James Marsh

Blue is the Warmest Colour

Adele Exarchopoulos and Les Seydoux are both fantastic in this beautifully told story of young love, sexual exploration and the search for your own identity. Perhaps it didn’t need to… Read More
Detective Downs

This breezy yet cineliterate noir tale is unique in that its central protagonist has downs syndrome. Fortunately the film avoids either poking fun at this or using it to emotionally… Read More
Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen is on top form here & Cate Blanchett is at the height of her powers. An utterly believable, sympathetic, loathsome performance. A clear awards favourite. Read More
A Band Called Death

This music documenatary about an obscure black punk band from the 70s, is less about punk rock and more about wrestling with how best to honour the wishes of the… Read More
Gravity

Pure cinema. Fantastically staged, inventively shot and robustly performed. Epic, intimate, claustrophobic & thrilling. See it BIG. Read my full review here. Read More
The Kings of Summer

The spirit of Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me lives on in Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ coming-of-age drama, in which two best friends abandon civilisation and opt to spend the summer living on… Read More
Beautiful Creatures

I had no interest in watching what appeared to be yet another post-Twilight supernatural romance actually turned out ot be one of the best examples of the genre. Aidan Ehrenreich… Read More
Can’t Hardly Wait

After being introduced to Ethan Embry by his Cheap Thrills director Evan Katz, I made a mental note to myself to watch his breakthrough role in 90s teen comedy Can’t… Read More
Timecrimes

I’ve enjoyed and shared Nacho Vigalondo’s debut feature many times but this was the first time I had seen it on the big screen. Fantastic Fest had a special screening… Read More
Blue Ruin

An excellent tale of family feuds and bloody revenge. Great direction and a knockout performance from Macon Blair. Read More
Love Eternal

Beautifully directed study of loneliness, grief & how best to preserve dead girls, buoyed by a pair of brilliant performances. Read More
R100

The latest work of absurdist humour from Japanese comedian Matsumoto is extreme, even by his own bafflingly delightful standards. On the face of it, R100 is set-up as an outrageous… Read More
The Dirties

One of my favourite films of the year and winner of the Next Wave award at Fantastic Fest. Pitch black satire on high school, our media-saturated society & how quickly… Read More
Our Heroes Died Tonight

This one beat me down with its beautiful imagery and trippy dreamlike ambience. Another casualty of long-distance travel combined with late nights and long hours spent in darkened rooms. I… Read More
Kids Police

Another one-gag movie from Fukuda Yuichi that gets by on the strength of its child actors long after the joke gets wearisome. Read More
We Are What We Are

I loved Jim Mickle’s remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s equally impressive Mexican cannibal drama. Script changes all justifed & well handled, performances strong & Catskills setting beautifully eerie. Read More
Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears

Gorgeously rendered neo-giallo thriller from the makers of Amer. A dream-like, near incomprehensible assault on the senses that seduces with its intricate composition and rich audio-visual landscape, but remains narratively… Read More
Commando – A One Man Army

Vidyut Jamwal stands to take the martial arts world by storm after a dynamic breakout performance here as the titular one man army in Dilip Ghosh’s ridiculously entertaining action movie… Read More