GLASS

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: M Night Shyamalan Stars: James McAvoy, Samuel L Jackson, BRuce Willis, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard, Luke Pierce, Adam David Thompson, M Night Shyamalan. In Glass, filmmaker M Night Shyamalan brings together the central characters from 1999's Unbreakable and 2016's Split for a climactic showdown that brings to a close this unofficial trilogy. At the end of Split, Shyamalan did include a post credits sting that hinted that the film was a part of the Unbreakable universe, but he had to wait a Continue reading

THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Fede Alvarez Stars: Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, Sylvie Hoeks, Stephen Merchant, Lakeith Stanfield, Claes Bang, Vicky Krieps, Mikael Persbrandt, Christopher Convery. The Girl In The Spider’s Web is the fourth installment in the Millennium series of dark and misogynistic Scandinavian crime thrillers created by the late Stieg Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004. The novels centred around Lisbeth Salander, an unlikely anti-heroine for the twentieth century – a tattooed and heavily pierced computer hacker who had survived Continue reading

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Drew Goddard Stars: Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Lewis Pullman, Cailee Spaeny, Nick Offerman, Shea Whigham, Xavier Dolan. The El Royale hotel straddles the border between California and Nevada, and guests can have a choice of staying in the California suites, which offer warmth or the Nevada rooms which seem to offer a bridge between the past and a brand-new future. It is 1969, the tail end of darker and turbulent period of American history with Richard Nixon in the White House. J Edgar Continue reading

SEARCHING

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Aneesh Chaganty Stars: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee, Sara Sohn, Michelle La. In 2014 we had the film Unfriended, a thriller that played out virtually on computer screens. This tense and innovative new thriller ups the ante on that concept and uses the full gamut of modern technology and social media tools – from Facebook to You Tube, Google, instant messaging, etc, combined with mobile phone footage, CCTV and surveillance video and even television news broadcasts – to tell the story of the desperate hunt for a missing Continue reading

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Lynne Ramsay Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Minette, Judith Roberts, John Doman. Glaswegian filmmaker Lynne Ramsay’s moody and grim films have always dealt with damaged characters (We Need To Talk About Kevin, etc) and difficult and confronting subject matter. Her fourth feature is no different. You Were Never Really Here is based on the slim tome from Jonathan Ames (Bored To Death, etc), a twisted noir about Joe (Joaquin Phoenix, from Walk The Line, Gladiator, etc) a damaged former soldier and FBI agent who Continue reading