ne can only dream of having a morning routine as breezy, efficient, and cheeky as seventeen-year-old Mark (Kyle Allen) in the opening scene of Amazon’s The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, a soothing romcom, buoyed by excellent lead performances, that glides on seamless choreography as much as its romantic hijinks. Mark, a prototypical white American teen with a backwards hat, sunglasses and iPod...
There’s a yellow tinge to the photography in George Clooney’s latest directorial outing that makes every shot look like a vintage postcard from the 1970s. And it’s fair to say that this amiable but almost farcically uneventful adaptation of the 2005 memoir by JR Moehringer is also postcard-thin in its plotting and insight. Tye Sheridan plays JR as an aspiring young writer; Daniel Ranieri plays...
In the interests of public service, I need to make you aware of a trap. Yesterday, a property became available on Airbnb. It is a large home in the Chicago area, available for one night only and it is suspiciously cheap. Look, it’s the Home Alone house. Apparently, for $18 (£13.50), you and three friends can stay overnight in the iconic McCallister residence. You will be greeted by the actor who...
Paolo Sorrentino’s extravagantly personal movie gives us all a sentimental education in this director’s boyhood and coming of age – or at any rate, what he now creatively remembers of it – in Naples in the 1980s, where everyone had gone collectively crazy for SSC Napoli’s new signing, footballing legend Diego Maradona. We watch as a family party explodes with joy around the TV when Maradona...
The BMW X7 had been used to ferry around the star, who has been in the city filming scenes for the seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible series. The vehicle was taken in Church Street in the city centre from where it was parked outside the Grand Hotel, where Cruise has been staying, as first reported in the Sun. The SUV is thought to have been carrying some of the actor’s luggage and...
“Say it,” implore the posters for the new Candyman sequel, referring to the urban myth that the hook-handed ghost of the title can be summoned by repeating his name five times in front of a mirror. But Nia DaCosta will not say it: “Oh hell, no.” She is shaking her head. “Never have done, never will.” Despite having directed and co-written the film, DaCosta isn’t taking any chances. “In fact, when...
he Canadian director Shawn Levy takes a particular joy in breathing life into things that should, by rights, be inanimate. So the jump from the sentient statues and relics of the Night at the Museum franchise to the virtual carnage of an ultra-violent video game in Free Guy is not as much of a stretch as it might at first seem. In this case it’s a non-playable character, or NPC, that is jolted...
In the age of emoji, clandestine snail mail is enough to send any girl’s head spinning, even when it’s not addressed to her. Features journalist Ellie (likably goofy Felicity Jones) and archivist Rory (Nabhaan Rizwan) happen upon a trove of love letters while researching an obituary. Dated 1965, they belong to Jennifer Stirling (Big Little Lies’ Shailene Woodley), a married American socialite who...
Construction worker Bill (Matt Damon) travels from Oklahoma to Marseille to visit his twentysomething daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin), who is five years into a nine-year prison sentence for the murder of her girlfriend. Her lawyer considers the case closed, but Dad is convinced of her innocence and so takes matters into his own hands. (Sound familiar? Amanda Knox has criticised the film’s...
By casting Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson, two actors of rare personal charm, this Disney adventure should have managed to transcend its somewhat unpromising origins (it was, like Pirates of the Caribbean, based on a theme park ride). But for some reason, while both are perfectly likable independently (Blunt in particular is a feisty joy as scientist Lily Houghton), they fail to gel on screen...