Joker

Is it a pastiche? Is it a homage? Is it just derivative? Whatever the (clearly deliberate) links to Taxi Driver and especially King of Comedy, Joker remains a powerful film anchored by Joaquin Phoenix’s painfully physical portrayal of Batman’s cackling nemesis. It’s not a film you forget, and brings an extra dimension to Heath Ledger’s… Read More

Boyhood

Wonderful. This unimaginably ambitious film is a masterpiece. Director Richard Linklater of course takes credit, but the cast are also amazing – Patricia Arquette perhaps being the pick of the bunch. If I had to criticise it, I found the ending rather strange, but then I don’t know how you end a film like this… Read More

Gravity

Split the room, but even the silly ending doesn’t detract from the superb opening and the feel of the film. It’s as much about the filmmaking as the plot or the characters – and worth seeing in 3D Imax – but as it’s not that long (91 minutes) so it doesn’t matter. Whether Clooney needed… Read More