You sit in a darkened auditorium, immersed in a film, enjoying an emotional high point, when in the corner of your peripheral vision, a light polluting message alert pings you down to earth with a dull thud. Perhaps that person will hurriedly turn off their phone, chastened by the chorus of disapproval now being directed at them by you and the rest of the audience, but no… they reply. Worse, they show the person next to them and start a giggling conversation. Thus, the cinematic spell is broken, replaced by what I call cinema rage.

How do you respond? Grin…

In the Heights, based on the stage musical by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, is, I suspect, destined to become a runaway smash akin to The Greatest Showman, which received sniffy reviews from critics, but repeat business adoration from the great unwashed. I was with the sniffy critics on that occasion, but reviews so far for In the Heights have been far better. Perhaps this time I’m destined to be at odds with both critics and audiences because frankly I also struggled to connect with In the Heights.

This is a shame, as I really, really wanted to like it. I…

Dream Horse is typical of a particular kind of British feel-good film with roots in the traditions of every from Ealing comedies to more recent underdog stories such as The Full Monty, Brassed Off, Calendar Girls, and Military Wives. Based on a true story, the drama concerns small-town Welsh shop assistant Jan Vokes (Toni Colette), whose life of routine drudgery is given a shot in the arm when she forms a local syndicate to breed and train a racehorse.

Colette is excellent in the lead, with a spot-on Welsh accent. Damian Lewis provides admirable support as Howard Davies, a man…

Last night I saw Nobody. I am not referring to my introvert tendencies, nor is that the anguished cry of a lonely soul. I am of course talking about John Wick writer Derek Kolstad’s new film, starring Bob Odenkirk, which I caught at a preview last night at my local cinema. Is it any good? As an action film that delivers a certain quota of violent thrills, yes, I suppose so.

The plot concerns Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk), an ex-something-suitably-lethal secret agency man trying to make a go of the whole wife, kids, boring-day-job-that-doesn’t-involve-killing-people thing. In the course of mellowing out…

How does this sound? A re-release of Ida, but in an all-new colour edition. No? What about something slightly more mainstream; a re-release of The Elephant Man in opulent colour? How about Schindler’s List, now in colour, but with the girl in the red coat carefully rendered in monochrome?

Obviously absurd, yet apparently not if you do it in reverse, by releasing black and white versions of colour films. I find this cynical attempt to lure the chin-stroking cineaste into double-dipping increasingly irritating. …

Last night, I finally caught up with Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal. I had deliberately waited until cinemas reopened to catch it there, rather than on streaming, and once again I’m glad I did. For many reasons, Sound of Metal plays much better on a big screen, where its superb, Oscar-nominated central performance from Riz Ahmed can be appreciated at full strength.

Ahmed plays Ruben, the drummer in a heavy metal duo, with his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) on lead vocals and guitar. When Ruben loses his hearing, his relationship with Lou is tested personally and professionally. A former heroin…

The best ever guys-on-a-mission film, as Quentin Tarantino puts it, Where Eagles Dare was 1969’s biggest moneymaker. An action-packed World War II thriller with more bombs, bullets, and tripwire booby traps than Indiana Jones or James Bond put together, not to mention a head-spinning plethora of double, triple, and quadruple crosses, Where Eagles Dare is the epitome of what my late father called a rattling good yarn. It was also one of his favourite films, so I write this article to coincide what would have been his 80th birthday, in tribute to him.

The plot is complete nonsense from start…

Raya and the Last Dragon is yet another film I refused to watch on streaming, as I wanted to see it at the cinema. Again, I’m glad I waited, as this is much better appreciated at an immersive, big-screen level, where the lovely little nuances of the excellent animation can be appreciated. I’m also pleased to report that Raya and the Last Dragon is a terrific piece of work; a first-rate fantasy adventure with plenty of action, humour, and heart.

In the fantasy land of Kumandra, Raya is a young warrior trained by her father Benja to defend a mysterious…