Rye Lane

Review by Cat Earley The 2023 Oscars – as per the usual fare – were awash with all the glitz and glamour expected of such an affair. Thoughtful and moving films like A24’s Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front swept the awards with all the fanfare that such

The Future Tense – DIFF Part 2

Review by James Mahon The Future Tense ( Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, 2022) should not work cinematically. As a video essay format it seems more suited to a YouTube or Podcast platform in the tradition of Joe Rogan et al. Yet definitely unlike a Joe Rogan podcast, The Future Tense not only works, but

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Review by Chiara Gregor Writer and director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s debut feature-film Lunana – a Yak in the Classroom (2019) was submitted to the Oscars for Best International Feature not once but twice; so it must have surprised both the Bhutanese as well as the international audiences when it was included in the nominations the

New Normal – DIFF Part 1

Review by Ines Murray Gomez New Normal (Jung Bum-shik, 2022) is a collection of interconnected short films that take place within the span of a few days in Seoul. They all contain some degree of social commentary on a variety of topics, primarily the naive over-reliance on technology of South Korean culture and primarily young

Creed III

Review by Shane McKevitt Creed III (Michael B. Jordan, 2023) is certainly an improvement over the last film, which was an underwhelming follow-up to the pleasant surprise that was the first Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2014). This latest installment, the 9th of the Rocky franchise overall, marks the directorial debut of Michael B. Jordan, who also

Bus Girl

Review by Cat Earley Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022, Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert) broke the critical mile across multiple modes when it first premiered at South by Southwest last year; open themes of depression that engage, rather than clash, with an equally open silliness that permeates the narrative and makes its message more

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Review by Leah Kelly Announced in 2008, Guillermo Del Toro’s passion project Pinocchio (2022) was certainly worth the wait. Based on Carlo Collidini’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, it reimagines the classic story set to the backdrop of Mussolini’s Italy. Del Toro was struck by the similarities between Pinocchio and Frankenstein – someone is created and

The Whale

Review by Lila Funge Brendan Fraser is making his long awaited return to the big screen in The Whale (Darren Aronofsky 2023). The film follows Charlie (Brendan Fraser), a severely obese man who struggles to reconnect with his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) in his final days. Charlie’s medical carer and close friend Liz (Hong

All The Beauty and The Bloodshed

Review by Inés Murray Gómez The Sacklers are the billionaire family behind Purdue Pharma, which has come under fire in the last few decades for their historically predatory marketing of the opioid OxyContin. Activists and experts alike consider that their campaigns led to overprescription which significantly contributed to the opioid crisis that has ruined the

Decision to Leave

Review by James Mahon Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar winning film Parasite (2019) was a landmark event for both South Korean and international cinema in general, disabusing audiences entirely of – as Joon Ho rightly put it – “the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles.” Less than three years later, and once again emerging from the endless pool