Film Reviews by griggs

If you’ve ever thought Dickens would be improved by an 80s yuppie barking orders, Scrooged has you covered. It’s a modern, aggressively ’80s riff on A Christmas Carol, swapping Victorian misery for studio lights. Bill Murray is in peak snark form as TV exec Frank Cross, a Scrooge stand-in who treats goodwill like a programming slot.

When it works, it’s properly funny: sharp, a bit mean, and saved from sourness by Murray’s flicker of decency. Karen Allen is the romantic anchor and the warm centre, so the sentimental moments don’t feel fake. The supporting cast is stacked — Robert Mitchum doing calm authority, David Johansen bringing scruffy edge, with Michael J. Pollard and Anne Ramsey adding extra flavour.

Carol Kane steals scenes as the Ghost of Christmas Present: tiny, festive, and cheerfully violent. It wobbles between satire, slapstick and sincerity, but it finds its heart when it needs to. A proper holiday keeper.

Some Christmas films are all snow-globe vibes. This one starts on a cold bench under neon, with three people most of Tokyo has learned to step around. On Christmas Eve, Gin, Hana and Miyuki find an abandoned baby and decide to reunite her with her parents. It’s a found-family story in motion — care improvised from very little.

The queer/trans element matters too, mainly through Hana. She’s big-hearted, sharp-tongued, and the emotional engine of the film. Kon treats her with warmth and dignity, even if a few lines and reactions around her land awkwardly now. The laughs aren’t cosy; they’re what you do when you’re scared.

Plot-wise, it’s a web of coincidences. If that winds you up, fair. If you go with it, it turns oddly moving. The animation is gorgeous but grounded, with just enough magical-realist weirdness to justify the medium. Not perfect — but it earns its miracle.

A slasher on a train is already doing half the work for you, and Terror Train knows it. Set on New Year’s Eve, it turns the journey into a locked-in party: narrow corridors, nowhere to step outside, and costumes that make every face an alibi. The staging is better than you’d expect, and the film usually keeps the geography clear — who’s trapped where, and who’s about to be.

The script, though, runs on daft choices and patchy acting, with stretches of dead air between the better bits. The kills are a mixed bag too: a couple have a nasty snap, others barely register.

The mystery is cheekier than it looks: you might guess the culprit early, yet the reveal still wrong-foots you. Jamie Lee Curtis is the MVP, giving the film more heft than it’s earned. The magic angle will either charm you or, like me, make you side-eye David Copperfield’s showroom-creep vibe. Overall it’s better made than some of its peers, but nowhere near derailment-proof.

It starts like a simple road trip: a young samurai, Sakawa Kojuro, heading to Edo with two attendants — Genpachi carrying the spear, Genta carrying everything else. But the longer they’re on the Tokaido, the more the film looks past rank and ceremony to the people getting crushed by them.

I love how unforced it feels at first: odd encounters, sly humour, life happening at the edges. Then Uchida quietly turns the screw. The film doesn’t polish the samurai code; it asks what it costs. Who gets protected, who gets sacrificed, and what “duty” means when it’s someone else’s pain.

Chiezo Kataoka is terrific as Genpachi, decent and watchful until he can’t stay polite. Daisuke Kato gives Genta warmth and bite. Kojuro carries an uneasy edge too — the sort who turns ugly once the drink’s in. When it finally erupts, it’s not a flourish. It’s a blow.

I was genuinely curious how this could knock Raging Bull out of Oscar contention. Now I get it. It isn’t just the craft (rock-solid); it’s the kind of hurt it refuses to rush. Everything happens inside affluent WASP manners — a world where feelings don’t get expressed, they get handled, tidied up, and smiled through.

Redford lets scenes run long until avoidance starts to creak. At the dinner table, you can hear people reach for the “right” sentence, fail, and grab a joke instead. That’s the film’s cruelty: care turns into management, and “help” becomes a demand that everyone look normal.

Donald Sutherland is devastating as a dad trying to steer by instinct. Timothy Hutton holds the centre without showboating, Judd Hirsch brings brisk, humane honesty, and Mary Tyler Moore wears composure like armour — not evil, just cold. It doesn’t leave you shocked; it leaves you quietly winded.

It’s rare to find a folk-horror that feels half natural-history documentary, half fairy tale, and still keeps you leaning in. The snowy Lapland landscapes aren’t just scenic; they set the film’s mood — beautiful, indifferent, quietly menacing. The soundtrack helps enormously: spare and insistent, it keeps unease ticking under even the calmest images.

What struck me most is how firmly it sticks with a woman’s experience, especially for 1952. Mirjami Kuosmanen plays Pirita with a controlled, straight-backed intensity that makes the supernatural turn feel less like a twist and more like an extension of her loneliness. This isn’t jump-scare horror; it’s desire and judgement closing in.

From a modern angle, there’s an uncomfortable caveat: it draws heavily on Sámi mythology, but it isn’t an indigenous point of view. Even so, it’s eerie, elegant, and sharper than it first appears.

It’s easy to switch this on expecting cosy Christmas wallpaper, then suddenly you’re watching a fable about exclusion dressed up in tinsel. The bit that hurts isn’t the shopping satire; it’s the way the Grinch gets pushed out. The Whos don’t just dislike him — they carry on without him, as if his absence is part of the décor. Boris Karloff’s narration makes it worse by sounding so breezy about it, like this is the natural order of things.

Chuck Jones keeps everything lean and graphic: Whoville is neat, bright, and tightly choreographed, the sort of place where you’re either in rhythm or in the way. The Grinch’s cave plays less like a villain’s lair and more like someone choosing silence after being told, repeatedly, to take a hike.

Yes, it’s broad — occasionally OTT — but the bluntness earns its keep. The turnaround lands because belonging finally stops being conditional. A Christmas classic with a bruise under the wrapping.

It feels like watching someone’s faith freeze in real time. A vicar spends a winter Sunday doing the rounds — services, conversations, little crises — and each one leaves him more exposed. The church is bare, the silences are long, and the routine starts to look less like comfort and more like habit with a collar.

The writing is sharp and the performances are properly great. Gunnar Björnstrand makes doubt look physical: tight jaw, tired eyes, a man who can’t find a sentence that won’t sound like a lie. Ingrid Thulin brings a bruised tenderness that keep reaching out anyway, and there’s something dryly comic in how bluntly she’s refused.

What held me at arm’s length is how the film keeps circling the same wound. The scenes often stop rather than build; the emotional temperature stays low on purpose, and I missed a bit of lift or variation. I admire the nerve adn the craft, but I came out chilled — like I’d spent 80 minutes in a draughty room.

Some films take in excess of three hours to make a point. This one does so in less than 60 minutes, with the calm certainty of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing. Every scene feels placed, not padded.

Black Girl isn’t “issue cinema” so much as a scalpel. Diouana is hired with smiles and promises, then quietly reduced to a maid in a nice flat — expected to serve, stay silent, and be grateful for the privilege. Mbissine Thérèse Diop Is astonishing, often framed alone in blank rooms so the emptiness starts to feel like a cafe. The voiceover doesn’t “explain” her; it loops, doubles back, and traps you in the same circling thoughts.

Flashbacks turn hope into horror, and the letter-from-home scene is devastating — arriving as a reminder of everything she’s lost. The ending lands as a final grab at agency, and the Senegal coda delivers the bleak punchline: this isn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern.

I wanted this to be a new addition to the Christmas rotation — tinsel, teen angst, and the undead. It's High School Musical colliding with Shaun of the Dead, with a bit of Inbetweeners-style teen comedy on the side. And it does work in patches. It just never quite turns the great idea into a great film.

Like Sex Education, the “UK school shot like an American high school” thing kept pulling me out. Add the accent roulette and it starts to feel set in Nowhere, which is a shame — zombie stories hit harder when you know exactly what’s being overrun.

The bigger issue is the musical side. The songs aren’t awful, but they feel optional: they rarely change the story, deepen a character, or land a joke that couldn’t be done in dialogue. So you catch yourself mentally skipping ahead, and that’s not what you want in a Christmas zombie musical. One proper earworm would’ve gone a long way.

When it leans into chaos, it perks up. With a firmer sense of place and a couple of clever “music meets massacre” set-pieces, it could’ve been a cult classic instead of a decent night in.

Most Christmas films want to tuck you in with a mulled wine and a group hug before the credits. The Ref turns up with a burglar, a marriage in freefall, and a family dinner that should come with a warning label.

Denis Leary storms in and the whole ensemble stays right on his heels. Kevin Spacey and Judy Davies are brutally good as a couple who can’t stop taking bites out of each other. Christine Baranski adds fuel and Glynis Johns is wonderfully hard to stomach.

Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss write dialogue that snaps like a row in the next room, and Ted Demme keeps it brisk so it doesn’t sink into self-pity. It’s funny in a slightly nasty way — not festive comfort, mere a reminder of how hard people work to perform cheer. Under the sarcasm, there’s just enough warmth to make it sting.

Die Hard 2 is no Die Hard—it’s the one where Christmas is technically present on the paperwork, while the film itself feels like an airport branch of the franchise doing overtime.

I thought this would be a small, intimate family drama. Instead it’s a whole saga crammed into a little over two hours — decades in one house, plus divorce, affairs, estrangement, and the kind of generational baggage you inherit without signing for it.

Renate Reinsve keeps you locked in, and Stellan Skarsgård plays the father like a director who can’t stop directing: an auteur who blocks relationships like scenes, tweaks people’s lines, and expects everyone to hit their mark. He’s charming, funny, and quietly brutal once you clock how much of the family has been living inside his “story”. I got so invested in their messy orbit that Elle Fanning’s character almost felt like she’d wandered into a real family argument and nobody had the heart to stop her.

And then it lands the moment that properly got me: the sisters lying in bed together, finally being sisters, not characters in their father’s drama. 

East Dulwich cinema-goers: I’m disappointed. That Piano Teacher / Irréversible gag was a perfect dark cinephile joke — and it landed like a hymn. Either you didn’t get it, or you’re too polite to laugh.

This had been glaring at me from the shelf since the 4K restoration landed, and I’m mildly ashamed it took me this long. The new transfer is gorgeous — grit, heat haze, the colours of everyday Brazil — it all pops without making the film feel embalmed. I mostly knew Walter Salles and Fernanda Montenegro from I’m Still Here, so it was a proper treat to see her holding the whole thing together with that calm, iron grip.

Montenegro’s Dora starts out as a hard-edged operator at Rio’s Central Station, writing letters for strangers and skimming what she can. Once she and the boy hit the road, it turns into a genuinely lovely road movie: steady, patient, and very aware of just how big the country is. Salles keeps the emotion honest by letting awkward silences and boring little hassles do the job.

It’s a redemptive story and it works, even if the very end leaves a faintly sugary taste. I can imagine an older, colder Salles pushing it one notch harder. Still, the performances sell every turn, and when the film finally lets tenderness in, it lands because it’s quiet and real. Not a magic flip — just someone deciding to be better.

I expected a big, prestigious epic. What I didn’t expect was how personal it feels — like history isn’t a backdrop, it’s something that leans in close and refuses to let you breathe.

It starts at the Peking Opera Academy with poverty, bruises, and zero nostalgia for the “good old days”. From there it moves through war and occupation without turning into homework. The real damage comes later, in the Communist era: loyalty theatre, convenient lies, and betrayals that feel both petty and lethal. New bosses, same cruelty, different slogans.

And it looks stunning — the 4K restoration is genuinely glorious, all rich colour, crisp detail, and stage-lit faces that seem carved out of shadow. The operatic style really sings, especially when the Cultural Revolution turns art into tinder. My only gripe is it feels a bit coy about the queer heart of the story — Dieyi’s desire gets softened when it should sting. Even so, it lands hard, and it lingers.