Film Review: Spotlight (2015)

"If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one."

That line, spoken by Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), a lawyer representing victims of sexual abuse, cuts to the heart of Tom McCarthy's Spotlight, a calm and concise celebration of calm and concise journalism. In recreating the story of how Spotlight, an autonomous investigative unit within the Boston Globe, reported on the cover-up which allowed Catholic priests to sexually abuse thousands of children over several decades, McCarthy's film is as much a portrait of a city in thrall to the Church as it is a dramatisation of the investigation itself. Like Alan Pakula's All The President's Men, Spotlight is a story of reporters trying to break a story that everyone else already seems to know about, and facing opposition from every strata of Boston society in the process.

Film Review: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

While some might point to Christopher Nolan's Interstellar as this year's Gravity, largely due to their shared genre and similar release date, that title truly belongs to Alejandro González Iñárritu's odd dark comedy Birdman. Or, to give it its full, grammatically baffling title, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). There are some personal connections between the two films - Iñárritu and Gravity's director, Alfonso Cuarón, are longtime friends, while the films share a cinematographer in Emmanuel Lubezki. The more substantial connection lies in a shared formal daring, and a willingness to approach relatively straightforward stories in ways which are stylistically adventurous. It's easy to imagine the films as a game of oneupmanship between two friends at the height of their respective powers.

Review: Clear History (2013)

Nathan Flomm (Larry David) is a marketing executive who sells his shares in an electric car company that is on the verge of going public, then becomes a laughing stock when the company enjoys huge success. To hide from the hordes of people who mock him for losing out on billions of dollars, he moves from California to Martha's Vineyard and changes his name to Rolly DaVore. He manages to build a quiet life over the next decade, working as a carer for an elderly woman and generally being a pillar of the community, but his tranquillity is shattered when his former business partner Will Haney (Jon Hamm) arrives on the island with his new wife Rhonda (Kate Hudson). Rolly very quickly decides that this is the perfect opportunity to wreak vengeance on the man who cost him a fortune.