Together movie review: lockdown love-hate
Fresh, raw, wielding physical and psychological intimacy like a shiv, this is a deeply compelling, empathetic emotional roller coaster fueled by McAvoy’s and Horgan’s intense and cutting performances.
London
The Body Fights Back documentary review: food for thought
Honest, compassionate, and very necessary, this is a provocation, a challenge to our individual and cultural preconceived notions about and neurotic relationships to food, weight, and body image.
Bank Job documentary review: culture jamming for fun and justice
Brilliantly tantalizing, bursting with creative enthusiasm and bouncy energy, this cheeky work of artistic activism is out to subvert our debt-driven economy. Who says smashing injustice can’t be fun?
The Father movie review: the quiet horror of Alzheimer’s
A deeply compassionate, deeply unnerving portrait of a man suffering from dementia and losing his grip on reality. The empathy machine of cinema has rarely been put to such uncomfortably intimate use.
Locked Down movie review: criminally awful
Ejiofor and Hathaway are game, but they’re grasping for something solid, and don’t find it. A deeply unsatisfying novelty artifact of the pandemic that fails to create a necessary sense of transgression.
“wait, aren’t you poor?”
I got an email yesterday from a reader, in response to my #LockdownDailyWalk posts, who was all, “Hey, I thought you couldn’t afford to live in the cool parts of London, what’s up?”
Small Axe: Mangrove movie review: parties and protests (LFF 2020)
A triumph. McQueen brings history to life and makes it sing with zest and passion, with a spirit that endures beyond the strife. A celebration of Black joy alongside a raging against Black oppression.
Mogul Mowgli movie review: Riz Ahmed goes home and goes big (LFF 2020)
An uneasy jolt of (pop) culture clash and assimilation angst. Unsettling and electrifying; near-nightmarish and absolutely mesmerizing. Riz Ahmed oozes sweat and rage, pride and power.
To Kid or Not to Kid and Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth documentaries review: childfree or child-bound?
Two intimate documentaries about atypical paths to parenthood — or not — invite us to re-evaluate our assumptions, expand our thinking, and be more accommodating of the full spectrum of humanity.
The Last Tree movie review: boy interrupted
An astonishingly beautiful coming-of-age story of startling specificity and intense intimacy, yet universal in its compassionate depiction of a child’s perspective dawning on mature self-awareness.
