Much has been made of the comeback of Brendan Fraser in Darren Aronofsky’s latest: The Whale. Awards talk aplenty (and a likely Best Actor Oscar recipient) but not much mentioned about the actual film itself. This is unfair as the film absolutely matches its towering lead performance. Aronofsky has long been a master at creating enthralling character portraits, from Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler through to Black Swan and Jackie, and The Whale is another masterpiece. Ba

It’s getting increasingly rare to see true originality in cinema but 2018’s Searching certainly got into that bracket. Told as if the cinema screen was the screen of a computer, it was a gripping thriller of a father on the search for his missing daughter. On the heels of its success comes Missing, a quasi-sequel with the same set-up and style but a different story. This time, an eighteen-year-old’s mother goes missing whilst on holiday with her new boyfriend. In terms of plo

Nostalgia, reflection, family and the love of film, and cinema in particular, has been a theme in recent times. Particularly post-pandemic, our greatest directors have seemingly been imploring people to return to the big screen. Before screenings of his latest film: The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg even has a little pre-recorded intro’ saying how special the cinema is and the part it still has to play in our lives. The movie itself is a dramatised version of Spielberg’s own co

A quite bonkers, lit-firework of a film, Babylon has, quite understandably, divided audiences and critics. Launching the start of a cinematic year can put extra spotlight on a film and it’s certainly the spotlight that Babylon wants and deserves, but this is quite the departure from La La Land and Whiplash. Taking the musicality of those two films and multiplying everything by 1000, Damien Chazelle truly lets loose here. Pitched somewhere between a Fellini-inspired acid trip

Happy New Year from The Brighton Film Club. Before we move into 2023 let’s reflect on another excellent year for film. Here are our Films...

Avatar: The Way of Water is long. It’s also very blue. It’s also got a bit of a grating script and could quite easily be taken as culturally insensitive (or worse.) It’s everything you’ve likely heard bandied around but it also might just be one of the prettiest films ever made and almost certainly a pivotal, game-changing moment for the industry, much like its predecessor. James Cameron has spent the eternal wait between films well, pushing the technology to the absolute lim

Well those twelve months sure went quick! The 'back to normal' that was 2022 was definitely cause for celebration and the music world...

Aftersun is a strikingly brave and bold debut film. Charlotte Wells positions herself as a director to watch with a film that sticks with you and lingers. Ostensibly a simple story of young single father Callum taking his 11-year-old daughter Sophie on holiday, it actually leaves more questions than answers as we intermingle with scenes from Sophie’s adult life, where it’s clear that things have changed dramatically and Callum is now absent. It veers between beautifully natur

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a hard film to review and I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to make. The loss of Chadwick Boseman is still so keenly felt and his presence within, and absence from, this film overshadows everything else. Choosing to close Phase 4 with this sequel feels right and things are left over to Ant-Man: Quantumania to kickstart Phase 5 in 2023. Like a lot of the criticism surrounding this Phase, Wakanda Forever doesn’t quite contain enou

It’s important not to let bias impact you before going into the cinema. Obviously, that can’t always be the case though. It works for good and ill. It can be easy to get overhyped and, therefore, disappointed at something with good reviews or in a favourite franchise but it’s equally easy to pre-empt disappointment, especially in the case of the DCEU. It’s also important to stress that this is a crying shame. This is a comic studio with incredible films in its past and, clear

Less cash-grabbing, rehashing sequel/prequels and more reunions of director and stars please. The Banshees of Inisherin is the perfect example of how to follow up a classic film: by technically not following it up at all. Instead, it reunites stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson with writer/director Martin McDonagh from the masterful In Bruges for a completely different tale. If you’re a fan of that earlier film (essential watching for those who haven’t seen it) or, indeed

Does a great cast make a great film? Actually, that question should be rephrased to read: does a great cast distract from a bad film? That’s the quandary facing Amsterdam, the latest from David O. Russell. Following on stylistically and tonally from his earlier film American Hustle, this is a rip-roaring and speedily-paced farcical caper which its absolutely elite casting carries to the end. Unfortunately, like that earlier film, it’s difficult to recommend or remember upon r