• In from the Side

    In from the Side

    Undistinguished, to say the least, hella long, and hella straight. So ponderous in everything it's doing. Three gays really suffered through this on my watch! Alex Lincoln's charisma is all it has

  • Femme

    Femme

    ★★★★

    Gutsy stuff, never as reductive/simplistic as you worry it might be; motivations are on shifting ground throughout. Is calculated revenge a turn-on? How do the kinks of these characters play into the violent dynamics between them? Where do they start, or stop, getting off on all this? I admire the film for not playing it safe: in fact, I expect it to get crudely kicked around for breaking certain dogmas of queer representation, and I'll be right here to defend…

  • She's Funny That Way

    She's Funny That Way

    ★★★½

    It's amazing how brightly Imogen Poots shines in this despite her Mighty Aphrodite-ish role, and how consistently funny Aniston and Austin Pendleton are. The material's dodgy and already dated in that late-Woody way – Lucy Punch as *another* prostitute?! – and I wish the Wilson character didn't become such a tedious squirmer. But I laughed a *lot*.

  • Property

    Property

    ½

    Absolutely not – it's like some unholy marriage between Alcarràs and Straw Dogs. Those satiated wholly by genre trappings may defend it, but it's like watching an army of scorpions attack a terrified white rabbit.

    One of those films where the priority is never "how would humans behave in this situation?" but always "how do we make this more exciting, even if it means cheating, and/or shoving the entire farm-labourer underclass onto a spectrum of bloodthirsty criminal lunacy?".

    How is…

  • In Water

    In Water

    ★½

    If you think Hong’s films tend to blur, wait till you get a load of this one?!

    (harsh grade, but have never vibed less with him – it’s a pretty negligible sadboi seaside sketch)

  • Afire

    Afire

    ★★★★

    The house is Twitter, Leon is the worst of us on there; don't be Leon all day. Or be a better Leon. The world's burning down, but he needs validation about his shit book, and to belittle everyone else's projects. This is Petzold's most Rohmeresque film, his funniest, best (and best-performed) since Phoenix. Goes Places, too!