MovieFestUK

It’s sometimes hard to tell whether Wes Anderson gets more joy from assembling his ensemble casts or meticulously crafting his miniature dreamscapes. But in "The Phoenician Scheme," it’s not just visible — it’s palpable. Every frame hums with intention, with beauty, with a kind of quiet, obsessive passion. This is a deceptively delicate film: a confection dusted in desert sand, perfectly symmetrical and somehow still askew — like a compass caught in an identity crisis. It’s a tale of legacy and deception, of daughters and their shadowy fathers, of monopolies disguised as miracles… and.... bugs. But beneath all the Andersonisms — the ornate props, the ornate prose, the ornate everything — lies something I didn’t quite expect: a bruised and bewildered heart, beating just as loud as his recent works.

For a studio synonymous with spectacle, Thunderbolts* is an anomaly—and, paradoxically, one of its finest achievements. It is neither galaxy-spanning nor multiverse-breaking. There are no portals, no sky lasers, no races to retrieve glowing MacGuffins. Instead, Marvel’s latest swings the pendulum back towards something it seemed to have forgotten: people. Not pawns in a CGI chess game, but messy, wounded, quietly hopeful people trying to make peace with their pasts. And that shift, that defiant act of restraint, is what elevates Thunderbolts* from franchise filler to a genuinely affecting piece of cinema.

I can't remember the last time I finished a film feeling so broken and rage-filled that I wanted to scream at my TV, unplug it from the wall, and bury it. Bring Her Back isn’t just horror. It’s punishment. An unrelenting, claustrophobic descent into domestic trauma, possession, and the psychological rot that festers in the aftermath of unimaginable loss. If Talk to Me was a clever teen horror with emotional undercurrents, then this is its full-grown, emotionally mangled parent—drenched in grief, manic with delusion, and weaponised through the performance of a woman I thought I’d never fear: Sally Hawkins.

All American Terrorist - Payton Bayless | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 14 Minutes

Gas Station Sushi - Chad Corhan | Runtime: 15 Minutes | Genre: Drama/Comedy

Diabolo Tamer - Keenan Gray | Runtime: 8 minutes | Genre: Documentary/Comedy