Feature Essays
The Best Films of 2018
2018 was a pretty great year for feature films. I remember saying the same thing about 2017, and it's true: it really seems to me ...
REVIEW: Pink and Gray (2016)
In the opening moments of Pink and Gray, a new film by director Ikao Yukisada, we watch a young woman lead a contemporary dance troupe. At the same time an impeccably well dressed young man in an expensive apartment climbs onto a stool, wraps a rope around his neck and hangs himself. A friend arrives and ...
REVIEW: The Mad Monk (1993)
As punishment for his pranks and mis-steps, Dragon Fighter Luohan (Stephen Chow) is sent down to Earth to be re-incarnated as a human. He is tasked with saving the souls of three people: one an unrepentant sex worker (Maggie Cheung), one a feeble-minded beggar (Anthony Wong), and the third a bullying villain (Kirk Wong). The ...
REVIEW: The River Wild (1994)
Gail Hartman (Meryl Streep) is a retired white water rafter who returns to Idaho's Salmon River to show her husband Tom (David Strathairn) and son Roarke (Joseph Mazzello) an important part of her youth - and, hopefully, to heal her increasingly fractured marriage. Gail's hopes are shattered when a pair of fellow rafters (Kevin Bacon ...
REVIEW: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
Disaffected commercials director Toby Grisoni (Adam Driver) walks off the location shoot of his latest commercial when he realises he is close to the Spanish hilltop village where he shot his first ever film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Hoping to reconnect with his non-actor cast, he finds the beautiful Angelica (Joana Ribeiro) is missing ...
REVIEW: Villain (2010)
Villain, a Japanese drama directed by Lee Sang-il, is a curious experience. It's about the murder of a young woman along a country road, although its focus is very much on those still-living who are affected by her death. At no point is the identity of the killer ever in doubt, indeed we spent the ...
REVIEW: Shazam! (2019)
14 year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) keeps running away from foster homes while searching for the mother who lost him when he was a young child. Magically abducted by the wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), he gains the ability to transform into a muscular, super-powered adult (Zachari Levi) whenever he says the wizard's name. What, honestly, ...
REVIEW: Captain Marvel (2019)
Vers (Brie Larson) is a Kree warrior sent to defend her civilization from the shape-shifting aliens known as Skrulls. Captured in combat, she escapes - only to find herself on mid-1990s Earth, a planet she is shocked to discover she has visited before. Teaming up with SHIELD agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) she fights ...
