Tag Archives: Pablo Larrain

El Conde review — Gothic comedy doesn’t suck

January 31, 2024 flawintheiris

Directed by Pablo Larraín | Written by Larraín and Guillermo Calderón | 110 min | ▲▲▲△△ | Netflix Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín has directed some of the most fascinating, most diverse films of the past 10 or so years — The Club, Neruda, Jackie, Ema, and Spencer — and to that stellar collection he now… Read More

Spencer review — Diana’s darkest days

November 8, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Pablo Larraín | Written by Steven Knight | 117 min | Crave Larraín is the Chilean auteur with a gift for compelling biographies of charismatic figures — Jackie and Neruda being two — as well as the kind of versatility to make movies like last year's electrifying Ema. Here he teams up with… Read More

Top 15 Films of 2020

January 4, 2021 flawintheiris

Every year I assemble a list of the 10 best feature films (and sometimes documentaries) I saw in the past 12 months, and with it an accompanying collection of 10 "Under-The-Radar" pictures — the more peculiar, less mainstream, hidden gems worth seeking out. I figure that list could be more useful to a cinephile looking… Read More

Revisiting Carbon Arc’s Winter 2016 Season

August 9, 2020 flawintheiris

Twice a year since I began volunteering and programming with Carbon Arc Cinema some six years ago, I revisit the list season's films that showed at the 72-seat screen auditorium. That's because Carbon Arc has two distinct seasons — Fall into Winter, from the end of September to early December, and Winter to Spring, from… Read More

Ema review — Chilean drama a dazzling dance

May 2, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Pablo Larraín | Written by Guillermo Calderón and Alejandro Moreno | 107 min | Mubi We begin in the aftermath of trauma: Valparaiso marrieds Ema and Gastón (Mariana Di Girolamo and Gael García Bernal) are lead dancer and choreographer in a modern dance company — they're also tearing each other apart over the… Read More

10 Great Richard E. Grant roles

February 20, 2019 flawintheiris

The undisputed media star of this year's Academy Awards season—coming to a conclusion with the ceremony on Sunday, February 24—is the Swaziland-born veteran actor Richard E. Grant. Those of us deeply embedded in the cult of his first feature film, Withnail and I, are especially enjoying the various articles about Grant's enthusiasm, and his deft social… Read More

Jackie review — A psychological portrait of power denuded

February 2, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Pablo Larrain | Written by Noah Oppenheim | 100 min | Crave Plus In 2016 we saw two other terrific films from this Chilean director, The Club and Neruda. This one is the third keeping the streak of quality alive, arriving here in Halifax a little late with a very much-deserved Academy Award nomination… Read More

Top 10 Under-The-Radar films of 2016

January 17, 2017 flawintheiris

As per usual, plenty of the year’s best cinema found their way to us on platforms other than the Cineplex screens, or if they did show at the multiplex, they often came and went relatively unheralded. It’s the fact of Halifax being a small market: Many quality features won’t find distribution in theatres. Here are… Read More

Carbon Arc Reviews: The Winter/Spring 2016 Season

May 12, 2016 flawintheiris

Regular readers will know that for most of the past year I've been working at Halifax's Independent Cinema, Carbon Arc. At the beginning of 2016, I took on the role of Writer-in-Residence, writing on the site blog about the films we were watching and describing audience reactions. Reaching out to a growing community of cinephiles. At… Read More