Film & TV

Witnesses: Season 2

Reviewed by Lou Fulco

Let’s call this latest offering from the French what it really is: another superior piece of crime television. Interpret it as the next chapter of Nordic Noir if you must, but don’t forget that France has been releasing quality television…

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River: Season 1

Reviewed by Lou Fulco

SPOILER ALERT… Fifteen minutes into British crime drama River and you are hooked.

River (Stellan Skarsgard) and his partner ‘Stevie’ (Nicola Walker) discuss the virtues of singing out loud and releasing one’s inhibitions, accompanied by a backing track of the…

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Lion

Reviewed by Jo Case

Lion opens in remote rural India, where tiny Saroo, having promised to wait for his brother on a train platform, curls up in a stationary train carriage, and wakes up with the empty train moving at speed across the country…

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: One More Time With Feeling

Reviewed by Chris Gordon

I have a 15-year-old son. He is one of the lights of my life. This riveting documentary, One More Time with Feeling, has given me an insight into my worst fear, realised. Halfway through the recording of Nick Cave…

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Where Am I Going?

Reviewed by Stella Charls

South Italian slacker Checco (Checco Zalone) is 39 and still living at home. He’s sexist, selfish and happy with his lot in life, working idly in his cushy public service job. He is one of the privileged few with such…

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Inspector Montalbano: Volume 7

Reviewed by Jemima Bucknell

Luca Zingaretti returns as the grumpy and fantastic Inspector Salvo Montalbano for a final season in sun-drenched Sicily. Volume 7 comprises two films, and Volume 8 will follow with two more this year.

We’ve missed the bombast, shambles and passion…

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The Night of: Season 1

Reviewed by Jemima Bucknell

Nasir Khan is an economics student of Iranian heritage who has been caught up in a murder mystery, of which he is the prime suspect, at a thankless time for Muslims in New York City. Arrested for a crime he…

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Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Reviewed by Jemima Bucknell

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the fourth feature by Kiwi writer–director Taika Waititi (Eagle vs. Shark, Boy, What We Do in the Shadows). Ricky Baker is one foster house away from a juvenile detention centre. He…

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Barracuda (Mini-series)

Reviewed by Sharon Peterson

A few years ago, I was given a proof copy of what was then Christos Tsiolkas’s latest novel, Barracuda. I found myself soengrossed in the story that I couldn’t put it down and I ended up spending a whole…

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Occupied: Season 1

Reviewed by Lou Fulco

The North Sea is a cold and desolate place. Ice and snow and freezing cold seas await any one or thing foolish enough to cross its barren path. Things heat up, though, in the new Norwegian drama based on an…

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