Reviews of the Bosch

The 78 th  Cannes Film Festival is currently on and once again I feel tremendously envious of all my film enthusiast brethren who are privileged enough to go. The great elite film festival of the world is naturally a Bucket List item for me to experience, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pay attention to the festival itself with great interest and feel the secondhand excitement for the movies in competition. They range in style and substance and come from talented filmmakers all over the world. It is often a snapshot of the current moment in world cinema, the juries (this year’s headed up by the great Juliette Binoche) proving a trustworthy governing body for their diverse choices and showcases. And of particular significance is of course the coveted Palme d’Or -a movie entered into competition for this award is in a truly privileged space indeed. I don’t know what will win the Palme this year but I am incredibly invested, and you should be too. There have been several reall...

There are times where I think The Weeknd -credited under his real name Abel Tesfaye- intends Hurry Up Tomorrow  to be his Purple Rain . There are other times I think he intends it to be his Performance . And then there are times I just think he wants to put himself at the centre of a psychological thriller -and himself purely, not some character he is playing. Tesfaye has slowly been stepping into the acting space in recent years -first with the dramatic and scandal-ridden failure that was HBO’s The Idol , which he co-created with Sam Levinson. His performance was one of many things widely criticized about that show, and perhaps he took it to heart (as it appears he does everything) and stayed much closer to home for his next project, playing a version of himself for a movie designed to accompany a new album (that just released a few months ago). Trey Edward Shults of It Comes at Night  and Waves  edited, co-wrote, and directed the film, and is often it seems trying to sa...

I am not a Eurovision guy. I appreciate it in concept from afar, but have never really engaged with the phenomenon openly. Good music though there may come from it and like clockwork a token oddball act of the moment, it’s never quite been interesting enough to resonate to me. I also do not live in Europe, so I’ve got no skin in the game. But I can understand the appeal, especially on a camp factor. This was after all the venue that introduced the world to ABBA. And on that level I understand completely why this incarnation of Doctor Who   -the campest we’ve seen since the classic series- would be drawn to that world as subject matter for an episode. I just didn’t expect I’d like it all that much. Anyway, “The Interstellar Song Contest” might be the best episode of this series. It did not go in the direction I assumed, which was as either a light, fluffy full-on musical episode paying homage to Eurovision fever (and possibly featuring an appearance from the contest’s U.K. stal...

It is kind of amazing that a movie called Fight or Flight with this obvious premise has never come out before -it’s a perfect cheesy pairing of concept and phrase that had to be executed as a movie eventually. Of course it should be acknowledged that Money Plane  exists, a dumb VOD movie with a comparable premise but no style or charisma (and could boast only the star talents of Thomas Jane and Kelsey Grammer). Director James Madigan ensures that his film has both of these, as well as the flare to accentuate its silliness and make it the better version of that plot. Also a better version of Bullet Train , with its network of assassins duking it out violently on an enclosed fast-moving vehicle -not trying so obnoxiously hard to mimic a Guy Ritchie movie in this case, even as it boasts a recent Guy Ritchie star. Josh Hartnett is far from an obvious choice to headline such an absurd and excessive action-comedy. But Hartnett, being in the middle of his career resurgence, proves an insp...

It’s always at least interesting when Doctor Who  goes someplace it has never been before, and Africa (certainly Nigeria) has never been touched by the TARDIS. This was the right time for it, something that the Doctor even not-so-subtly acknowledges in a pretty good beat early on in “The Story & the Engine” where he talks to Belinda about how long he’s lived and how many bodies he’s inhabited, but this being the first time he has been black (a fact contradicted later this very episode), and that he has been treated differently than he used to in parts of the world as a result. And yet in Africa, he feels at home -a sentiment that Belinda relates to with her own feelings in Britain and visiting India. A black Doctor is the best excuse to facilitate black stories within the Doctor Who  space -something epitomized too in this episode’s construction. It is the first story in the franchise written by a black man, Inua Ellams, and only the second directed by a black woman, Makal...