BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY ★★★★☆
Directed by Bryan Singer. Starring Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Allen Leech, Mike Myers. 12A cert, general release, 134 min
Squabbling is a defining characteristic of Bohemian Rhapsody, which blazes through Freddie Mercury's life in a series of agreeably cheesy vignettes: Freddie's Parsi origins and disapproving dad, his lifelong love for Mary Austin (Boynton), the tours, the parties, the loneliness between, the hangers-on, and various eruptions of creative differences with the band. The final scene, a flawless, moving replication of Queen's entire 20-minute set from Live Aid, is absurdly impressive, with Malek interpreting Mercury as a geomagnetic storm. A kind of magic. Full review/trailer TB
KATIE ★★★★☆
Directed by Ross Whitaker. Featuring Katie Taylor.12A cert, general release, 90 min
Delightful documentary on the rise of Bray's Katie Taylor. The boxer emerges as a contradictory personality: shy, modest, but frighteningly determined. The storytelling around her is efficient, lucid and (ahem) punchy. Family and associates laud the boxer without ever becoming overly gushy. We get a taste of her attachment to Christianity. We get some sense of what drives her to greater heights. But, unlike Notorious, the recent makeweight Conor McGregor doc, Katie never feels like a product of the fighter's marketing machine. Full review DC
THE HATE U GIVE ★★★★☆
Directed by George Tillman Jr. Starring Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, KJ Apa, Anthony Mackie, Sabrina Carpenter, Common, Issa Rae, Lamar Johnson, Dominique Fishback. 12A cert, general release, 132 min
Stirring, inspiring adaptation of Angie Thomas's novel concerning a young African-American woman coping with the shooting of her friend by a cop. If anything, the film tries too hard to cover all angles of the debate. Her white boyfriend struggles to keep up; another pal reveals low-level racist tendencies. All this can feel a little schematic, but Stenberg's mesmeric performance keeps the picture aloft. She has the gift of spreading warmth wherever she goes and her intelligence shines through in every scene. Full review DC
FAHRENHEIT 11/9 ★★★★☆
Directed by Michael Moore. Featuring Michael Moore, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton. Club, QFT, Belfast; Light House, Dublin, 120 min
Michael Moore is back doing what he does: satirical montage, dubious stunts and powerful if sometimes unreliable reporting from the front line. This time round, we get (inevitably) a report from the front line of the Trump Wars. There's something on the Parkland shootings. There's something on the water scandal in the director's hometown of Flint, Michigan. It may be familiar, but the jokes are still good and the anger is still righteous. If you like Moore you'll like this. Full review/trailer DC
HALLOWEEN ★★★☆☆
Directed by David Gordon Green. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Virginia Gardner, Nick Castle. 18 cert, general release, 105 min
The 11th film in the Halloween franchise hovers somewhere between reboot and sequel. Forty years after the murderous events of the 1978 original, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a survivalist granny with PTSD whose paranoia and fears around Michael Myers has alienated her from her daughter (Greer) and granddaughte (Matichak). An early scene in Halloween 2018 dismisses the notion that Michael and Laurie are biological siblings. Boom. – everything you knew since 1981 is wrong. It's the only innovation in this perfectly entertaining, decently scary, entirely predictable bit of fanservice. Full review TB
DOGMAN ★★★★☆
Directed by Matteo Garrone. Starring Marcello Fonte, Edoardo Pesce, Alida Baldari Calabria. 15A cert, IFI, Dublin, 103 min
Marcello (Fonte) is a small, timid, kindly man who runs a dog grooming parlour on a largely abandoned sweep of the southern Italian coast. The neighbourhood is routinely terrorised by a coke-addled ex-boxer (Pesce), a monstrous variant of La Strada's Zampano. Fonte, who was deservedly named best actor at Cannes earlier this year, brings an unforgettable pathos and a doleful expression pitched somewhere between Peter Lorre and Charlie Chaplin to his wronged beta-male hero. Full review TB
More ★★★★☆ and ★★★★★ movies out and about in Ireland: Black 47, Cold War, Dogman, Faces Places, First Man, The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid, Mandy, Rosie, A Star Is Born, The Wife
