Edinburgh Cinema

27/11/16, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them It was the weekend after graduation, we're Creative Writing MSc post-grads, it was appropriate to go and see this film, and in 3D IMAX too. Harry Potter has become so integral a part of the literary landscape, at least from a UK perspective, like football among blokes, that everyone has a perspectiv...

16/11/16, Arrival + Magic Train Within Cameo cinema, the person issuing me my ticket told me Arrival was 'cerebral'. I expected it, therefore, to be a bit dry, a bit open-ended, with some big concepts touched upon. What I watched was one of the most beautiful films I can remember seeing, and certainly one of the most potent depictions of love ...

7/11/16, Nocturnal Animals I'm still not sure about the ending. My friend, next to me, asked me what it meant. I listened to those behind and beside me, and they seemed uncertain too. The ending eventually settles down and I think I understand it. Here comes the spoiler: in relationships, there are no second chances. As for the rest of this complex...

3/11/16, Dr Strange I entered the Imax amphitheatre of Cineworld with 3D glasses on, sat back and was blown away; Dr Strange is a film that deserves to be watched in 3D, in an Imax cinema. For visual effects, I've seen nothing like this before, not even The Matrix or Inception. Having said that, I'm still trying to work out the empty feeling I had ...

25/10/16, The Girl on the Train + My Scientology Movie A bleak film which, with so much of importance stacked right at the end, is tricky to review without giving everything away. The murders aside (sorry!), The Girl on the Train casts an interesting look at middle-age singledom and the bitterness and loneliness that can develop. In this respect, I...

16/10/16, American Honey Aldous Huxley said the most difficult part of a story is the ending; it's invariably unconvincing because in real life, there is no real ending, life just keeps going on. I thought about this as I left the Filmhouse cinema on snazzy Lothian Road yesterday, having watched American Honey. I even heard people leaving the cinem...

21/09/16, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week I didn't think the Cameo cinema would be near full on a Monday night, but then, I hadn't bargained for the enduring popularity of The Beatles. In a cinema culture where so many people want to see superheroes, from Batman to Avengers to the Justice League, here was an opportunity to see the real thing: four y...

What's on? 15/09/16 There is a very good chance I'll finally go back to the Cameo this weekend to watch The Man Who Fell to Earth. I know David Bowie's in it, it's his vehicle, and the fact that it was made in 1976 and I haven't seen it yet suggests I've never been into Bowie. I've never understood how venerated he is. I read a rock n' roll encyclo...

11/09/16, Anthropoid, Dominion Cinema There are two kinds of war films, in my limited experience. Those that capture something of the horrific nature of war, as well as the dabs of humanity that go with it, and those – like Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds – which completely miss the point. Last night I visited, for the first time, the Dominion cin...

09/09/16, Colonia Although this film is no longer in the cinema, I downloaded and watched it the other evening, the premise – based on real life events – fascinating and a prompt for reflection. It's set in Chile in the 1970s during the rule of the fascist dictator, Augusto Pinochet, and focuses on a mysterious cult led by a former Nazi émigré. Alr...

​'Is there a more commanding screen presence than Isabelle Hubbert?' asks Mark Kermode in The Guardian, when critiquing this movie. To which I can answer, yeah, I think there is. I think Macaulay Culkin had more presence in Home Alone I and II, and even in his somewhat inferior Richie Rich. Vin Diesel, too, had his moments in Pitch Black. Dolph Lun...

Some of those of an older generation have, I've observed, noted how modern cinema is rubbish. It's all crashes and bangs, perhaps best epitomized by the success of superhero movies. And while yes, I thought Captain America: Civil War was stunningly overrated and ultimately a kind of brain torture, I also think it's a belief that doesn't bear scruti...

I loved The Office, and the humour of Ricky Gervais can be sharp and funny. I also enjoyed watching those animated podcast sessions with Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. There's something cruelly British about the humour, in a male, piss-taking, bantering, high-school way. So what to make of the movie? No, it doesn't deliver for me. B...