Silver Screen Queens

Reviewing movies and the culture that surrounds them.

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224: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Published 30 August 2017 • 44 minutes, 48 seconds

Luc Besson is back with another sci-fi epic based on a series of comics and featuring a world where the International Space Station has morphed into the Interplanetary Melting Pot. It stars hipster darlings Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, and features a sweet cameo from Rihanna, but it has not had good press, or box office.

223: Logan Lucky

Published 23 August 2017 • 43 minutes, 37 seconds

Steven Soderbergh’s latest film had an insidious marketing campaign that meant we saw the trailer every time we went to the cinema in the last few months. Unlike many films, however, each time we saw the trailer, we liked it more. It hits a number of our special interests: heists, Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and fast cars, so we went in with some excitement.

222: The Big Sick

Published 16 August 2017 • 41 minutes, 1 second

A sleeper hit of the summer, this film has had great word of mouth, so we had to check it out. Real life couple Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon collaborated on the script, based on a crisis they dealt with early in their relationship. When Emily is struck with a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself dealing with her parents, while also managing his Pakistani family’s traditional expectations and building his own comedy career.

221: Atomic Blonde

Published 9 August 2017 • 36 minutes, 40 seconds

Charlize Theron stars as an ass-kicking British spy in this thriller whose slick, shiny trailers took the internet by storm earlier this year. Tired of waiting for a female James Bond to fall in her lap, Theron secured the rights to Antony Johnston’s graphic novel The Coldest City and made it happen for herself. The film is directed by former stuntman and part-time John Wick director David Leitch and set in Berlin just days before the Wall came down.

220: Dunkirk

Published 2 August 2017 • 45 minutes, 38 seconds

The new Christopher Nolan movie, aka the Harry Styles movie, is out and it actually looks good. Based on the evacuation of British troops from the beach of Dunkirk in 1940, the trailers show a pretty, patriotic flick featuring Tom Hardy as a Spitfire pilot and Mark Rylance as an old dad volunteering his boat for the war effort.

219: The Beguiled

Published 26 July 2017 • 42 minutes, 28 seconds

Sofia Coppola’s latest film won Best Director at the recent Cannes Film Festival (making her the first woman director to win the award), and has had some good word of mouth. We haven’t always loved Coppola’s films, but we decided to give it a go when we saw the stellar cast.

218: Baby Driver

Published 19 July 2017 • 33 minutes, 21 seconds

One of the more interesting directors working today, Edgar Wright is back with this passion project. It’s had some great reviews, and has been popular with audiences, so we were excited to watch it.

217: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Published 12 July 2017 • 45 minutes, 57 seconds

Spider-Man is having his third reboot in 15 years, but this time he is…coming home [geddit]…to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We have our reservations, mostly related to the shabby treatment of Andrew Garfield, but we went in with open minds and our faith in Marvel’s ability to entertain us.

216: The Promise

Published 5 July 2017 • 42 minutes, 45 seconds

A small film about the Armenian Genocide that dropped at Cannes in 2016, THE PROMISE attracted our attention because it stars Oscar Isaac. Shot on a tiny budget, and working around still-sensitive governments, THE PROMISE brings the story of this little-discussed piece of history to audiences through a long sweeping romance about a young man yearning to be a doctor.