Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  The question of whether a woman can direct a taut Hollywood thriller as well as a man in answered in Money Monster , Jodie Foster’s fourth film as director. Yes, yes, yes. Foster has an extraordinary career in front of and behind the camera, giving a performance beyond her years as the teenage prostitute Iris in Taxi Driver and taking home two Best Actress Oscars for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs in swift succession. She has commanded the screen in Sommersby , telling Richard Gere in no uncertain terms, ‘you are not my husband’. (Look that one up.) Other noteworthy films include Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Bugsy Malone, Freaky Friday, Nell, Contact, Panic Room, The Brave One, Flight Plan and Inside Man. Foster plays tough and determined rather than coquettish and alluring. She was the Kristen Stewart of her day; coincidentally Stewart was her co-star in Panic Room. A child actress who made the transition to adult screen star, Foster never played second fiddle, ...

  Pictured : Waiting to receive unholy orders, Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal ( Jack O'Connell , how's that) in a scene from the horror sequel, ' 28 Years Later - The Bone Temple ', written by Alex Garland and directed by Nia DaCosta . Still courtesy of Sony Pictures International. The Marvels and Hedda director Nia DaCosta might have seemed a left-field choice to helm the fourth film in the British ‘28’ horror franchise, 28 Years Later – The Bone Temple but the American delivers the series’ most impactful sequel to date. Filled with specifically British references - the Teletubbies, British Rail, Duran Duran and Jimmy Savile – the film blends an unrelenting sense of dread with leavening humour. At its heart, the film sidelines the threat from the infected – zombies, if you will – to chart the inevitable clash between tracksuit-wearing cult leader Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and iodine skinned doctor Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), introduced in the 2025 film, 28 Year...

Photo: Dean Rogers. Still courtesy of Studio Canal (UK) There isn’t a word called ‘bioxploitation’ but maybe there should be to refer to films like Back to Black . These are movies that get punters through the door by virtue of their subject, famous pop stars what died too young, that get greenlit to reignite interest in their subject’s back catalogue, maybe make the surviving family a few quid and that. The subject in question is London-born and bred (oy, oy) singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, who had two hit albums, won five Grammys, and died in her pink-walled, half-decorated home in 2011, aged 27. We should be moved – I packed extra tissues – but there wasn’t a wet eye in the house. Like many people of a certain age, I lived through Winehouse’s decline and fall in real time. She was the subject of numerous newspaper headlines, tottering incoherently towards the gutter. Her unhappiness was evident, but what was the cause? The film, written by Matt Greenhalgh and directed by Sam Tayl...