Reel Encounters

It’s hard not to think of Martin Scorsese’s newly released “The Irishman” as a film that looks backward.

When the trailer for “Last Christmas” dropped a few months ago, speculation began about the built-in mystery that was clearly baked into the Christmas romantic-comedy.

“Ford v Ferrari” ends with the requisite historical facts to contextualise the “based on a true story” film we’ve just seen.

There’s no moment in “Terminator: Dark Fate” that works as excellently as a scene in the first act where Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor appears in a moment of crisis.

A little over an hour into “The Informer”, Pete Koslow (an excellent Joel Kinnaman) makes a call from jail.

There are so many entry-points to thinking of the recent action-thriller “Gemini Man”, that’s it’s hard to decide where exactly to start: With the fact that it has only recouped $120 million since it premiered worldwide two weeks ago despite a $130 million budget?

“Zombieland: Double Tap” knows as much as you do that it has emerged in a vastly different world than when its original debuted ten years ago.

A recurring criticism that’s been levelled against the new film “Joker” is the perceived emptiness of its ideals.

“Ad Astra” and “Abominable” are not easily recognisable as thematically complementary works but there’s something to be said about the dual journeys of the two protagonists – both of them buoyed by a relationship hinging on an absent father – that made me think of them in relation to each other.

“Downton Abbey” premiered as a self-contained miniseries in 2010. At the time, it comprised seven episodes exploring the lives of the Crawley family in Yorkshire England for two years between 1912 and 1914.

At the North American premiere of “The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão” at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz explained his aesthetic desire for the film.

In John Crowley’s new film, The Goldfinch of the title is a Carel Fabritius painting from 1654 that has changed hands and owners for centuries, always surviving tragedy.

Silence is used as a weapon in Chinonye Chukwu’s sobering death row drama “Clemency”.

Throughout its run-time, the Italian film “Martin Eden” centres on a paradox.

Before the North American premiere of “Wasp Network” at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last week, director Olivier Assayas appeared to introduce the film to the audience.

Steven Soderbergh’s new film, “The Laundromat” sprawls across numerous countries, covering varying languages and locales.

There’s a running sequence in the Chilean film “Lina from Lima,” where Lina, our protagonist, searches for eligible men on Tinder.

Wall Street businessmen have been exploiting the working class and the economic system for years.

“I have been here before.” It’s a line from a Dante Gabriel Rossetti poem that is repeated multiple times throughout the William Nicholson film “Hope Gap” and you’ll be thinking about it as the film ends.

About midway through “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” three women sit in the living room of a house.