My Pure Land

There are over 1 million outstanding land disputes awaiting judgement in the courts of modern day Pakistan. I suspect that this is in part a legacy of partition. Here director Sarmad Masud (from Nottingham no less) examines one which stems from a contested inheritance and is particularly unusual in that it pitches a mother and…

Blade Runner 2049

Boy was I looking forward to this. The ingredients were all in place. Director Denis Villeneuve with an impressive track record including last year’s extraordinary Arrival, has recruited top cinematographer Roger Deakins to recreate and update the trademark noir cityscape of Ridley Scott’s original masterpiece. Hans Zimmer came on board to sculpt an impressive soundtrack…

Goodbye Christopher Robin

I don’t know if it was the sad news about the sudden and untimely death of Al’s husband or the even more devastating news that young David had finally lost his tenacious fight against muscular distrophy, but I felt in a very fragile state before seeing this film. It’s lyrical and elegiac qualities evoked the…

Borg v McEnroe

Well, physically Sverrir Gudnason made a very plausible doppelgänger for Bjorn Borg. He was also convincing in capturing many of his tennis mannerisms. Not only that but his depiction of the Swede’s ice cool public persona with bucketfuls of OCD certainly contained enough of the necessary brooding intensity. So 15 Love. However for me the…

Wind River

Taylor Sheridan adds to his growing reputation here. This is the third of his ‘borders’ trilogy following the exceptional Sicario and Hell or High Water, which was my film of the year for 2016. On those films he was content to write the screenplays but here he adds directing to the mix. Of the three…