★★★★ - STUFF  - Someone a lot wiser than me (and frankly, who isn't?) once said, “íf there truly is a god, and he likes us, then he would let dogs live longer”. Anyone who's ever been owned by a dog understands that exactly. Dogs do have a way of transforming us, even as they are moulting and…

★★★★ - SWITCH   - FALLING IN LOVE WITH INDIA, THE ROLLS ROYCE AND EACH OTHER -  Ashamedly, I was procrastinating watching this film as much as possible. The idea of watching an upper-class man drive around India in a symbol of colonialism had me agreeing to wash the dishes in an attempt to hold…

- SCREEN INTERNATIONAL -  Yeon Sang-ho ups the ante and moves the action forward from 2016’s Train To Busan to a post-apocalyptic and quarantined Korean peninsula which has been ravaged by the zombie outbreak. Now well established in Yeon’s Train To Busan and his prior animation Seoul Station, the…

★★★★ - STUFF  - A clever, likeable and occasionally inspired Kiwi black comedy -  As young men in small towns with tiny populations have for millennia, Sean is despairingly looking for love. However, the prospects of any swipe-right action on his profile video seem remote at best. Not because…

★★★★ - ARIZONA REPUBLIC  - Like many who will likely turn out to see Where’d You Go, Bernadette, I fell in love with the eccentric Bernadette Fox through the delicious best-selling novel by Maria Semple, which I gobbled up over a weekend last year. Yes, I’m one of those people who loves to read the…

★★★★ - STUFF  - Britt-Marie Was Here is a charming and convincing character study brought to life by perfectly pitched pacing, well-crafted writing and a terrific performance from the actor playing the main protagonist -  Britt-Marie Larsson (Pernilla August) has always led a “sensible life”. Pri…

★★★★ - STUFF  - Elisabeth Moss shines as troubled Haunting of Hill House author -  Having been gaslighted (The Invisible Man) and concubined (The Handmaid’s Tale) in her most recent high-profile roles, Elisabeth Moss looks like she’s having a ball as this subversive drama’s eponymous protagonist. …

★★★★ - GUARDIAN  - Elisabeth Moss anchors darkly compelling literary psychodrama -  A perversely entertaining take on a brief period of Shirley Jackson’s life gives the star one of her most daring roles to date. As willfully unconventional as a literary portrait could possibly be, Madeline’s…

★★★★★ - STUFF  - Armando Iannucci's five-star Dickens -  Charles Dickens was happy to tell the world that his eighth novel – David Copperfield – was his own favourite. And, fair enough too, I guess. For all the genre defining prowess of Great Expectations et al, it is David Copperfield that can…

★★★ - GUARDIAN - Rosamund Pike plays the physicist with dignity and froideur in this respectful drama that shows her brilliant discoveries – and their effects -  The Geiger counter is ticking moderately for this forthright biopic of Marie Curie, born Maria Skłodowska: the historic double-Nobel…

★★★★ - GUARDIAN  - [Pete] Davidson plays a would-be tattoo artist whose firefighter dad died in the line of duty in Judd Apatow’s charming, New York-set tale -  It is not strictly relevant, but this film briefly breaks the unwritten movie rule that cocaine is the drug for bad people. Heroin can be…

★★★★★ - OBSERVER  - Armando Iannucci both respects and reinvents the novel in a wonderfully entertaining adaptation full to bursting with fantastic comic performances -  Having found unexpected laughter in the historical horrors of The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci works comedic wonders with…