●●●●○ If the genre of science fiction repeatedly finds itself, as the title offers, looking per aspera ad astra – from the Latin, “through hardships to the stars” – director James Gray returns the gaze, turning instead to the … Continue reading Ad Astra Review A secular odyssey of paternal desires
●●●○○ As the 21st outing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the studio’s first female-led film, Captain Marvel has been marketed as a huge step forward for female empowerment, but isn’t quite the ground breaker that it thinks it … Continue reading Captain Marvel // Review Originally Published in Print April 2019
●●●●○ Sequels are a dime a dozen these days in Hollywood. This is why I really respect Pixar Studios continual release of films based on new intellectual properties such as the fabulous Inside Out or Coco which TN2 Reviewer, Sean … Continue reading Toy Story 4 // Review The sequel I didn’t know I wanted
●●●●○ When Sandi Tan was nineteen, she decided to make her own film. Home in Singapore for the summer of 1992, she recruited her friends Jasmine Ng and Sophia Siddique to film Shirkers, based on a screenplay penned by Tan … Continue reading Shirkers // REVIEW
●●○○○ It should be stated from the outset that I am not a fan of the recent Disney live action remake trend. They seem to have little in the way of creative ambition, often recreating scenes from the original shot-for-shot, … Continue reading Dumbo // review The live-action remake looks the part, but doesn’t quite stick the landing.
●●●●● The enchanting If Beale Street Could Talk is writer-director Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight. An adaptation of the James Baldwin book of the same name, the film follows the relationship of friends-turned-lovers Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny … Continue reading If Beale Street Could Talk
●●○○○ M. Night Shyamalan’s 19-year-long Eastrail 177 trilogy comes to a fairly shattering conclusion in Glass. When Unbreakable’s reluctant hero, David Dunn (Bruce Willis), finally meets the Beast, the most monstrous personality of Kevin Wendall Crumb’s (James McAvoy, Split (2016)) … Continue reading Glass // REVIEW Shyamalan’s much-touted comeback shatters with this lackluster threequel
●●○○○ Married at 15, widowed at 18, Catholic queen Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) returns to her birthplace of Scotland to claim her throne. To the south, her Protestant cousin Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie), who will ultimately put her to death, … Continue reading Mary Queen of Scots // REVIEW Ronan/Robbie vehicle ruined by mixed messages and a muddled aesthetic
Caution: SPOILERS AHEAD Right before New Years, we saw Black Mirror premier its new interactive story ‘Bandersnatch’ amid heralds of a new era of storytelling on Netflix. As a child I remember reading the analog version of interactive stories — … Continue reading ‘The past is immutable, Stefan’ — an in-depth look at Netflix’s newest ambitious project Black Mirror: Bandersnatch // review
●●●●● As awards season intensifies this month, one film generating considerable Oscar buzz is The Favourite (2018) from director Yorgos Lanthimos. Dramatic, entertaining, and at times heart-wrenching, The Favourite is an exciting new take on period films, with an impeccable … Continue reading The Favourite // Review Lauren Boland outlines why The Favourite could be your favourite film this awards season
●●●●○ This is the rare supernatural thriller that really earns its nonsense. It’s 24 hours before D-Day and an incredibly ethnically diverse crew of American paratroopers are behind enemy lines. Their job? To take out a German radio tower in … Continue reading Overlord // review D-Day and Nazis and Zombies, oh my!
●●●●○ After their career-criminal husbands are gunned down and their underworld rivals come to collect a debt, Veronica (Viola Davis), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) realise that they’re all dead unless, they team up to complete the last … Continue reading Steve McQueen’s Widows // REVIEW