Reviews of the Bosch

Of all the crime spree couple films to come out of the New Hollywood boom in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde , Terrence Malick’s Badlands  is probably the least exciting. That’s by design of course; the acclaimed directors’ debut film is a slow and laid-back reinterpretation of that sub-genre, and perhaps a rebuke of the energetic, high stakes counter-culture-swathed format it inspired in imitators like Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway and Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express . This approach definitely yields some drawbacks, such as a lack of any momentum through most of the film, and Malick’s weaknesses as a filmmaker make themselves apparent, but there’s something about the cool, lulling atmosphere of Badlands that makes it unique and fascinating, certainly when it was so noticeably going against the grain of what was popular in Hollywood at the time. Loosely based on the Starkweather homicides, it’s about a teenage girl, Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek) who falls for an older grea...

How do we define our family? Is it merely our clan, the group we are born into to whom we’re related by blood? Or is it rather a unit we find for ourselves; a collection of kind or like-minded people with whom we identify and understand? To some, perhaps many, it’s both. It’s becoming increasingly more common to recognize that a family, irrespective of relation, are simply the people who love and support us –that a close friend or partner may be more familial than a biological parent or sibling ever could be. The term ‘family’ and its associated vocabulary often comes with moral connotations as well: a (generally) upstanding man instructing someone younger on the road to reaching a form of maturity is customarily considered a father figure, media that is usually perceptively simplistic and non-threatening is deemed “family-friendly”, etc. This implies a universally shared idea of family and its virtuous expectations. However, when you get right down to it, a family, even in an art...

A sequel to Toy Story 3  always felt like a remarkably bad idea. There are only a few perfect movie trilogies: The Lord of the Rings , the  Apu  trilogy, the Before  trilogy, possibly the original Star Wars  trilogy, and the Toy Story  trilogy. Despite being made years apart (eleven between the second and third), they really felt like one story tied together through an increasingly evolving theme about growing up, which meant something so powerful for those of us who grew up with the series. Toy Story 3  was the perfect conclusion, ending with one of the most beautifully bittersweet closures of a movie series in recent memory. Nine years later though, Toy Story 4  comes to cinemas, directed by up-and-coming Pixar animator Josh Cooley, attempting to continue the story. It’s a monumental task to match up, and the movie doesn’t. But it is a very worthy addendum to the series, and specifically for the character of Woody. Two years after Andy do...

Rafiki . Friend. There is a very particular reason director Wanuri Kahiu titled her Kenyan lesbian drama with that Swahili word. As she explained in an interview for Much Ado About Cinema , it is a reference to the fact same-sex couples in countries like Kenya have to disguise their intimate relationship as being one between friends in order to maintain safety. This harsh reality is the central focus of this movie; a sweet, profound, and colourful exploration of the identities and relationship of two girls living in a highly bigoted society. Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) is a girl in Nairobi studying to be a nurse while also aiding in her father’s (Jimmy Gathu) local election campaign. She becomes smitten however with Ziki (Sheila Munyiva), the daughter of her fathers’ political opponent. As the girls spend more time together a Romeo and Juliet -esque romance gradually blossoms, but danger lurks around each corner, especially from their own families, if they happen to b...

The Dead Don’t Die  is a zombie movie by Jim Jarmusch, and it’s exactly as strange, offbeat, and bewilderingly entertaining as that sounds. In a way it makes sense; the acclaimed indie director recently dived into the vampire genre with Only Lovers Left Alive , so a zombie movie very much in the vein of the original Night of the Living Dead  but filtered through his unique lens, seems like a natural next step. It also gives him the opportunity to play around with a kind of gore he hasn’t depicted before and of course, as is the tradition of zombie movies, some relevant social commentary. Set in a small midwestern town called Centerville during a strange global crisis which most of the townsfolk are ignorant about, the dead begin to come back to life and attack the living. The film follows the local placid police force, Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray), Officer Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver), and Officer Mindy Morrison (Chloë Sevigny) attempting to deal with it, as oth...

Men in Black  is yet another franchise that should have been allowed to die years ago. Barry Sonenfeld’s original 1997 film was slick, fun, and creative, but his sequels couldn’t live up to it despite plenty of potential in the buddy-cop-comedy-with-aliens set-up. And even with the opportunity afforded by the premise of this series’ world and fresh characters at the helm, Men in Black: International , a reboot/spin-off of the series directed by F. Gary Gray more than two decades since the first, already felt aimless and dated before it came out. Because instead of offering something new or exciting as the broader scope of its title would indicate, it’s content to be just another lacklustre action movie. After having witnessed and retained her memory of their work as a child, Molly Wright (Tessa Thompson) tracks down and infiltrates the Men in Black. Convincing Agent O (Emma Thompson) to recruit her, she’s given the designation Agent M and sent to the London branch where she ...

No one since the great Laurence Olivier has done more for Shakespeare on film than Kenneth Branagh. He’s directed and starred in a few of the best Shakespeare adaptations, such as Henry V  and Hamlet , and has breathed the Bard through theatre, radio, and even the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. He’s more closely connected to Shakespeare perhaps than any other global personality. And All is True  (named for the alternative title of Henry VIII ) feels like his denouement, his definitive statement on the most celebrated writer in the English language, as it chronicles Shakespeare’s retirement years in Stratford and his complicated family life with exquisite depth and contemplative serenity. Following the destruction of the Globe Theatre in 1613, William Shakespeare (Branagh) gives up writing and returns to Stratford to live with his wife Anne Hathaway (Judi Dench), and grown-up daughters Judith (Kathryn Wilder) and Susanna (Lydia Wilson). However, unresolved emotions over...

It’s sad that a movie can give us a long-running late night woman talk show host before reality can. But that’s the world that Late Night  exists in, a movie directed by Nisha Ganatra and written by Mindy Kaling about the relationship between a seasoned talk show host and her new writer. It’s always interesting, especially for fans of comedy and comedy writing, to see a movie that explores that world. The best one in recent years was Mike Birbiglia’s improv-oriented film Don’t Think Twice . And Late Night  has a similarly interesting premise rooted in the process of developing and reinventing a topical comedy show in a modern market. Or at least it should. Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) has hosted a prime time talk show for nearly thirty years, during which time she’s won a number of Emmys and been considered a trailblazer for women in comedy. However shortly after winning an American Humour Award, she’s told that due to plummeting ratings over the last few years, sh...

The  X-Men  franchise at Fox should have ended with  Logan , and nothing convinces me more of that than seeing Dark Phoenix . It’s not that the movie is particularly terrible as much as its existence is completely unwarranted and pointless. It’s in the most unenviable position of following not only the best X-Men  movie but one of the greatest films of the genre, while preceding an inevitable reboot at the hands of Disney -meaning it’s that much harder to stir up any investment. Add to that, Dark Phoenix  is pathetically vying for attention by adapting one of the best known storylines from the X-Men  comics, one that had already been unsuccessfully attempted in 2006. Thus it feels like a remake of one of the worst X-Men  movies, which gives it an association that can’t be doing it any favours. All of which the final product has to contend with and overcome, and it doesn’t. It’s merely spinning its wheels, desperately trying to cling on to some rel...