AFTER THE HUNT Some directors are clearly talented but their work can be infuriating. Ken Russell , Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway, Francis Coppola, David Fincher, Yorgos Lanthimos and Lars Von Trier fall into this group - delivering some truly dazzling films during their careers but also a high proportion of really pretentious duds. Luca Guadagnino is a director who falls into this category. When he is on song in films like ' A Bigger Splash ,' ' Call Me By Your Name ' or ' Queer ,' the results can be thrilling. However he can also make hugely overblown movies like ' I Am Love ,' ' Suspiria ' and ' Challengers ' that get dragged down by the weight of their own pretentiousness and a desperate need to impress on audiences his technical bravura. The Italian's latest 'After The Hunt' is in the latter camp, unfortunately. A self important tale about cancel culture in American universities, it begins with a pompous onscreen d...
TRAIN DREAMS We're long past the point of bemoaning the fact that some films acquired by Netflix receive a limited theatrical run. It's just a fact of life - something film buffs are used to living with. However occasionally, a film pops up on the streaming service that makes you feel it should have been given more time on the cinema circuit. Clint Bentley's 'Train Dreams' is one of those films. Adapted from the 2011 novella of the same name by the American author and poet Denis Johnson, it's an exquisitely made drama about the tragic life of an Idaho railway construction worker during the 20th Century. Narrated by Will Patton, it stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier who we are told arrived in the community of Bonners Ferry as a young orphan on the Great Northern Railway with no recollection of his early years. Struggling to find a purpose in life, we see him drop out of school and encounter the harsh realities of life early on like the rounding up and expul...