Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

Writers: David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky Director: David Bickerstaff Featuring the masters of the English landscape, it’s no surprise that Tate Britain named their current exhibition on Turner and Constable, “Rivals and Originals”. Even with broad similarities in their chosen genre, Turner has been depicted as a ground-breaking radical, exploring new techniques. Constable has been viewed as an artist more rooted in convention. His traditional landscapes, regularly painted in his beloved Suffolk, have been read as ‘safe’ and homely, compared to Turner’s swirling maelstrom clouds. In terms of artistic reputation, it could be argued that the rebel has won the…

Writers: Marek Epstein and Agnieszka Holland Director: Agnieszka Holland Author Franz Kafka is known for dark absurdist novels of paranoia. Yet, there are reports of him moving friends to tears of mirth by reading extracts from his works. The biopic Franz, written by Marek Epstein and Agnieszka Holland and directed by the latter, embraces this duality. Franz has a conventional cradle-to-grave structure.  Franz Kafka (Idan Weiss) lives his life in the shadow of his dominating father (a superbly crass, ignorant and overbearing Peter Kurth) to the extent it is observed Kafka remained a boy who never complained; his only rebellion…

Writer and Director: Robin Norton-Hale from their stage production and the opera composed by Giacomo Puccini Opera is often perceived as an elitist form of entertainment. Yet operas are frequently staged in a radical, daring manner rather than in a traditional period setting. During the Covid lockdown the English National Opera staged Puccini’s La Bohème as a socially-distanced drive-in production and the same opera served as the basis for the rock musical Rent. In his film adaptation of La Bohème (based upon the stage production for Opera Up Close) writer and director Robin Norton-Hale aspires to be accessible rather than…

Writer and Director: Stephen Wallis The title, The Martini Shot is a term used by filmmakers for the final camera setup of the day to indicate the next shot will be one of alcohol out of a glass. This is by no means the only cinematic reference and in-joke in Stephen Wallis’s film. Like The Life of Chuck it is probable events in the film are taking place in a reality constructed by the mind of a dying man. Film director Steve (Matthew Modine) is given a terminal diagnosis and, upon advice from his therapist Dr Ehm (Morgana Robinson), decides…

Writers: Darrick Bachman, Peter Browngardt, Kevin Costello et al Director: Peter Browngardt Just in time for half term, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck join forces to save the world from an alien mutant gum threatening to turn the entire human race into possessed zombies. Anyone deploring the noisy mastication of chewing gum in public spaces will rejoice in this nihilistic attempt to eradicate this terrible habit forever. Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up is the latest movie revival for decades’ old characters that will have a big nostalgia factor for parents and grandparents even if the story itself…

Writer and Director: Vibeke Idsøe It hasn’t always gone to plan when members of the Royal Family marry outside of their ennobled state with women – always women – first hounded for daring to dream of losing their commoner status and then, in the case of Anne Boleyn, her head, while more recent members have resigned the family and their position to pursue love away from the existing strictures of royal life. And it is not just in the UK where such relationships have challenged protocol with Vibeke Idsøe dramatising the romanticised connection between Sonja Haraldsen, a spirited shop-owner’s daughter,…

Adaptor and Director: Yoshida Daihachi (from the novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui) Directed by Yoshida Daihachi (who also adapts from the novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui) Teki Cometh is a sedate film the meaning of which is so obscure that viewers can make any number of guesses and they may all be correct. Retired professor and widower Watanabe Gisuke (Nagatsuka Kyozo) leads an orderly even mundane life performing daily household chores, shopping and cooking surprisingly elaborate meals. In his professional life he generated so much respect and admiration in his students they voluntarily tend his garden and arrange for his articles to…

Director: Hideo Jojo This compelling drama, based on a novel by Tamehito Somei, depicts a society where reputations are easily trashed and secrets are impossible to keep. It portrays Japan’s welfare system as being operated from an attitude of brutal scepticism. We see claimants being hounded about their efforts to find employment and expected to seek help from family and friends before impinging upon the taxpayer. We witness the injustice of Yamada (Pistol Takehara) receiving benefits despite working for local thug Kanemoto (Masataka Kubota) while a deserving claimant is turned down. To some extent this is reminiscent of Ken Loach’s…