Moviescramble

Movie news, reviews and opinions from the summer blockbusters to the amateur short film. http://www.moviescramble.co.uk

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Sisu - Review

Sisu, as the title cards to Jalmari Helander’s film will tell you, is a word that cannot be translated into English. It means “a white knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination”. Essentially, it’s a dogged determination to survive that makes the “bulldog spirit” look like a tea dance. The film opens with a bloody overhead map, revealing the extent of Nazi extermination policies…

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

It’s possibly the nostalgia talking, but I absolutely loved Dungeons & Dragons growing up. Not the role-playing game (I didn’t have that many friends) but the carton that ran in the 80s. In 2000 film a big-screen adaptation based on the source material was released. As it wasn’t based on the cartoon I had little interest, as did critics and audiences as the movie bombed in both cases. Despite…

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Aftersun - Review

Cinema viewers of a certain age will recall all too well the sights, sounds and smells of a mid-1990s package holiday. The FILA trackies, the lukewarm beers, the dodgy looking flumes, the beige and blue quilted bedspreads and the ubiquitousness of the Macarena. It evokes a very specific type of memory – buffet breakfasts, days whiled away by the pool and the inevitable heat-related falling out or…

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Glasgow Film Festival Reports Bumper 2023 Event

The Glasgow Film Festival – which closed on Sunday 12 March 2023 – has reported a fantastic increase in attendees this year. Cinema admissions increased by 25% on last year, with all three special event screenings (the first special events since 2020) selling out.  In total, 33,667 people attended 295 film screenings and events over 12 days at Glasgow Film Theatre, plus CCA, Cineworld, Glee Club,…

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Holy Spider - Review

There’s something about those five little words, based on a true story, that really draws viewers in. Especially when we feel like we are being given access to a different side of the story. Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider uses the murderous spree of the “Spider Killer” back in Tehran in the early 2000s as the basis for its narrative. In real life, the killer took the lives of sixteen sex workers. We…

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Faraway - Review

There surely cannot be any more romantic stories left to tell in cinema. Boy meets girl, the pair don’t get on, there’s a big mix up and, eventually, they fall in love. It’s a story that’s been told in a multitude of different settings, with interchangeable leads. And yet, we still want to hear these stories. They provide escapism, perhaps an exotic location and – let’s be honest – a gorgeous…

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Fall - Review

Climbing an abandoned radio tower that soars 2000 feet into the cloudless Mojave Desert sky. It sounds like something Tom Cruise would probably consider doing before breakfast. Instead, it’s the plot of Scott Mann’s Netflix drama, Fall, which attempts to keep that “stomach dip” feeling for the entirety of its run time. The film opens with Dan (Mason Gooding), his wife Becky (Grace Caroline…

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L'immensità - Review

Writer-director Emanuele Crialese hasn’t made a feature-film since 2011’s Terrafirma. In fact, he only has four films to his name. So, what could have got his creative juices flowing once more? Perhaps the big song and dance numbers in L’Immensità, the lure of working with Penelope Cruz (often referred to as this generation’s Loren, despite being Spanish), or could it be the presentation of a…

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Safe Place (Sígurno Mjesto) - Review

Depictions of mental health on screen can so often feel like nothing more than mere tropes; a plot device to give the “hero” the chance to demonstrate their power. It’s very rare that you see a writer or director make bold choices for the sole purpose of raising awareness. For those going through it themselves or for those who find themselves as bystanders, the invisible prison of one’s own mind…

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Our Father, The Devil (Mon Père, Le Diable) - Review

There has been many a cinematic protagonist whose past filters into their present. Sometimes, it’s an unexpected visit from a previous lover. Other times, it’s an insidious reminder of what life was once like. And so, who are we when our two selves collide? Should the past be able to remain exactly that? These are just some of the questions that writer-director Ellie Foumbi ponders in her…

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I Like Movies - Review

“What’s your favourite movie?” It’s a question that most self-professed cinema lovers will have been asked at some point in passing conversation. For seventeen year old cinephile, Lawrence, it’s Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. At least, it is this week. By the time he’s taken out his next stack of rental movies from Sequel Video, something else will have come along that will have completely…

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Lullaby (Cinco Lobitos) - Review

Portrayals of motherhood tend to fall into two camps, cinematically speaking. There’s the frazzled mum with sick down her shirt and a messy bun. Or there’s the superwoman, for whom having a child has done nothing to alter her sense of achievement and personal excellence. (Occasionally, your newborn turns out to be a literal demon, but that’s only in a certain kind of film.) Very little is said…

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Mother and Son (Un Petit Frère) - Review

Writer-director Léonor Serraille’s second feature-length film, Mother and Son (Un Petit Frère) is an immigrant story wrapped up in a coming-of-age drama. The film is broken down into three character-driven chapters; like a good book, we get to see different events from different perspectives. It is topped and tailed by a voiceover from the adult Ernest, the youngest of two sons who immigrate with…

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Plan 75 - Review

“No approval need from your doctor or family,” a Plan 75 representative smiles at his elderly customer. In fact, the entire conversation about whether or not you should choose to end your own life in order to stop being an ‘economic burden’ is over in thirty minutes or less. How is that for service? Director Chie Hayawaka makes her feature-length debut with Plan 75, a film set in a financially…

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Ramona - Review

There have been many attempts, on film, at unpicking the industry itself. Whether it’s a classic like Singin’ in the Rain, a biopic like Ed Wood, or artistic meditations on how damn hard it is to produce a piece of cinema (a la 8½), cinema has always found a way to hold up the mirror to itself. And so Andrea Bagney’s feature-length debut, Ramona, joins an illustrious list of film titles. Her…

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Driving Mum (Á Ferð með Mömmu) - Review

Road trip movies are so very rarely about the destination. Rather, they are about the emotional journey the character(s) will undertake whilst going about their route. In the case of Hilmar Oddsson’s offbeat comedy drama, Driving Mum, it just so happens that one of the passengers on this road trip is dead. The imaginatively named Jón Jónsson (Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson) has been living with his…

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Victim (Obet) - Review

Mark Twain is noted as observing that “a lie travels halfway the world before the truth can get its boots on.” What may have started out as a small way of avoiding bigger consequences soon becomes all encompassing. And, once you are too deep into the lie, there is simply no way back. That is the premise of Michal Blaško’s Victim (Obet). The film opens with Irina (Vita Smachelyuk), a harassed…

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