We like to pretend it’s scholarship. In truth, it’s gossip with better lighting. And right now, the screens are full of it.
Mr burton
Post-war Wales. Soot on the windowsills. I went in with no expectations. I left thinking I’d just seen something remarkable.
Harry Lawtey at first I wasn’t sure he had the weight for Burton. By the final scene, I wondered if he might win an Oscar.
Toby Jones and Lesley Manville are as good as you expect, though Manville is a little underused. Anuerin Barnard and Aimee-Ffion Edwards are pitch-perfect.
It’s the story you know but told with heart.
A true-life reminder that talent isn’t born it’s noticed. The Taibach and Port Talbot scenes, with the steelworks coughing smoke into the grey sky, are extraordinary.
The best film I’ve seen in a long time. Must-see. In cinemas from Thursday.
Anchor Me – The Don McGlashan Story
Seeing a Shirley Horrocks film is like visiting an old friend. Not the sort who arrives with drama and perfume, but the one who remembers your childhood and brings cake.
Her portraits from Peter Peryer, Marti to Tom Who are unflinching but affectionate. She doesn’t sculpt myth. She reveals soul.
No frills. No big funding cheques. Just guts, a camera, and the will to ensure we remember.
Other documentaries look glossy and empty, like Tinder profiles you swipe past. Not with Shirley. Her subjects breathe. Don’t miss CURRENTLY SCREENING AS PART OF NZIFF 2025
One to One: John & Yoko
Why did John and Yoko leave England for New York? Where did they choose to live? Why did John perform his only full post-Beatles concert in 1972? And what drove them to become so politically and socially active in their first 18 months in the States?
This film answers every one of those questions, even reveals how John really felt about American television.
Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland, Marley) co-directs with Sam Rice-Edwards, zeroing in on a tight timeline that offers a deeper understanding of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
You may think you know this couple, but with producer Sean Ono Lennon on board, the film serves up rare footage and unheard audio that ensures you’ll see and hear them in ways you haven’t before.
Don’t miss CURRENTLY SCREENING AS PART OF NZIFF 2025
Psst… and while we’re about John & Yoko, Rialto Channel has The Lost Weekend: A Love Story the 18-month romance between John Lennon and his Chinese-American assistant, May Pang.
Vortex. Love. Icon. That’s what comes to mind as you watch. This isn’t your standard rock ’n’ roll documentary, and it’s certainly not a tired retelling of an old tale.
It’s a story that took 50 years to tell and you heard it here first.
High And Low: John Galliano
SKY’s Rialto Channel delivers couture’s golden child and his public disgrace in Kevin Macdonald’s High and Low. I give it 10/10.
It’s all here the genius, the long hours, the impossible demands, the addictions.
His Catholic upbringing. The uncomfortable suggestion that childhood prejudice can linger. His fall from grace perhaps a tragic spiral akin to Mel Gibson’s.
It’s a frank portrait of alcohol’s seduction and destruction. A reminder that we ask too much of our geniuses, demanding they be more than human, always.
There is always a cost.
Some wounds don’t heal. Words were spoken. Pain remains. But this is a stylish, balanced, beautifully cut film a fitting frame for a man whose work was theatre and fashion all at once.
The Trend
Biographies no longer hand out halos. They hand you the person instead flawed, brilliant, sometimes hard to love. Which is exactly why they’re worth watching.
— Roger Wyllie, View Mag
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