Philip Bagnall

Reviews

FILMHOUNDS Magazine •

Hilary And Jackie (Blu-ray review)

Indisputable talent. Unintended repression. Profound longing. Heartbreaking tragedy. The relatively brief life of Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987) featured all the elements of a two-tissue Sunday afternoon weepie. That's more or less what you get with 1998's Hilary and Jackie, though screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and director Anand Tucker try to make it stand out from the rest of its boilerplate biopic kin.
Hilary and Jackie charts the main events of du Pré's life from childhood to death, but i...
FILMHOUNDS Magazine •

Park Avenue (Film Review)

No matter how successful a career an actor has, they often end up focusing on set paths they rarely get to transcend. A lifetime of treading the boards rarely allows for interludes into television or film, and vice versa. Fiona Shaw has enjoyed an illustrious stage career, punctuated time and again by smaller roles in notable films, from My Left Foot to The Tree of Life. Her more recent success in television (A BAFTA win for Killing Eve; an Emmy nomination for Fleabag) has brought Shaw to a wide...
FILMHOUNDS Magazine •

Silent Friend - FILMHOUNDS Magazine

Friend opens with footage of a seed, bursting open and bringing forth shoots. It's a remarkable process, one that we take for granted in our more dynamic lives. Ildikó Enyedi's film operates in a similar way. Telling three stories that look and sound simple on the surface, each one branches out in unexpected ways, until all find their full expression in the shadow of a tall tree that's older than all of us.
Enyedi's latest film is an ambitious attempt to find common ground across time. It finds...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Kenny Dalglish Review: Long Live The King

Asif Kapadia’s Kenny Dalglish is a heartfelt tribute to the Scotland and Liverpool legend, albeit lacking the bite of his best work.


This lad from Glasgow who made good on the promise he showed from his youth seems an unlikely subject for a documentary from Asif Kapadia. The Academy Award-winning director has cornered the market on cautionary tales, but he locates enough tragedy amongst the talent in Kenny Dalglish to play to his strengths, and a compelling (if unremarkable) portrait emerges....
Loud And Clear Reviews •

La Grazia Review: Anything but Graceful

With La Grazia, Paolo Sorrentino attempts to steady his ship after Parthenope, but rehashes familiar imagery and themes in a drab production.


This means it has more in common with Loro or Il Divo, but where they had sufficient bile to match their style, La Grazia is far too cosy and sentimental to make its points. Sorrentino has gotten away with a lack of bite in his material before, but even his signature style lets him down here. A newly-found self-consciousness drains the film of the direc...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

The Death of Bunny Munro Review

Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro comes to our screens with two compelling lead performances and a smart balance between smut and sentiment.


As made clear in the first two episodes of the new mini-series that were screened at the BFI London Film Festival, this story of a man addicted to sex, alcohol and general hedonism is tailor-made for an actor who wants to shed a nice boy image, but who also wants to retain the charm and mutate it into something more primal and dangerous.


Smith is f...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Anemone Review: A Day-Lewis Family Affair

An overqualified cast and a beautiful look can’t lift Ronan Day-Lewis’ Anemone above its obvious script and direction.


A number of relationships are at work in Anemone, but at its core are two brothers. Jem (Sean Bean) journeys from his home in Sheffield to a sparse and barely habitable woodland. Deep amongst the trees lies an old cottage, with just enough comforts to house Jem’s brother, the reclusive Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis). The crux of the film’s publicity (and its whole reason for existing...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

The Vile Review: Emirati Horror Hits Home

Majid Al Ansari’s The Vile smartly and scarily shines a light on a particular indignity suffered by women in a particularly patriarchal society.


The Emirati director’s second feature may boast the largesse of Western crew and producers of such hits as Weapons and Insidious, but Al Ansari carries the tropes and style of contemporary mainstream horror over to his homeland, and uses them to effectively display the unexpected indignity of just trying to be a wife and mother in the U.A.E.


The V...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Miroirs No. 3: Curiously Calm Trauma Response

An indefinable sense of mystery lends Christian Petzold’s Miroirs No. 3 some atmosphere, but it also keeps it at a distance.


All very usual for Petzold, but he adds a layer too many of metaphor and mystery to Miroirs No. 3 that muddies the thematic waters, and ironically separates the audience from the film’s emotional beats.


Miroirs No. 3 is populated by a cast of Petzold’s regular ensemble. In her fourth collaboration with the writer-director, Paula Beer plays Laura, a university student...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Reflection in a Dead Diamond Review: A Fun Gem

Reflection in a Dead Diamond is Cattet and Forzani’s most dynamic and fun film yet, spoofing and honouring the many genres the writers-directors love.


From the first scene, husband-and-wife filmmaker duo Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet promise that their latest film is full of the sex appeal and wit that defines their features to date. However, this one also has tuxedos, ninjas and comic book panels. The directors are always playful, but they’ve never been this fun.


Since before their feat...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Magellan Film Review: Beautiful But Slow Voyage

Lav Diaz’s Magellan showcases beautiful landscapes, but the colonial critique drags under its director’s artistic temperament.


Purely by virtue of being a Lav Diaz film, Magellan was meant to be different from any comparable films about the era of European exploration and conquest of the new world. Dashing acts of heroism are in short supply, but so too are arguments about the ethics of what Magellan (Gael García Bernal, of Y Tu Mamá También) and his men are doing in Asia. Magellan is probabl...
HeadStuff •

One Battle After Another movie review | Paul Thomas Anderson masterfully reckons with This American Moment - HeadStuff

Paul Thomas Anderson is a historian. Over his nine films to date, he has charted the 20th century with remarkable insight. His history has been out of order, but the points he makes are legitimate. The early 1900s reflected the late 2000s with the pursuit of oil spurred on by corrupted religion (There Will Be Blood). The 1950s saw the cult of personality take root in men whose own personas were destroyed in war (The Master) while the rest of the world rebuilt itself in the self-important image o...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Waltzing With Brando Review: On The Beachfront

Despite Billy Zane’s transformative turn, Waltzing With Brando can’t find much new to say about the legendary Hollywood firebrand.


There’s nothing wrong in getting some laughs out of this section of Brando’s life, but Bill Fishman’s film is too broad to undermine the late actor’s ego, letting one committed performance do all the deeper digging into his subject.


Waltzing With Brando is adapted from the memoirs of architect Bernard Judge. In the late 1960s, Judge’s California-based firm spec...
HeadStuff •

The Life of Chuck movie review | sappy sentimental nonsense is a new kind of Stephen King horror - HeadStuff

Watching The Life of Chuck, one suspects that Mike Flanagan has some leftover issues from his teenage years to resolve. If he wasn’t a teen maths whizz and a member of the high school dance club, he should have been, given how cool his newest film insists these phenomena are. Of course, he’s leaning into his own interests as a writer/director here, making his third adaptation based on the works of Stephen King. As indulgent as Doctor Sleep was in entertaining King’s complaints about Kubrick’s ve...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Young Mothers Review: When Kids Have Kids

The Dardenne brothers’ Young Mothers is a simple but moving tapestry of the hardships of teenage maternity. The young actresses shine.


The young mothers of the title are five teenagers, all residing in a Liège shelter for pregnant young women. Some have already given birth, while others are approaching their due date, but they support each other by providing company and routine. Their predicament as new mothers is difficult enough, but each one has additional pressures bearing down on them, w...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Legend of the Happy Worker Review

Legend of the Happy Worker is too slight for what it wants to say, but cheery performances and production mean it’s likeable all the same.


The fabled nature of Legend of the Happy Worker is on full display when Goose (Thomas Haden Church) enters a Monument Valley-like landscape in the days of the American west (albeit with a car rather than a horse), stopping at a turtle crossing on the way. He plunges his golden shovel into the ground to begin digging a hole, while a solitary Native on horse...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

The Naked Gun Review: Neeson Honours Nielsen

Led by a bravura Liam Neeson, The Naked Gun hilariously brings back spoofing that’s been missing from our screens for too long.


The Austin Powers series petered out over two decades ago, and even the horrendous Scary Movies came to a merciful end. The makers of 2025’s The Naked Gun have spotted a gap in the market, and deliver a well-timed, solidly made and (most importantly) rib-tickling good time.


The hapless but hilarious Lieutenant Frank Drebin was the defining role for the late Leslie...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Il Dono Review: Corrupted Country Living

Michelangelo Frammartino’s debut film Il Dono returns to cinemas, with time only accentuating its capacity to surprise.


Yes, it’s a sparse slice of country life like his later movies, but it’s also angrier and more critical of the rituals and routines that keeps its characters trapped in their isolation.


The opening of Il Dono locates the film perfectly. A nameless old man (Angelo Frammartino, the writer-director’s grandfather) finds his elderly dog ailing on the doorstep of his one-room s...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Dying Film Review: Death Is A Family Affair

Dying, a complex and confident tale of a family grappling with death in all its forms, sees writer-director Matthias Glasner working at the peak of his powers.


Death comes quickly at the end, but Dying takes its time. Writer-director Matthias Glasner is not one to shy away from a long film (A number of his previous movies run well over 2.5 hours), but Dying doesn’t linger for the sake of it. Its three-hour runtime is generous but necessary, as four members of a family see death manifesting in...
HeadStuff •

Eddington movie review | Ari Aster's Covid caper is his most self-satisfied film yet - HeadStuff

Are there any lessons left to be taken from the Covid-19 pandemic? It’s been five years since the world ground to a halt in response to disease and disaster, and it’s becoming increasingly clear we’ve learned nothing. Calls for compassion and community have been lost, with most people keeping their heads down as we wait for widespread famine to follow war and complete the quadrumvirate of the Apocalypse. Ari Aster’s Eddington arrives in this most fraught of contexts, and asks a question that’s o...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

No Sleep Till Review: The Calm Before The Storm

Alexandra Simpson’s debut No Sleep Till is a slow but confidently meditative portrait of people confronting all kinds of adversities.


No Sleep Till continues in the vein of other releases from Omnes Films, the independent film collective that gave us last year’s Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point and unsung gem Eephus. As in those films, the characters in No Sleep Till are contemplating their relationship to a place that could be taken away from them. Tonally, Omnes’ latest release has more in c...
HeadStuff •

Superman movie review | overplotting and overcorrection leaves a fine cast flapping in the wind - HeadStuff

How can you put a fresh spin on Superman? As a character, he’s always been little more than an overstretched metaphor, representing every hope of the white Christian America in which he was created. The ‘saviour of man’ story has been overdone, most notably in Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill’s iteration of Krypton’s favourite son. After Justice League failed to soar under the weight of its own importance, it was hard to see how the Man of Steel could take flight on the big screen again any time soo...
HeadStuff •

Jurassic World Rebirth movie review | Just because you can prolong a franchise doesn’t mean you should - HeadStuff

Long before now, Jurassic Park became like a theme park you remember visiting in childhood. It was thrilling and fun, but the memories have been tarnished by add-ons and changes made to it in the intervening years. Revisiting the Park in the three decades since, either through its own lacklustre sequels or the Jurassic World trilogy that followed, became more of a threat than a promise. Each film has been worse than the last, to the point that Jurassic World: Dominion dug so far through the bott...
HeadStuff •

F1 movie review | Take a Pitt stop with the Daddest Dad Movie that ever Dadded - HeadStuff

Sports movies feel surplus to requirements. They romanticize and celebrate their chosen game, even though a given sport is its own best advertisement. No film can recreate the in-person thrill of watching a game of ball, be it foot, base, basket or foos.


Movies centred around motor racing prove this point especially sharply; the subgenre tends to pinball between knowing cheese-fests (Think Days of Thunder, or the Fast and the Furious franchise if you remember the first few movies were actual...
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