-ProjectorMagazine-

A QUIET PLACE

Fri, 20 Jul 2018 15:16:32 +0100

★★★★
Dir:John Krasinski, (2018)

John Krasinski has directed before; Brief Interviews With Hideous Men played like a small scale gender reversed doc version of High Fidelity in which a recent break-up provokes a young woman to get to the bottom of things. The clue is in the title. Krasinski’s second, the very good and very sweet The Hollars takes a modern cinematic trope: A young man returning…

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EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 11:05:50 +0100

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!: Linklater returns to school with this free, breezy and fun slice of life…

★★★★

Dir: Richard Linklater, (2015)

The master of getting across what it’s like to be young and aimless on the big screen goes back to college in this spiritual follow-up to his stellar modern classsic Dazed and Confused. Linklater and Everybody Wants Some!! drops us at the door of a frat house with a rookie baseball player (Blake Jenner); A jock with a heart and soul. We’re quickly…

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GREEN ROOM

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 10:12:14 +0100

GREEN ROOM: A pulse pounding rock and roll horror film…

★★★★

Dir: Jeremy Saulnier, (2015)

With Blue Ruin Jeremy Saulnier made a quiet yet somehow screaming thriller. Macon Blair and his vengeful drifter slow cooked the film to near perfection and Saulnier showed the indie movie world that noir alive and well in backwater America. By letting scenes of angry contemplation and harrowing violence sit with the audience the way it sat with its…

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THE NICE GUYS

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:15:21 +0100

THE NICE GUYS: Hugely enjoyable 70s set detective comedy. Not a lot of brain but a hell of a lot of brawl…

★★★★

Dir: Shane Black, (2016)

This quick-fire 70s set buddy cop film from one of the lynch pins of the genre is a swift slapstick detective story tinged with a teeny bit of sadness; A doubly nostalgic partner in crime flick which hinges on the chemistry of its chalk and cheese leads. Ryan Gosling‘s drunky single father Holland March and Russell Crowe‘s brash and portly Jackson Healy are…

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BEFORE I WAKE

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:12:37 +0100

BEFORE I WAKE: Flanagan’s latest is not without creepiness but it fall slightly flat considering his earlier horror work.

★★★

Dir: Mike Flanagan

(2016)

Indie Horror fave Mike Flanagan delivers his first slightly average effort with this fantastical horror film about grief and loss. Before I Wake drops the potboiler tension of Oculus and Hushto head into the territory of the dream world; A common trope in classic horror but here it feels like more of a hindrance than a help for the talented film maker when a…

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MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

Thu, 30 Jun 2016 11:54:19 +0100

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL: A Sci-Fi road movie love letter to a childhood hero…

★★★★

Dir: Jeff Nichols, (2015)

The wonderful Jeff Nichols expounds on his work with Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter andMud to create a beautifully blended science fiction film which takes much from his beloved 70’s auteurs; Many have already cited the lens flare nostalgia of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and not at all unfairly. Midnight Specialis a brisk road movie…

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THE INVITATION

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 20:30:07 +0100

THE INVITATION: Come on up to the house… A slow cooked thriller at a very long simmer.

★★★

Dir: Karyn Kusama, (2015)

Karyn Kusama (director of Aeon Flux, Jennifer’s Body and Girlfight) gets back to basics with The Invitation and this intriguing script from Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi; A screenplay which looks back at some of the more infamous goings on in the hills of Hollywood when an ominous invitation to a dinner party from an ex-wife takes Will and his girlfriend, Kira to the…

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WHERE TO INVADE NEXT

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 19:27:26 +0100

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT: Moore’s most optimistic and thoughtful film in a long time…

★★★

Dir: Michael Moore, (2015)

The ever pushy, but increasingly likeable, libertarian shit stirrer turns in his most optimistic and thoughtful film in a long time; A laser sighted travelogue which takes its road-trip as an opportunity to take down and pilfer the best ideas from nations around the world with a view to shame America. Right now it seems like an idea that most people can get on…

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GOODNIGHT MOMMY

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 18:54:24 +0100

GOODNIGHT MOMMY: This cold Austrian horror film may distress but it thrills in equal measure.

★★★★

Dir: Veronika Franz & , (2015)

This cold, calculated and rather nasty but incredibly effective Austrian horror film focuses on the paranoia of twins Elias and Lukas when their mother arrives home, completely bandaged, neck-up, from facial reconstructive surgery. Susanne Wuest, the fine actress behind the swarths of cloth is subjected to many games by the somewhat neglected pair (played…

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THE GREEN INFERNO

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 18:22:48 +0100

★★

Dir: Eli Roth, (2015)

Horror whiz-kid Eli Roth might have dropped the ball more than a few times after a pretty dazzling debut. The Green Inferno expands (somewhat) on his anti tourism angle this time attacking the anti corporate, Tinder swiping, hunger striking, slacker environmentalists with very little chutzpah. Inspired by the notorious Cannibal Holocaust the splatter laden director…

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THE GIFT

Sun, 19 Jun 2016 18:25:14 +0100

THE GIFT: A little creepy surprise, handled admirably by Joel Edgerton…

★★★

Dir: Joel Edgerton

(2015)

The Australian actor/writer/director goes for the triple threat in this smarter-and-tighter-than-you-might-think psycho thriller which harks back to many schlocky 1990s star vehicles. Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hallare new in town; They move straight into their roomy, rather open modernist house in the Hollywood hills and immediately run into old school friend,…

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THE WITCH

Sat, 21 May 2016 17:34:39 +0100

THE WITCH: Robert Eggers drops a quiet chiller which will creep up to burn you weeks later…

★★★★★
Dir: Robert Eggers

(2015)

… or The VVitch,if you like, is 33-year-old director, Robert Eggers‘staggering debut. This is a horror film with hardly a jump scare in sight. A horror film which manages to loudly scratch against the grain and live quietly behind your eyelids as you lay down to sleep. A horror film where tone is the single twisted knob on the technical interface of what a…

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HIGH-RISE

Sat, 14 May 2016 20:04:43 +0100

HIGH-RISE: J.G Ballard’s unfilmable novel finally gets a home on the big screen…

★★★
Dir: Ben Wheatley

(2015)

J.G Ballard‘s “unfilmable” futuristic societal rap on the knuckles finally gets its comeuppance in Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump‘s brilliantly designed High-Rise. Wheatley’s 70s influenced pathos in film making really comes into its own here; We are shown right from the get go that things aren’t going to end well for one Dr. Laing (Tom Hiddleson) as he sits down in…

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THE SURVIVALIST

Sat, 14 May 2016 19:25:12 +0100

THE SURVIVALIST: A dark but gripping look at a terrifying future…

★★★★
Dir: Stephen Fingleton

(2015)

The Survivalist in Stephen Fingleton‘s rather green post apocalyptic debut kills to survive. After the films bleak, graphical introduction (a blue line representing diminishing oil supplies and a red line representing our earth’s population) we are thrust into a lush livid landscape spattered with blood somewhere in Ireland. Martin McCaanis our man with no…

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JUNUN

Sat, 14 May 2016 17:22:24 +0100

JUNUN: Paul Thomas Anderson picks up a digital camera in this sweet and brisk look at Shye Ben Tzur’s wonderful music…

★★★
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson

(2015)

The American master Paul Thomas Anderson documentsthe making of Junun;An album which Jonny Greenwood and Nigel Godrich helped play and record in an old fort/castle in Rajasthan with Israeli composer-singer Shye Ben Tzur. Anderson picks up his first digital film and first straight documentary with an austere but enjoyable look at a very quiet creative…

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HUSH: Mike Flanagan delivers a lean and intense survival...

Sat, 14 May 2016 16:49:36 +0100

HUSH: Mike Flanagan delivers a lean and intense survival horror…

★★★★ Dir: Mike Flanagan (2016) Stellar low budget horror favourite, Mike Flanagan, turns to a tired sub-genre and makes a cracking tension filled home invasion movie with…

QUEEN OF EARTH

Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:04:18 +0000

QUEEN OF EARTH - A brilliantly acted week by the lake with Moss and Waterston.

★★★★
Dir: Alex Ross Perry

(2015)

Last year’s Listen Up Philip was a film which certainly divided; A talky, complicated study in the life of an abrasive author and his destructive narcism which was as funny as it was bitter. With Queen of Earth writer/director Alex Ross Perry refocuses his influences through Ingmar Bergman’s sensibility, Roman Polanski‘s claustrophobia and Brian De Palma’s knac…

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HAIL, CAESAR!

Wed, 24 Feb 2016 18:19:54 +0000

Review: HAIL, CAESAR! - One of the Coen’s oddest pictures continues to nag at us… in a good way.

★★★★
Dir: Joel & Ethan Coen

(2015)

American legends Joel and Ethan Coen have hardly put a foot wrong since their first family and friends funded noir Blood Simple. Their fiercely independent spirit and single-minded vision has really only wavered slightly with even their most die-hard fans with the slightly average one two of Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. They silenced doubters after…

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BONE TOMAHAWK

Tue, 23 Feb 2016 14:42:48 +0000

BONE TOMAHAWK: S. Craig Zahler’s dusty trail horror flick is worth your time but maybe not your flesh.

★★★
Dir: S. Craig Zahler

(2015)

Author S. Craig Zahler has created a very strange beast with this rather mental and gruesome genre bender. A classic searching western which looks at how the the wild west was lost and a vicious horror film which gleefully spills the red stuff between long rambling conversation. A fine cast including Kurt Russell, Mathew Fox, Richard Jenkins and Patrick Wilsonar…

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THE LOBSTER

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 14:48:32 +0000

We loved THE LOBSTER: A beautifully crafted sci-fi analogy for our quick-fix-tinder-culture.

★★★★★
Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos

(2015)

The opening scene of The Lobster, shot through the windscreen of a car sees a calm woman walk into a field with a gun and murder a donkey. Right after we see a beer-bellied, moustachioed Colin Farrell dumped by an unseen girlfriend; “Is he short sighted too?” he asks. A shocking and blunt juxtapose to one of the strangest and finest dissections of our “like”…

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