Film / Features
Bristol Best of 2016: films
1. Hell or High Water
A spellbinding, insightful and dryly hilarious modern-day western, with Chris Pine and Ben Foster as bank-robbing siblings and Jeff Bridges as the crusty Texas Ranger on their trail. Starred Up director David Mackenzie brings a keen outsider’s eye, while Sicario screenwriter Taylor Sheridan delivers rare emotional depth and an astringent political subtext.
Read the review here
is needed now More than ever
2. High-Rise
Ben Wheatley and regular writing partner Amy Jump prove an inspired match for JG Ballard’s celebrated 1975 novel about terrifying social breakdown in a plush London tower block. Mordantly funny and gloriously gruesome, the result is a cross-pollination of Peter Greenaway surrealism with the socio-realist humour of Mike Leigh.
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3. Love & Friendship
Who knew Jane Austen could be so hilarious? Whit Stillman’s adaptation of her early, funny one boasts a career-best performance from Kate Beckinsale as Austen’s most atypical, scheming, amoral and self-centred heroine. It comes across rather like a U-rated hybrid of BBC landfill bonnet drama and Les Liaisons Dangereuses as scripted by Oscar Wilde.
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4. Arrival
Science fiction is a genre often guilty of the most hokey and contrived constructs, but you can trust Sicario director Denis Villeneuve to invest us fully in a fantastical story of first contact. Grounding its outlandish cliches in stately, discrete visual language and a tremendous central performance from Amy Adams, it’s a treat for the intellect and the heart.
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5. The Witch
In a year that give us more than our fair share of crappy Hollywood horrors with their tiresome jolts and crashes, the creepiest film was this slowburning 17th century chiller from first-time director Robert Eggers. The sense of mounting dread is expertly handled and you couldn’t ask for a scarier performance by a goat.
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Read more: Video: Live orchestra welcomes Star Wars fans to Vue Cribbs Causeway
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