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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
There have been a few films that tackle weighty issues through the lens of a child’s perspective, often choosing one of two approaches: either an overly stylized, fairy-tale-like presentation (Pan’s Labyrinth, Tideland) or a stark, unflinching realism (Ratcatcher, The Florida Project). The final film in our coverage of the Glasgow Film Festival, Spilt Milk manages to have it both ways, while still maintaining a consistent tone – just about.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
Athina Rachel Tsangari’s English language debut is a moody, atmospheric, sometimes enthralling, sometimes maddening experience. It’s a film with a potent sense of identity and huge potential, but much of the significant runtime feels like the set-up for a bloody resolution that never happens. Adapted from Jim Crace’s novel, Harvest depicts the slow destruction of a secluded English village in the Middle Ages, unraveling over the course of a single week.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
The mystery surrounding the death of Charles Walton has been the source of speculation for years. One of the most quietly notorious crimes of its era, it effectively gave birth to an entire subgenre of British horror – the folk horror. The Last Sacrifice is an energetic and compelling exploration of what may have been Britain’s last ritual killing. The murder itself is shrouded in a very morbid intrigue.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
A darkly comic sci fi thriller, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 is a darkly comic sci-fi thriller that wrestles with themes of identity, mortality, and exploitation. While it carries the DNA of Bong’s previous films—Parasite’s social critique, Snowpiercer’s dystopian class struggle, and Okja’s ethical quandaries—it never quite reaches the incisive, subversive heights of those works.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
Nacho Vigalondo has always been a director more interested in form than content, consistently pushing cinematic boundaries. At his best, he is able to blend his experimental approach with emotionally grounded storytelling, such as in his previous film, Colossal. Even his weaker efforts, (looking at you, Open Windows) burst with undeniable creativity. Daniela Forever continues this trend, delivering a visually inventive yet tonally uneven meditation on grief, memory, and control.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
It’s become almost obsolete to point out that Nicolas Cage has made some discerning choices in film roles lately. Whether delivering over the top, bombastic performances (Mandy, Color Out of Space) or embracing quieter, more introspective roles (Pig, Dream Scenario), Cage seems to be really revelling in this stage in his career, and has cultivated one of the most fascinating late-career renaissances in Hollywood.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
Tony Hancock’s second and final cinematic outing as a leading man is a fascinating yet flawed film. In some ways, The Punch and Judy Man improves on The Rebel – its cinematography is more refined, its tone more introspective—but as a comedy, it falls short. What remains is a whimsical, often beautifully observed portrait of a seaside entertainer grappling with a changing world.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
Tony Hancock is one of Britain’s greatest institutions, though his appeal never quite crossed the Atlantic. His class-obsessed persona – masterfully nurtured by writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson for Hancock’s Half Hour – appealed to UK audiences, but was perhaps too specifically British, or maybe too nuanced for American audiences.
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
A samurai-western revenge thriller set in 1700s Britain, Tornado is an audacious genre hybrid from John Maclean. While it doesn’t entirely stick the landing, this atmospheric and idiosyncratic film has “cult classic” written all over it. Much like his debut, Slow West, Maclean once again plays with western conventions, crafting an idiosyncratic, atmospheric take on the genre. Tornado (Kōki) is a Japanese performer in a traveling puppet show, alongside her samurai father, Fujin (Takehiro Hira).
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1 month ago | 
criticalpopcorn.com | Nick has written |Walter B. Hill |Nick Bartlett
Joan Macklin Silver’s proto romcom is a supremely odd film. It’s not really funny enough to be called a comedy, and the romance is problematic in all manner of ways, but it has a distinctly unconventional charm of its own, specifically in its depiction of the main characters’ cultural identities. Izzy (Amy Irving) is the manager of a WASPy bookshop in New York and enjoying an pseudo-bohemian, boujee existence of book launches and literary talks – decidedly not searching for romance.
