Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Talkin bout a revolution.
Even if you don’t know Chinese artist Ai Weiwei by name, chances are you will have heard of his work. Ai was one of the designers of the monumental Bird’s Nest stadium…
Read review ↗CRITICISM / CULTURE / CINEMA
A life in
the pictures.
Films that stay with you.
Writing that looks a little closer.
Explore the collected reviews of Linda O’Brien.
397 REVIEWS · ONE CRITIC’S PERSPECTIVE
Albert Nobbs
It’s a man’s world.
Nicole Kidman in The Hours, Leonardo DiCaprio in J Edgar, the Wayans brothers in White Chicks; all victims of bad movie make-up. Who knows, maybe White Chicks would have been hilarious if…
Read review ↗
All In Good Time
Time’s up.
All in Good Time (directed by Nigel Cole) comes from the pen of Ayub Khan-Din, writer of East is East. It shares quite a lot of similarities with that film as again…
Read review ↗
All Things To All Men
Crime doesn’t pay.
To describe a film as televisual used to be a way of damning with faint praise. Nowadays though, television is punching well above its weight – particularly when it comes to crime…
Read review ↗
Alps
Great heights.
Alps is the new feature from Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos, who scored a critical hit with Dogtooth in 2009. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of that film. A wilfully strange premise set…
Read review ↗
American Sniper
Hit and miss.
American Sniper is the true story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle – a Texan rodeo rider, fond of speaking with his fists, who found his calling when he joined the military. Through…
Read review ↗
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
A sea change.
As human beings, we have a remarkable ability to compartmentalise our irresponsible behaviours. We know that we shouldn’t smoke that cigarette, eat that double cheeseburger or pollute our environment but somehow we…
Read review ↗
Annabelle: Creation
Living Doll.
Annabelle: Creation is, I’m told, the latest instalment in the “Conjuring Universe.” While trying to explain the context of this saga to my movie-going companion, I discovered I can no longer distinguish…
Read review ↗
Another Year
Growing old gracefully.
Like all of Mike Leigh’s best work, Another Year is a small movie in which very little actually happens. Ostensibly about the process of leaving behind one’s middle ages and facing the…
Read review ↗
Anthropoid
Piece de resistance.
Real life stories of heroism are rarely clear cut. In war especially, there are consequences to every action and acts of bravery can turn to catastrophe in the blink of an eye.…
Read review ↗
Arrietty
Something borrowed.
*Note* The version of Arrietty reviewed is the U.K. dubbed version. It can be taken as read that any release made under the famous Studio Ghibli banner will be beautiful to look…
Read review ↗
Arthur
Russell Bland.
When Arthur was released in the U.S. it just came short of hitting the number one spot at the box office. Russell Brand can’t have been too displeased though since the number…
Read review ↗
Attack the Block
Good, innit!
You may be, as I was, harbouring completely the wrong idea about Attack the Block. A genre film transplanted to a mundane English setting, the writer/director a stalwart of 1990s Channel 4…
Read review ↗
August: Osage County
Summertime sadness.
August: Osage County plays out in the sweltering heat of the Oklahoma plains. Inside the Weston family home, the heat is stifling – windows are closed, curtains drawn and characters frequently make…
Read review ↗
Austenland
A novel idea.
The work of Jane Austen, or more specifically, the romantic urtext Pride and Prejudice still holds a seemingly endless fascination for readers, as well as providing a rich seam for pop culture…
Read review ↗
Baggage Claim
Crash landing.
Baggage Claim is aggressively terrible. Not content with just its numbskull script and questionable sexual politics, it wears its stupidity on its artistic sleeve. From the cheap back projection to the most…
Read review ↗
Barbara
Cold comfort.
We are first introduced to Barbara from the point of view of two men who watch her from a window as she disembarks from a bus and sits down for a cigarette.…
Read review ↗
Bastille Day
Beaucoup de fromage.
Ok, so let’s get this out of the way; Idris Elba is a very cool guy. It would be extremely difficult to put Stringer Bell/John Luther/DJ Big Driis on screen without him…
Read review ↗