Kubo and the Two Strings

I missed this much lauded stop motion animation when it was originally released in 2017, tho’ I do remember the critical acclaim it enjoyed at the time. So I was delighted to get a chance to catch up with it on the big screen; another symptom, I guess, of the impact of COVID 19 on…

Memories of Murder

Delighted that Director Bong’s Oscar success with Parasite has meant that CJ Entertainment have decided to remaster and rerelease his previous films. Hence the chance to see this work from 2003 in which he explores the circumstances around South Korea’s first serial killer. And he does so in a way which is the very antithesis…

Saint Maud

It never ceases to amaze me just how truly weird Catholicism is. It seems to act like a magnet to the emotionally vulnerable for whom extreme religious devotion can legitimise everything from abuse and self harm, to fatal delusions of superiority. These in turn often fuel toxic behaviour patterns, where judgment and propriety are jettisoned…

Rocks

Got to be honest. This wasn’t a film I would have chosen to mark my official return to the Phoenix after the prolonged Covid break. Sitting in C18 was a challenge. Too close to the screen and too wide, meant that I really struggled with my varifocals. But I was pleasantly surprised at the sensitivity…

Les Miserables

“There are no bad plants or bad men, just bad cultivators”. This gnomic quote from Victor Hugo’s source novel closes Ladj Ly’s modern day version, which is set in the same Parisian suburb. The claustrophobic, rat infested tenement slums haven’t gone they’ve just morphed into monstrous high rise projects and the inhabitants are just as…