jan 11, 2023
|
|
3/10
|
Tentacles
(1977)
|
Grant Watson
|
As Jaws‘ Mayor Vaughn might say, ‘you yell “barracuda”, everybody says “huh? what?” You yell ‘octopus’… everybody probably still says ‘huh? what?’
Posted Jan 08, 2023
|
|
10/10
|
Incantation
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is far and away the best horror feature in what has been an excellent year.
Posted Jan 06, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Speak No Evil
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is a slow-building, relentlessly threatening piece of horror.
Posted Jan 05, 2023
|
|
3/10
|
The Almond and the Seahorse
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
I watched The Almond and the Seahorse (the title gets explained) with the best of hopes for it. It covers important territory and sparks worthwhile discussions. That the film itself flounders and fails is hugely disappointing.
Posted Jan 04, 2023
|
|
8/10
|
Beijing Bicycle
(2001)
|
Grant Watson
|
Even more than 20 years on, it is an exceptional film.
Posted Jan 04, 2023
|
|
9/10
|
Nope
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Nope continues Peele’s winning streak of smart, surprising, and hugely effective thrillers.
Posted Jan 03, 2023
|
|
7/10
|
Testament
(1983)
|
Grant Watson
|
There is a fantastic intimacy to Testament, one that separates it from its contemporaries. The rural setting and geographical distance from any explosions create an eerily quiet and more insidious apocalypse.
Posted Jan 02, 2023
|
|
4/10
|
Strange World
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is the worst kind of disappointing film: one that never needed to be.
Posted Jan 01, 2023
|
|
6/10
|
7 Women and a Murder
(2021)
|
Grant Watson
|
While a little disappointing, it would be a stretch to call it bad. At less than 90 minutes in length, 7 Women and a Murder is never at risk of outstaying its welcome, and indeed acts as a pleasant diversion for an evening
Posted Dec 30, 2022
|
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9/10
|
The Banshees of Inisherin
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
What ultimately pushes it for me from good to great is that sensational undercurrent of the uncanny: the strange behaviour, the sudden punctums of violence, along with the constant growing threat of it.
Posted Dec 24, 2022
|
|
7/10
|
Bodies Bodies Bodies
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Watching them try to cope with this unfolding And Then There We None set-up is like watching The Lord of the Flies populated by a cast of narcissistic incompetents.
Posted Dec 21, 2022
|
|
7/10
|
Save the Tiger
(1973)
|
Grant Watson
|
The film is a meticulously painted portrait of a deeply flawed human being, and through it finds something to say about the growing cynicism and bleak reality of 1970s America.
Posted Dec 19, 2022
|
|
8/10
|
Dive
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is an excellent feature, and a story powerfully told.
Posted Dec 19, 2022
|
|
7/10
|
Moonage Daydream
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Brett Morgen’s David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream boasts a pitch-perfect technique in eulogising the iconic pop star’s life and art.
Posted Dec 15, 2022
|
|
8/10
|
Yearning
(1964)
|
Grant Watson
|
It punches well above its weight in terms of personal drama, social commentary, and entertainment value.
Posted Dec 14, 2022
|
|
4/10
|
Orca
(1977)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is a ham-fisted and ironic delight.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
|
|
8/10
|
Blanquita
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Blanquita is a powerful and disturbing work.
Posted Dec 09, 2022
|
|
8/10
|
She Said
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
We will miss this kind of quality adult cinema when it is gone.
Posted Dec 01, 2022
|
|
6/10
|
The Three Musketeers
(1948)
|
Grant Watson
|
This is breezy, competent fare for a Sunday afternoon: entertaining, but undistinguished.
Posted Nov 30, 2022
|
|
5/10
|
The Spine of Night
(2021)
|
Grant Watson
|
It is a rare thing for a film to impress and disappoint at the same time, but that is certainly the case with The Spine of Night.
Posted Nov 28, 2022
|
|
2/10
|
Eye for an Eye
(1996)
|
Grant Watson
|
Crass, manipulative, and deeply insincere, it is a marvel that it received a theatrical release at all. It is entirely impossible to recommend.
Posted Nov 28, 2022
|
|
7/10
|
Psycho
(1998)
|
Grant Watson
|
If Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s widely celebrated thriller Psycho (1960) is not one of the most unfairly maligned features of its decade, then it must surely be one of the least-well understood.
Posted Nov 28, 2022
|
|
4/10
|
Moonfall
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
The problem with Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall is not that it is silly; we have all come to terms with the ridiculous nature of his disaster pictures a long time ago. The problem is that it is rather boring.
Posted Nov 08, 2022
|
|
10/10
|
Catherine Called Birdy
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Whether or not you enjoy Catherine Called Birdy will, as always, come down to personal taste, but it is difficult to imagine a film with this subject matter and this style being made better than writer/director Lena Dunham has already done.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
|
|
5/10
|
Lightyear
(2022)
|
Grant Watson
|
Anything interesting about the character has been stripped from him, and what is left is a by-the-numbers science fiction film with a plot already mined out by generations of earlier movies.
Posted Nov 02, 2022
|
|
8/10
|
The Founder
(2016)
|
Grant Watson
|
Thanks to a strong, character-focused script by Robert Siegel (The Wrestler) and engaging performances across the board, it all turns out to be pretty riveting stuff.
Posted Nov 01, 2022
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