DVD & Digital

Film review: You Hurt My Feelings

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Amidst the writers and actors strikes in Hollywood comes the latest film from Nicole Holofcener, one of America’s most acclaimed contemporary screenwriters. Set in modern-day Manhattan, romantic comedy drama You Hurt My Feelings follows author Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as she in the process of writing a novel. Worried that it won’t live up to the success of her well received memoir, she is shocked and upset to learn that her husband Don (Tobias Menzies) isn’t too fond of her fiction, and this revelation causes a complicated conflict in their happy marriage.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Elemental

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After working with Disney Pixar since the turn of the century, animator Peter Sohn made his directorial debut in 2015 with The Good Dinosaur. His follow up in the director’s chair is Elemental, inspired by his own immigrant experience of moving from Korea to New York in the 1970s. The plot follows fire element Ember (Leah Lewis), daughter of Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), who is soon to take over their family business in Element City. On her first day left in charge alone, her fiery temper outburst causes a leak in the basement which leads her to meet water-boy city inspector Wade (Mamadou Athie), and the pair form an unlikely connection.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Greatest Days

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In 2017, the pop songs of Take That were developed into a jukebox musical which enjoyed a stint on London’s West End and has now been adapted into a film of the same name. Directed by Coky Giedroyc, Greatest Days follows a group of pals that reunite for a trip to see beloved boyband ‘The Boys’ in concert. When superfan Rachel (Aisling Bea) wins tickets through a local radio competition, she reaches out to Heather (Alice Lowe), Claire (Jayde Adams), and Zoe (Amaka Okafor) to relight the fire of their teenage rebellion.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer Fait Tousser)

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Poking fun at the superhero genre that has saturated cinemas in recent years, the latest effort from French auteur Quentin Dupieux centres around a very different assembly of avengers. Smoking Causes Coughing follows a group of five known as Tobacco Force, all individually named after harmful substances in cigarettes.

 When Benzène (Gilles Lellouche), Méthanol (Vincent Lacoste), Nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier), Mercure (Jean-Pascal Zadi), and Ammoniaque (Oulaya Amamra) defeat an evil turtle enemy in a particularly gruelling battle, the vigilantes are sent into the woods on a relaxing retreat to boost morale.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: War Pony

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With acting credits including American Honey, Zola, and The Florida Project under her belt, Riley Keogh has made quite a name for herself in the US indie scene. Moving behind the camera for the first time, she has partnered with her best friend and producer Gina Gammell to co-write and co-direct crime drama War Pony. Following the trials and tribulations of Native American boys Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting) and Matho (LaDainian Crazy Thunder) in and around South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, the film explores their interweaving paths.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Love Without Walls

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 Cinema can often reflect our cultural and societal issues back at us from the big screen and in the latest drama from writer and director Jane Gull, we see the plight of a young married couple in post-lockdown Britain. Love Without Walls is a social-realist romance that follows singer-songwriter Paul (Niall McNamee) and his wife Sophie (Shana Swash) as they struggle to make ends meet in London. Down on their luck in the early stages of our current cost of living crisis, they leave their unpaid bills and final reminders behind to pursue an opportunity in Southend-on-Sea which might turn their ill fortunes around, but their dire situation goes from bad to worse.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Hypnotic

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Taking on many aspects of the filmmaking process, from editing, cinematography, and production design, writer and director Robert Rodriguez was once referred to as a “one-man-film-crew”. His latest piece is a departure from the grindhouse style he is associated with but it’s still very much his movie, his co-writer Max Borenstein adapting from a story Rodriguez was developing over twenty years ago. Hypnotic is a sci-fi action thriller set in Austin, Texas where detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) is reeling after his young daughter is kidnapped from a local park. As he investigates a bank heist carried out by a man known as Dellrayne (William Fichtner), he discovers a shocking link between the master criminal and his missing child.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Master Gardener

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Auteurs are defined as filmmakers whose ‘individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp’. Paul Schrader’s films have always dealt in redemption and masculinity but in recent years, he has almost developed his recurring themes into a genre of their own. The final instalment of his thematically linked contemporary trilogy, following on from 2017’s First Reformed and 2021’s The Card Counter, is psychological indie thriller Master Gardener. The story centres around Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), a horticulturist who works for wealthy widow Mrs Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver) by tending to her picture-esque Louisiana estate. When her troubled great-niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) comes to stay and becomes Narvel’s apprentice, he is forced to reckon with his own dark, dangerous past.

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