R 18+, 99 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury It doesn’t quite capture its original French title, L’Evenement meaning the event, but if the name this new film is known by in English has a vaguely inconsequential air to it, a note…
PG, 136 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury The new film from Apichatpong Weerasthakul, is a big step for the celebrated indie director. Filmed in the cities, villages and mountains of Colombia, with a cast of English and Spanish-speaking actors and Tilda Swinton…
M, 95 minutes 5 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury When a portrait by a Spanish master went missing in 1961 from the National Gallery in London, it could only mean one thing. Master thieves at work. Whoever it was who was responsible for…
M, 95 minutes 3 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury The relationship between fathers and sons is closely observed in this low-key family drama set in Northern Ireland. It broaches the difficult subject of preparing for bereavement while protecting the innocent. It’s a sad…
M, 102 minutes 3 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Who could have foreseen that the talented Ivan Sen would set his heart on making a science fiction romance in Hong Kong? The writer-director, who made a name for himself with Indigenous stories set under…
MA 15+, 82 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury It’s going to be a challenge for the rest of us when a filmmaker says he finds it hard to say in a few concise sentences what his film is about. Friends and…
M, 113 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Ask any writer. Who wouldn’t love to spend weeks on end at work at a writer’s retreat, especially a writer’s retreat that had established cred as the former home of a great artist?…
M, 107 minutes 3 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Details of the family life of a titan of modern philosophy may hold some surprises for those of us who only know Karl Marx as the author of the original…
M, 84 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury This simple and effectively titled film is drawn from events in a small village in rural eastern Europe. A part of the world from where some of the best jams and condiments come. Next time…
M, 110 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury The modest but impressive oeuvre of American filmmaker Mike Mills often handles the small things in life best, the things that for many come to matter most. It speaks…
MA 15+, 179 minutes 5 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Not without good reason, they say the short story is a perfect foundation for a screenplay. Not too much material to translate to screen, with enough scope for the filmmaker to…
R 18+, 131 minutes 3 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury The story of a lesbian affair inside a 17th century convent told by the director of Basic Instinct may be a match made in heaven for those who want to see…
M, 101 minutes 2 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Whether or not there’s such a spirited critique to make of the wealthy and highly successful South Asian diaspora in the US, this jaunty social satire from Geeta Malik is clearly an…
M, 123 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury There is a moment in the latest richly textured melodrama from writer-director, Pedro Almodovar, when its glamorous star stands at the sink in a plain white t-shirt with a feminist message as she…
It’s fascinating to see how countries that were enemies during world wars last century, countries like the US and Japan, Britain and Germany, were closely linked on certain levels beforehand. It makes you think
M, 97 minutes 3 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Two nameless men, a pack of wild dogs and a scorpion make bare essentials in this minimalist survival drama set in the middle of nowhere. Other characters who appear…
M, 104 minutes 5 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury Every now and then, a film comes along that lands its points perfectly, in one fell swoop. The number of films and television series that have been mounted about the plight of refugees…
As the first Kingsman movie opened eight years ago, the filmmakers were suggesting that it might fill the space that Bond was relinquishing. Maybe then, but not anymore.
M, 79 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury It may not be the right year, or the real chef, or the exact historical moment when public dining rooms opened in France, but do we really mind? When this delectable gastronomy comedy gets so…
MA15+, 128 minutes 4 Stars Review by © Jane Freebury The worst person in the world is not as bad as it sounds, just a gently ironic and self-deprecating reference to an expression apparently common in Scandinavia for admitting you could…