Review: Nomadland
There are times in Chloé Zhao’ s Nomadland where Frances McDormand’s face, lined and desperate, wistful and stoic seems to peer in from America’s Dust Bowl past to haunt its recent history....
Author: Mark Farnsworth
Senior Film Writer Mark Farnsworth teaches Film in East London and is currently working on two screenplays, The Mysteries and Fair Access. He also writes the Oh/Cult section for Brokenshark.co.uk.
Review: The Mauritanian
Is there any image in the post 9/11 conspiracy drama genre more ubiquitous than heavily redacted legal files? Those black lines struck through word after word like blocks of thunder smothering all...
Review: Archenemy
Joe Manganiello is Max Fist, a hulking hobo who may or may not be a superhero trapped on Earth and stripped of his godlike superpowers. He gulps and snorts earthbound ambrosia like gut rot whiskey...
Review: Quo Vadis, Aida?
What were you doing in the summer of 1995? The UK was buoyant, just two years away from New Labour’s landslide victory, casting off the yoke of a generation of Tory rule. Tony Blair was leader of...
Review: Promising Young Woman
The male gaze reversed. Our faces screwed up close in crotch shots of men gyrating, dressed in a smart casual nightmare, you know the kind of shit clothes bought for men by their wives or girlfriends...
Film review: The Kid Detective
What is it that makes a slight, inconsequential movie like “The Kid Detective” tap on your bedroom windows to keep you awake at night thinking about it? It’s a shaggy dog story of sorts about...
Review: Rebecca
Director Ben Wheatley doth protest too much. He may want to play down any comparison to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 version of, “Rebecca”, but the parallels are too great to ignore. Both rotund,...
Antebellum review: it isn’t enough
In a parallel universe, ”Antebellum” could feature as a perverse reboot of “Charlie’s Angels.” Picture Janelle Monáe’s ultra-confident, Afrofuturist, 21st century sociologist / yoga...
Clockers 25 years on
When Spike Lee took over directorial duties from his friend and mentor Martin Scorsese, his intention for “Clockers” was to put the, “final nail in the coffin” of the Hood genre, the cycle of...
Review: Clemency
Before watching Clemency, director Chinonye Chukwu’s meticulous dismantling of the death penalty in America, it is worth reading President Trump’s infamous 1990s full-page ad in The New York...