Tag Archives: Viola Davis

Black Adam review — Abysmal superhero schlock

November 15, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra | Written by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani | 125 min | ▲△△△△ As someone who's been writing about movies for more than 15 years, there's a genuine thrill walking out of a movie that's achieved something exceptional, knowing you've just seen one of the best movies of the… Read More

The Woman King review — Epic drama overcomes conventionality

October 1, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood | Written by Dana Stevens and Maria Bello | 135 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Crave Watching this romantic epic was accompanied by a sudden and uncomfortable realization of how little I know about African history. I had heard that the female warriors of a pre-colonial African empire inspired the Dora Milaje… Read More

The Suicide Squad review — A tiresome, noisy waste of time

August 9, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by James Gunn | 132 min | Netflix Though you might've scrubbed it from your memory, there was a previous Suicide Squad movie — the grim, messy, Toronto-shot effort from director David Ayer based on a DC comic about incarcerated super-villains sent on dangerous missions of national importance with the promise that… Read More

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom review — Stuck on stage, but powerful anyway

December 22, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by George C. Wolfe | Written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, adapting the play by August Wilson | 94 min | Netflix From the jump this is a straight-ahead stage-to-screen transfer that doesn't do much to free the narrative from its theatrical roots. Right away that's a strike against it — there aren't many of these… Read More

Atlantic Film Festival 2014 revisited: Nightcrawler and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby reviews

August 14, 2020 flawintheiris

I'm looking back at reviews from the past decade on the FITI blog, and I stumbled on this review from the 2014 Atlantic Film Festival, one of those days at the cinema where I was lucky enough to see two excellent features back to back. Here's my thoughts from the day: Originally posted on September… Read More

Widows review — McQueen’s art house crime drama thrills and spills

November 16, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by Steve McQueen | Written by McQueen and Gillian Flynn, from a book by Lynda La Plante | 129 min | Netflix We're in good hands from the start. In the opening scenes the film jumps between the bedroom intimacies of couple Veronica and Harry Rawlings (Viola Davis and Liam Neeson) and Harry's life… Read More

Suicide Squad review — A Four-Colour Mess

August 4, 2016 flawintheiris

Written and directed by David Ayer | 123 min | ▲▲△△△ On paper, DC Comics and Warner Brothers are doing the right thing, employing directors with passion and style like Zack Snyder (Watchmen) and David Ayer (Fury) to helm their big-budget superhero movies. So how come they're going wrong? While Snyder delivers the visual sucker punch, he… Read More

Reviews: Assassin, Copenhagen, Night Train To Lisbon, Son Of A Gun, and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her

July 9, 2015 flawintheiris

And now for some recent releases on VOD, iTunes, Netflix, Blu-Ray and the like. Assassin A London hitman named Jamie (Danny Dyer) works for a pair of shady gangster brothers (Martin and Gary Kemp, Spandau Ballet founders who were terrific as another pair of gangster brothers years back in The Krays). On his off hours… Read More

Blackhat review — Sometimes clicks, often just spins

January 17, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Michael Mann, written by Morgan David Foehl | 134 min | Netflix I like Michael Mann as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is Christopher Nolan, who owes much of his aesthetic to Mann's high-tech, violent, largely nocturnal urban thrillers—including Thief, Manhunter, Heat, Collateral, and Miami Vice—set on gorgeously shot neon- and automatic… Read More

Atlantic Film Festival 2014: Day Two, in which I saw a lot of happy people, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, and Nightcrawler

September 13, 2014 flawintheiris

I spend a lot of time at the cinema. I really enjoy the pastime, so even when I see a lot of mediocre movies, I can find things to enjoy about them. And then the film fest comes along, and in one day I can see two of the most exciting films I've seen all… Read More