Chris Rogers

If nothing else, The Current War - a largely incomprehensible account of Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse’s battle for control of America’s electricity - can be credited with creating an entirely new genre: the anti-drama. Utterly devoid of any motivation or stakes (conceivable, relatable or entertaining)[...]

It seems remarkable that only fifty years after the first moon landing do we finally have footage of the event that feels worthy of its tremendous legacy. Many feature adaptations (most recently Damien Chazelle’s sublime First Man, to which this will make a fine companion alongside Al Reinert’s melancholic [...]

This week sees the release of Yesterday, the new film and first collaboration from director Danny Boyle and writer Richard Curtis. The film (a light-hearted comedy about a man who wakes up one day in a world without The Beatles) is Boyle’s first since T2 Trainspotting. Even without the next James Bond picture [...]

The first sound effect in Peter Strickland’s bizarre new film - his best yet - is a switchblade knife flicking into position. Precise, with the promise of violence - emblematic of the English director’s signature stylings,[...]

Disney’s latest live-action remake feels the most manufactured yet; a production-line retread with the weakest of new additions to justify its existence (and bloated running time). Unlike previous retellings of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and even this year’s lacklustre Dumbo, the singular voice of its director[...]

Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder head up this gloriously sandpaper-dry (anti) romantic comedy as two strangers who realise they’re guests at the same wedding while en route to Paso Robles. Reeves is Frank, a miserable loner. Ryder is Lindsay, a miserable loner. They snipe at each other in the departure lounge, they throw insults[...]

Brady Corbet's follow-up to The Childhood of a Leader feels totally at odds with the straight-faced worthiness of his debut; it's a spangled, massively disconcerting odyssey that seems tailor-made to annoy as many people as possible - and is all the better for it. Raffey Cassidy and Natalie Portman star as the tormented Celeste, a singing prodigy[...]

Based on Rhidian Brook’s 2013 novel of the same name, this decidedly unexceptional post-war drama finds an unlikely romance in the heart of a decimated Hamburg. Keira Knightley and Jason Clarke are Rachel and Lewis Morgan: Lewis is a British colonel tasked with rooting out surviving Nazi sympathisers, [...]

Step aside, Aquaman; the so-bad-it’s-good arena finds a new reigning champion in this bedazzling film from director Robert Rodriguez and co-writer James Cameron. A bizarre cybernetic fusion of Pinocchio and Ghost in the Shell, this adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s graphic novel series begins with a kindly doctor (Christoph Waltz) [...]

What a joyous and utterly silly romp this film is: a sequel to 2014’s blockbusting adventure, which demonstrates once again that - despite a Han Solo-shaped bump in the road - the dynamic duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller shows no signs of slowing down.The brief peace enjoyed by Emmett (Chris Pratt), Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett) and the rest after the fall of Lord Business[...]

This follow-up to Unbreakable and Split that sees writer-director M. Night Shyamalan poised to make a triumphant return should be a cause for celebration. Instead, it quickly becomes an embarrassing (and lengthy) showcase for all his worst traits.

Returning here are Bruce Willis as the sensitive but super-strong [...]

Well, here’s a Christmas miracle: after a decade of increasingly puerile cruelty, the Bay/Spielberg Transformers franchise finds a heart. Hailee Steinfeld leads this 80s-set prequel as Charlie, a budding mechanic who discovers the titular robot in a junkyard. Disguised as a rusty Volkswagen Beetle, [...]

Jason Momoa’s effortless charisma and a rich score from Rupert Gregson-Williams are all that prevent the DC universe’s latest voyage from totally capsizing. In all fairness, neither Aquaman or its leading man can be blamed for the reverse-engineered structure of Warner’s answer to the MCU[...]

There’s a moment approximately two thirds into Bohemian Rhapsody, Bryan Singer’s long-gestating biopic of rock legend Freddie Mercury, when its tawdry by-the-numbers biopic act slips, revealing the dormant hatchet job beneath. Mercury’s (Rami Malek) bandmates confront their unruly figurehead about his [...]

Welcome to this first edition of The Streaming Pile; my excuse to use a good pun thinly disguised as a monthly column discussing the latest crop of Netflix', er, 'cinematic' content. This month saw the release of three fairly high-profile films (as opposed to the usual strain of Friday night horror dreck): Operation Finale, 22 July, and Apostle[...]