Philip Bagnall

HeadStuff • 24th September 2024

Festival Review: The Apprentice is Everything a Donald Trump Movie Should Be — Strangely Compelling to Watch, but Empty - HeadStuff

It’s official: playing second fiddle to Chris Evans is no longer the toughest gig Sebastian Stan has played. The one-time Winter Soldier goes from one untrustworthy patriot in Captain America to another in The Apprentice. Taking on the role of Donald J. Trump is an entirely thankless task. Unless you’re gurning for comedic kudos à la Alec Baldwin on SNL, there is precious little point in trying to bring depth to this most vacuous subject. Think what you might about Trump, but you have to believe...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 16th August 2024

Seeing the worst at his very best: Ed Wood at 30

Burton’s homage to his favourite filmmaker, Ed Wood, masks warmth, admiration and prescient life lessons in the guise of a standard biopic.


Edward D. Wood Jr. (1924 – 1978) is known to cinephiles as one of the worst directors to ever sit behind a camera. His repertoire of low-budget camp drama has earned him cult status among fans. The infamous likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957) and Glen or Glenda (1953) are still watched with equal measures of derision and admiration to this day. Wood h...

HeadStuff • 11th August 2024

An Elegant Crime | 25 years on, The Thomas Crown Affair shows how remakes should be done - HeadStuff

*This article contains spoilers for both the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair and the 1968 original film.*
The idea of a remake of an older film usually invites eye rolls from audiences, and it really shouldn’t be this way. So many of them leave no impact, which entirely misses the point of making a remake in the first place. In an ideal world, a remake will recontextualize the original work, infusing it with changes to allow the material to breathe anew. This is why remakes of beloved c...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 28th May 2024

Interview: Carson Lund & Keith William Richards on Eephus

We interview writer-director Carson Lund and actor Keith William Richards on the Croisette to discuss their film Eephus, shortly after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Director’s Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cinéastes) at the Cannes Film Festival is a welcome sidebar from the hustle and bustle of the main competition. It’s non-competitive, and focuses on showcasing new talents from all over the world, particularly those with bold new visions and filmmaking methods on display. In the 20

Loud And Clear Reviews • 21st May 2024

The Shrouds review: A howl of grief from Cronenberg

Even if the plotting could be tighter, the ideas at work in The Shrouds mark it as Cronenberg’s most personal feature.

In The Shrouds, David Cronenberg touches on a great many worries, from the invasive prescience of AI, to the foreign infiltration of surveillance systems, to the rise of antisemitism. For all that, though, the primary takeaway from The Shrouds is that Cronenberg misses his wife. Carolyn Zeifman Cronenberg passed away in 2017, but the effect of her death weighs on her husband st

Loud And Clear Reviews • 26th May 2024

Eephus review: Out with the old, but one more game first

With humour and insight, Carson Lund paints a vivid portrait of Americana in flux in baseball gem Eephus.

For his debut feature as director, the indie baseball comedy Eephus, he also co-wrote, co-produced, edited, and worked on the soundtrack. Our passions can mean the world to us, and Lund uses his debut to explore what happens when an outlet for those passions gets taken away. For all the brawny energy it brings, Eephus mourns the passing of tradition in subtle but potent ways.

It’s Sunday a

Loud And Clear Reviews • 19th May 2024

Emilia Pérez Film Review: Audiard the Audacious

Emilia Pérez is about as unlikely as a musical gets, but bombastic performances and direction make it a very memorable watch.

The French director never shies away from a challenge. After forays into English and Tamil, Audiard hops to Mexico City for his Spanish language debut, and throws himself into the staging of this most unlikely sing-song. That any of it works at all is a miracle, but it gets by on sheer chutzpah.

As a story, Emilia Pérez is pure Audiard. As a screenwriter and filmmaker,

Loud And Clear Reviews • 18th May 2024

Oh, Canada Review: Schrader's Cannes confession

Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada is a critical but moving account of confession in the face of one’s own mortality.

If the protagonist of Oh, Canada is an avatar of the writer/director, then his anger has curdled into sickness and loneliness. This is no bad thing. The bracing honesty of Oh, Canada is refreshing, not an adjective you expect to use for work from a 78-year-old filmmaker. It refreshes because the film is so open about its main character being a terrible person. Leonard Fife isn’t a facto

Loud And Clear Reviews • 16th May 2024

Megalopolis Film Review: Coppola’s Grand Folly

Francis Ford Coppola’s self-made epic Megalopolis is big, brassy and dreadfully indulgent. Years of cult fandom and overanalysis await.

Coppola is one of the few filmmakers who can make projects of this scale, ambition and abrasiveness. Any fallout from his filmmaking remains to be seen, but Megalopolis should be appreciated for getting made in the first place, especially when risk-averse studios claim they can’t market such grandiosity and visual lunacy (How hard can it be to put “From the leg

Loud And Clear Reviews • 3rd May 2024

Unfrosted Film Review: Tastes Tart, Lacks Pop

Jerry Seinfeld’s corporate satire Unfrosted fails to bring many effective jokes or a strong message to the (breakfast) table.

Thankfully, Unfrosted is just that. Director/co-writer/star Jerry Seinfeld is the world’s best-known connoisseur of breakfast cereal (Can you think of any others?), and opts to take a curious side-eyed look at the creation of that snack that you might recall having a few times as a child, but haven’t given an active thought to in decades. No-one was screaming out for Unf

Loud And Clear Reviews • 30th April 2024

Finding hope in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia

As Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia turns 25, we explore how it continues to offer hope to its characters and its audience.

*This article contains spoilers for the entirety of Magnolia.*

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”


When William Faulkner wrote “Requiem For a Nun,” he couldn’t have imagined how much the lines above would stick with the general populace. We are all products of the past, but we are also slaves to it, never able to escape. Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnum opus Magn

1st March 2024

Interview: Pat Collins on That They May Face The Rising Sun

John McGahern’s 2003 novel That They May Face The Rising Sun sounds like perfect material for writer-director Pat Collins. The acclaimed director of Song of Granite and Silence brings his calm and patient eye to this tale of two emigrés, Joe and Kate (Barry Ward and Anna Bederke), returning to Joe’s home in rural Ireland from London for a different pace of living. Collins and co-writer Éamon Little’s adaptation stays true to McGahern’s spirit. It honours the spirit of rural communities, while al

HeadStuff • 27th February 2024

DIFF 2024 Review | Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World is Consistently Funny and Shockingly Intelligent

You shouldn’t judge a film by its title any more than you should judge a book by its cover, but the ethos of Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is summed up in that title. Radu Jude’s masterful exploration of modern malaise is despairing but wise, trying to make sense of the modern world’s woes. The title evokes another woebegone exploration of the contemporary world, T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Hollow Men’. Like the modernist Eliot, Jude trades in provocative imagery and caustic commen

HeadStuff • 23rd January 2024

DIFF 2024 Preview | 10 Must-See Movies Coming to the Dublin International Film Festival

Since its inception in 2003, the Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF) has endeavoured to bring the best of international cinema to Irish audiences, and the 2024 slate is no exception. With films from some of the most exciting filmmakers around, this year’s selection offers plenty to ponder, revile, provoke and amaze.

This year’s festival takes place from 22nd February – 2nd March. Here are 10 films we recommend catching:

London-based Irish filmmakers Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy return

Scannain • 17th April 2023

The clock comes to cancel: Time and the loss of control in ‘Tár’

Exploring how director Todd Field portrays a character running out of time and losing control.

Loud And Clear Reviews • 13th October 2023

Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor on Baltimore: LFF Interview

We interview husband-and-wife writer-directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor on their new thriller Baltimore, a retelling of an IRA art heist.

Baltimore tells the fascinating story of Rose Dugdale, an English heiress who rejected that life to volunteer for the IRA in the early 1970s, culminating in taking part in what was then the biggest art heist ever perpetrated. In April 1974, Dugdale and three others robbed priceless gems by European masters from Russborough House, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.

Loud And Clear Reviews • 9th October 2023

Daaaaaali!: LFF Film Review

Daaaaaali! is sublimely nonsensical fun, not at all to be taken seriously, yet with some clever commentary at play too.


At this year’s autumn film festivals, first Venice and now London, biopics of all shapes and sizes showed that this often-predictable genre is capable of taking risks and unleashing surprises. While the likes of Ferrari and Priscilla play things safe, you’ll also find the likes of the hilarious Hit Man or the deeply felt Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus to challenge expectations. Eve

Loud And Clear Reviews • 4th September 2023

Coup de Chance: Venice Film Review

With Coup de Chance, Woody Allen proves he’s still capable of delivering a short and sweet charmer, even in a new country and language.


With Coup de Chance, Woody Allen proves that a change is as good as a rest. He fulfils a long-held ambition to make a film in France with a Francophone cast, and the gambit pays off. Despite the new setting (dictated by necessity as much as anything else), the familiar speech patterns, elegant settings and wry humour are firmly in place. Even the opening cred

Scannain • 3rd September 2023

#Review: The Killer – Venice Film Festival 2023

An assassin has to be a ruthless and efficient machine. No distractions, no, misgivings, no room for error. It’s a discipline that Christian (Michael Fassbender) reiterates time and time again in The Killer (His repeated mantra is, “Stick to the plan.”). The same rigorous efficiency applies to David Fincher. No matter what the film, whether the playful nonsense of The Game or witnessing the birth of the future in The Social Network, Fincher commits to bringing the story to life with precision an