Dream Horse (PG) In these dark times we need a ‘pick me up’ film to revive our spirits – this is it. They say nobody can celebrate like the Irish. Is that because we win less things than the bigger nations? As such it means more. After seeing this wistful elegy to an affectionate…
One of the ironies of the coronavirus (Covid-19) virus is that at a time when we really need films to give us some escape from the crisis unfolding around us, we can’t go to cinemas. I mentioned the New Faith Network a fortnight ago. Another option is Netflix. Many of you may already have access…
In these strange times when people can’t get to the cinema I thought it might be an idea to let you know of an American channel where you can watch Christian films at a low cost. It’s called the New Faith Channel and you can join up for $5.95 a month, or the euro equivalent.…
Vivarium (15A) Excellent ***** Like all great science fiction films, suspension of disbelief is key to the immersion in the plot that’s demanded here – and richly achieved. We enter the seventh circle of hell and accept it because, hey, that’s just the way things are. So when Tom and Gemma, a house-seeking couple,…
Radioactive (15A) Camille Paglia once said: “There’s no female Mozart because there’s no female Jack the Ripper.” The comment was inaccurate but typical of her penchant for sensationalism. (I liked Julie Birchill’s comment: “The ‘g’ is silent in Paglia. It’s the only thing about her that is.”) Something else that’s often said to be…
Dark Waters (PG) There are two ways of looking at a film like this, which is based on fact. On the one hand you commend Todd Haynes for resisting the temptation to give it a ‘wow’ factor, i.e. the obligatory scene in the underground car park where the hero’s life is threatened. Or when he…
Jihad Jane (PG) The title of this engrossing documentary was the name given to a blonde, blue-eyed Texan woman called Colleen LaRose. She herself appears to have been the first person to use it. That fact led to many of her problems. She was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in 2009 for a plot to kill…
Richard Jewell (15) You’ve got to hand it to Clint Eastwood – at 89 years old, he’s still churning out great films. I’d never heard of Richard Jewell before seeing this. In July 1996, the overweight security guard noticed a suspicious-looking knapsack under a bench at Atlanta’s Olympic Games. It turned out to contain a bomb.…
Just Mercy (12A) In 1987, an innocent African American man called Walter McMillan (Jamie Foxx) was sentenced to death for the murder of an 18-year-old girl in Alabama. He was convicted on nothing more than the false evidence of criminal Ralph Myers (Tim Blake Nelson) who was offered a commutation of his sentence for furnishing…
Cinemas usually experience the celluloid equivalent of haemophilia at this time of year, either due to ritualistic hibernation, post-festive lethargy and/or the sedentary hangover of a Yuletide addiction to television. To draw patrons away from the sofas to which they seem to become almost surgically attached over the 12 days of Christmas – if not…