6 years ago
Queen of Katwe
At nine, Phiona Mutesi was selling corn by the roadside in Katwe – the largest slum in Kampala, Uganda. Now 20, she sits in a swanky hotel in Toronto, …
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6 years ago
All the Presidents’ Films
Let us now praise famous women. In the 1964 film Kisses for the President, the camera pans across a crowd at the inauguration of a new American president, as …
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6 years ago
Deconstructing the Man-made disaster film
We can thank God for the disaster movie. In His Old Testament wrath lie the blueprints of the form – the stories that have put millions in the Hollywood …
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7 years ago
The rise of K-cinema
South Korean cinema is not just unusual. It is downright odd, in both its content and the freakish rise of the K-film industry in the last 15 years. There are …
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7 years ago
Why are movies so bad?
In 1971, Peter Bogdanovich made The Last Picture Show, his debut film, in Archer City, northern Texas. It was based on an autobiographical coming-of-age book by Larry McMurtry, who grew …
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Recent Reviews
Bad people doing bad things
Detour
Written and directed by Christopher Smith
97 minutes, rated MA 15+
3 stars
There’s no such thing as originality, but that doesn’t mean you stop aiming for it. Detour …
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An elegy for Emily D.
A Quiet Passion
Written and directed by Terence Davies
125 minutes, rated PG
4 stars
When one artist makes a film about another artist, you can be reasonably sure that …
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Kartoonish Korean ultra-violence
The Villainess
Directed by Jung Byung-gil
Written by Jung Byeong-sik and Jung Byung-gil
122 minutes, rated R
3.5 stars
The Villainess is a high-octane Korean thriller about a young woman …
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Fascinating half-true story
Monsieur Chocolat
Directed by Roschdy Zem
Written by Cyril Gely, Olivier Gorce, Gerard Noiriel and Roschdy Zem
114 minutes, rated M
4 stars
This is the fascinating true story of …
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Black and white and red
Get Out
Written and directed by Jordan Peele
104 minutes, rated MA 15+
4 stars
A guide to African–American horror films would be a slim volume. There are black people …
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Fine and brave
Don’t Tell
Directed by Tori Garrett
Written by Anne Brooksbank, Ursula Cleary, James Greville, based on a book by Stephen Roche
108 minutes, rated M
4 stars
Child abuse. …
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Gurinder’s personal Partition
Viceroy’s House
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Written by Paul Mayeda Berges, Moira Buffini and Gurinder Chadha
106 minutes, rated PG
3 stars
Where to begin with this fascinating, infuriating, entertaining …
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Pablo Neruda as fantasy
Neruda
Directed by Pablo Larrain
Written by Guillermo Calderon
Rated MA 15+, 108 minutes
4 stars
A chubby man with a comb-over (Luis Gnecco) sits bare-chested in front of a …
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