Archive
SEIZE THEM! – Rael Jones
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Seize Them! is a British comedy directed by Curtis Vowell, written by Andy Riley, starring Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan and Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood, with a supporting cast of popular British TV comedy actors including Jessica Hynes and Nick Frost from Spaced, Lolly Adefope from Ghosts, and standup star James Acaster. The film is set in the Middle Ages and sees Wood playing the spoiled and entitled Queen Dagan, whose rule is overthrown in a popular revolution led by Humble Joan (Coughlan). Suddenly finding herself a fugitive in the land she once ruled, Dagan joins forces with her newly-unemployed but still loyal lady-in-waiting Shulmay (Adefope), and a peasant named Bobik (Frost) whose personal hygiene standards are somewhat lacking, and together the unlikely trio embarks on a voyage to win back her throne. The humor is silly and goofy and sometimes quite bawdy, and comes across as a sort of cross between Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Horrible Histories, but some of the reviews I have read have praised it for having its heart in the right place, and for being a rare female-centric take on the ‘medieval comedy’ trope. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2022 – English Language Indies III
My recurring under-the-radar series usually concentrates on the best scores for non-English language films in a given year, but doing so means that I sometimes overlook music written for British, Australian, and American films that are similarly low-profile, but also have outstanding scores. To rectify that, here is the final entry for this year in my ongoing series of review articles, this time looking at seven such scores from the second half of 2022, written for independent English-language features that you might have otherwise overlooked.
The scores are: a heartwarming family drama about the homelessness crisis, an Australian film about a the unlikely friendship between a girl and a fish, a British comedy set in the world of French high fashion, another British comedy set in the world of professional golf, scores for two experimental films by a talented newcomer, a seasonal fantasy-drama about a magical reindeer, and a hilarious mock-biopic of Weird Al Yankovic! Read more…
MY COUSIN RACHEL – Rael Jones
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
My Cousin Rachel is a sumptuous period drama-thriller from director Roger Michell, based on the classic mystery novel by Daphne Du Maurier, and is a remake of the original screen adaptation of the novel from 1952, which starred Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton. This new version stars Rachel Weisz as the eponymous Rachel, a beautiful young woman who marries a wealthy English landowner named Ashley. Ashley dies in mysterious circumstances overseas, and leaves his estate to his much younger cousin, Philip (Sam Claflin). Philip suspects that Rachel had something to do with Ashley’s death, and resolves to exact revenge; as such, he is not at all surprised when Rachel returns to England and begins making romantic advances towards him. What is surprising is the fact that Philip unexpectedly finds himself falling in love with Rachel in return. Are Rachel’s feelings for Philip real, or is she just looking for her next victim on her way to claiming an inheritance of her own? The film, which co-stars Holliday Grainger and Iain Glen, drips with rich Victorian-era trappings and a brooding atmosphere of Gothic melodrama, and has been the recipient of a great deal of critical praise. Read more…
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