Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Ryan Coogler. Starring Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o, Tenoch Huerta, Danai Gurira, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Dominique Thorne, Martin Freeman. 12A cert, gen release, 161 min
Flashy, busy, sluggish sequel to the 2018 smash that, following the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman, the original Black Panther, weaves an origin story in with its tale of Wakanda’s latest conflict. Coogler and his team have pulled together a functional time-passer in difficult circumstances. As before, the costumes are a gorgeous exercise in Afrofuturist chic. The music neatly works ethnic elements in with triumphant orchestral swirls. But Wakanda Forever is, ultimately, a weary drag. It is as if the James Bond franchise had gone straight from Dr No to Moonraker in one leap (but with fewer jokes). Full review DC
Clouded Reveries: Doireann Ní Ghríofa ★★★☆☆
Directed by Ciara NicChormaic. Featuring Doireann Ní Ghríofa. G cert, limited release, 71 min
Touching doc on Ní Ghríofa that bravely features little else but that gifted writer in frame. Clouded Reveries is, perhaps, shorter and narrower than we expect a theatrical feature to be. Its natural home is probably on the smaller screen. But the poet is such a captivating performer of her own work that any screening will seem like an event. There are endless insights worth pondering. Listen to Ní Ghríofa talk about how she plucks lines from the fuzzy ether as she drifts off to sleep: “If literature is my religion that’s when I pray.” Full review DC
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The Ghost of Richard Harris ★★★☆☆
Directed by Adrian Sibley. Featuring Jared Harris, Damian Harris, Jamie Harris, Stephen Rea, Jim Sheridan, Russell Crowe, Vanessa Redgrave, Jimmy Webb, Lelia Doolan. Sky Cinema, 106 min
This is not a scandalous documentary, even if the bare bones of Harris’s biography are seldom dull. The film follows Harris’s sons — director Damian and actors Jared and Jamie — come together to sift through their father’s possessions and revisit the suite that he kept at the Savoy Hotel. Harris’s storied career as an actor receives a slightly lopsided presentation. We get Camelot and Harry Potter, but not enough Red Desert or This Sporting Life, performances that cry out for a deep delve. For all the interesting biographical details unpacked here, Harris remains a strangely elusive presence. Full review TB
No Bears ★★★★☆
Directed by Jafar Panahi. Starring Jafar Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Mobsari, Bakhtiar Panjei, Mina Khosravani, Reza Heydari. 12A cert, gen release, 107 min
A filmmaker attempts to shoot his new feature remotely from the Iranian side of the border with Turkey. Panahi, currently detained by the Iranian authorities after a decade of suppression, offers a thrilling testament to the maxim that necessity is the mother of invention. The writer-director and star, playing himself, deftly juggles mounting tensions and insular absurdity. Restrictions upon his movements are woven into the narrative. A visit to the border, during which the filmmaker stops dead in his tracks, mirrors the reluctance of the heroine of the film-within-the-film to leave everything behind. Defiant, gripping. Full review TB
